Hawaii: Oahu

Believe it?  Believe it!  I've decided to give up on trying to get all my pictures edited before posting...

Once leaving Minneapolis, we had a layover in Denver - being it was 11am, we thought a bloody was in order - hell.. we were on vacations!

So we only had 2 nights on Oahu, for a reason - we wanted to see a few things and then gets to relaxin'!  Our ride to the hotel was interesting, it was rush hour so this dude took us through the ghetto of Honolulu to get us to the hotel zone.  It was quite interesting.

Once at the hotel we ran into some issues, which have since been 'resolved', so it's not worth getting deep into - LONG story short, the hotel didn't have our reservation but we ended up in a room anyways, behind the elevator shaft.  It was NOT the way I wanted to start our trip, but it was the only thing that went wrong, so in retrospect, it wasn't that bad.

So - first I'll tell you about some of the foods we ate- shamefully I didn't take many food pictures, for good reason though, it was too damn good to stop eating and snap a shot!  I cannot believe how fresh the fish is there, it's just BEAUTIFUL!
We got a tip from our shuttle driver about a little gem called Ono Cheesesteak - this shit is seriously off the hook!

We ate breakfast here one day, and ... we ate there, I think 2 other times as well ... that's a lot in 2 days on this island.  I now feel the need to go to Philly, yum!

We also stopped into Señor Frogs - yep, on an island in Hawaii, we went to a Mexican joint - we like us some tequila and guac!  We got both tequila and guac but were also able to try some Hawaiian beer, which was actually great!

We asked our bartender about a sushi place, being in Hawaii we figured it was about time to try some.  He mentions this place called Morimoto's... at first it didn't register with me until he said it again... Morimoto's.  I ask 'like.. the Iron Chef, Morimoto?!  Indeed it was... so I knew we were going there, regardless of price.

 That doesn't even begin to show how truly excited I was to sit and eat in this place!  This place was the first of many places that freshly grate wasabi root for you to enjoy with your sushi.  OH.MY.FUCKING.GOD.  Seriously... I can't even explain what a difference this makes!  The sushi here, was amazing.  Amazing.  I must move on... here's a little video on how to make your own fresh wasabi.

Ok so that was all the food worth talking about.  Our big adventures now:
Day one in Honolulu was solely devoted to Pearl Harbor.  There really isn't much to say about Pearl Harbor - you walk in and get your ticket, while you wait for your time slot, there are a few building/museums you can walk through and some other things to look at.  Obviously, there is also a gift shop.
So we hopped on this ferry and it took us over to the building that is built over the U.S.S. Arizona.  Here are a few pictures from that.

It's really hard to give a feel of what you see and feel through pictures.  I'm glad we went.  It was a lot less busy than I expected as well, which was a nice bonus.

Some other pictures from around Pearl Harbor:

The following day we had big plans to go hit up Diamond Head and hike it up to the top!  We got up early, had some breakfast, and made the decision to walk to diamond head from our hotel, the walk is 2.8 miles to the trailhead.  This later proved to be a mistake - a cheap cab or bus ride would have saved our feet.
This is a picture of Diamond head from Waikiki beach:

part way up... not excited (I was hot and exhausted)

What the trail looks like most of the way up

at the top!  The really awesome photog we asked to take this picture of us did a GREAT job getting Waikiki in the backdrop.  PS the sun was killing my eyes!

Waikiki Beach/Honolulu

Sitting waiting for our bus to take us home.... NO WAY could we walk back!

Afterwards, I had many blisters on my poor feet... IN-BETWEEN my toes!  OOWWWW!

Other shots from around Waikiki/Honolulu:

Up next: Bits and pieces of Maui aka pure heaven!