Waikiki Beach and Orchids
Trip Start
Mar 19, 2009
1
6
15
Trip End
Mar 30, 2009
Where I stayed
Honolulu, Hawaii, United States
Sunday, March 22, 2009
When we returned from Hawaiian Fire, we decided to check out the second floor of our hotel, which has historical artifacts from the early 1900's on display. It was amazing to see how not only our hotel developed over the years, but Waikiki in general. Ladies used to swim in full clothing and the first one pieces swimsuits worn were the men's suits that they would wear under their clothes and skin down to only when they got in the water and even that was taboo back then
Duke - made surfing in Hawaii famous
. It wasn't until the late 1940's or 50's that it became acceptable for a woman to wear a swimsuit in public. Think of what that era would think about Waikiki today! So, after checking this out, it was time to head to the beach and see the display of modern swimwear. Everyone, and I mean every female on the beach, wears a bikini out here. There is no modesty. I saw a teenage girl wearing a brazilian cut (about the closest thing to a thong without actually being one) and strolling down the beach with her mom. I think my mom would have freaked if she ever saw me dressed like that! Waikiki Beach is VERY crowded ALL of the time. It is a VERY narrow strip of sand in front of the resorts that make up the actual strip known here as Waikiki (Halekulani, Sheraton, Royal Hawaiian, Moana Surfrider) as the resorts practically sit in the water. With a tiny strip of sand, there isn't much room for all the people that flock to Waikiki making for some tight laying out conditions. We eventually found a spot and wedged ourselves in for our piece of the sun. We did a little beach front people watching and took a stroll down to the neighboring beaches for some all around people watching and just to see what all was going on. Our resort has a private umbrella area where we could put our stuff and feel much safer about walking 10 feet away so Geoff paid the $20 and we moved back a little bit to have some more space, have a better spot to leave our belongings, and some shade to sit under every once in a while. From there we had a perfect view of one of the catamarans loading up spring breakers for an afternoon booze cruise. I think we saw that boat go out on 3 different trips, but it was the most concentrated group of "young" people we have seen since we've been here. We keep hearing about how it is spring break, but even Geoff and I bring down the average age sometimes
Rocking chairs the old people read papers in
. The only thing we can think of is that it is so expensive to come here, the older you get, the more you can afford it. While we were in our umbrella area, we decided to have a couple of drinks and share some nachos for lunch as we were still pretty full from breakfast but didn't want to wait all the way until dinner to eat. The nachos were good, particularly the guacamole, but nobody here uses queso as cheese; they melt cheddar on the chips. It definitely didn't stop us from eating them and drinking a couple of beers and mai tais!
An interesting thing occurred while we were out there, though; our "personal concierge" at our resort in Maui called Geoff and talked to him about our Oahu vacation and what we want to do in Maui and to see if we needed anything. I can't say that I have ever had a hotel be so attentive or completely understand what a personal concierge means, but it sounds nice! I wonder if it had anything to do with Jim Culver's call over to the Maui Westin...
When beach time was over, we came back to the room and took showers to get ready for dinner. After the previous day's surfing and seeing our pictures, I decided I wanted to get some board shorts for future surfing because I had trouble keeping my swimsuit bottoms on properly while surfing
Hotel looks the same 100 years later
. The water is rough sometimes and you are constantly jumping on and off the surfboard. Every time I would jump on the board, the water would try to leave my bottoms behind...try...it never actually succeeded, but I was tired of keeping up with it! Planning to do some more surfing the next day, I wanted to simplify things and just get some board shorts so we left the hotel a little early, caugt about 5 minutes of the nightly hula/Hawaiian music performance at our hotel, and then walked through some of the surf shops on our way to dinner. There are Roxy and Billabong stores everywhere you look, but there are no "adult" surf shops. I say that because I can't tell you when the last time I bought shorts in a 5-7-9 sizing method. They are freaking teenage girl shorts and I am no teenage girl! Anyway, I finally found a Billabong pair that wasn't as bad as the rest and Geoff liked them so I was glad to be done with that task!For dinner we went over to the Halekulani, which is arguably the highest end resort here. We didn't walk through the inside too much or ever see a room so we don't know what all the fuss is about yet, but it did seem very nice from the entrance and lobby and through to the restaurant. We ate at Orchids, which was on the backside and on the beachside lawn. We had a table outside and could listen to / see the Hawaiian music (similar to ours at our hotel) and look out to the ocean although you really couldn't see it in the dark
Waikiki
. We ordered a bottle of French Sauvignon Blanc since we planned on eating seafood. To start, I had a salad of spring greens with figs, toasted pecans, and tarragon dressing. Geoff had a bowl of garlic soup that was creamy and tasty. For the main course, I had a red snapper dish cooked with some flavorful mushrooms and asian sauces. It was their most popular dish so I figured I couldn't go wrong. Geoff had the Orchids Variation which was a lobster tail, some jumbo prawn, and some scallops over risotto. Both of ours were excellent, but we agreed that the Orchids Variation was the best and wish we had time to eat it again! Dessert was good, but not as memorable as the meal, which is rare for me! I had a fruite terrine, which was a fruit gelee, panacotta, and something else in layers. Geoff had the vanilla and chocolate ice cream, which I predicted for him!
As we were getting ready to leave, a table 12 started to sit down but we noticed there were only 6 kids there. They were at this nice restaurant on their own and the waiter took their order of drinks. It was HILARIOUS. One of the little boys goes, "we'll have a round of strawberry daiquiris and make them non-alcoholic." LOL A few minutes later the parents sat down and asked the kids what they were thinking of having and another one of the little boys replied with, "the mahi mahi as usual." Wow. Do kids normally know what mahi mahi is?
Dinner was great and then we headed home to hit the sack! The next day we planned to rent a car and go to the north shore...
