Waikikiiiiiiiiiii!!!!

Back when I was a college student in the early to mid-nineties, I used to think of Waikiki as being kinda, well...seedy. Dirty. But I think a lot has changed over the past 13 years (and I'm referring to Waikiki and I), because the two of us just shared a very sweet, lovin' reunion over the past four days! And now I'm yearning for more! :-)

Seriously- I couldn't have asked for a better trip from start to finish. We got up at 4:45am on Thursday morning and then woke up a very confused, but quickly peppy Ryan to catch our early morning flight. Once we landed in Honolulu (or as Ryan calls it, Ha-nee-yu-yu) we quickly caught a bus to downtown. Rich hopped off after about 60 min. so he could go to his work conference, and soon thereafter, Ryan and I found ourselves very tightly wedged between two super chatty homeless guys- one kept inviting me to his Rastafarian church, and the other kept mumbling about there being too many bums in Hawaii (forgot what it's like taking the bus)! But the real challenge of the day was getting off the bus, because I had four things to juggle/carry off- a nervous 2-year old, my large travel backpack, the diaper bag and the jog stroller. Thankfully a nice lady held the doors open for me so I could shove all of our things out, and unlike San Fran, the driver didn't yell at me or roll his eyes for my taking too long! Gotta love the aloha!

But once we were in Waikiki- things just fell into place. Even though it was only 9am, I was able to check in to our hotel since I paid an additional $10 a day to upgrade us to a better room (that was available immediately). And man- what a phenomenal location...only minutes from the amazing beach, restaurants, shops, etc.! From there, Ry and I dashed off to the zoo for our first of two visits that day! Unfortunately, I don't have any photos from that day since I thought my camera was broken (it was not...long story). At first I was super bummed (no pics of Ry with the giraffes? elephants? tigers?! Unimaginable!!!), but told myself to just revel in the fun without having to stop all the fun every 3 minutes to take a picture. I can't lie, it took a few minutes of mental reconditioning before I could accept this (I am Japanese tourist after all), but eventually I got into it! Rich got back to the hotel around 5pm and then we met our friends for a quick swim and dinner at Lulu's afterward.

On Friday we went to Starbucks for what would become our daily breakfast & late afternoon tradition, then hit the Waikiki Aquarium (small, but perfect for kids Ryan's age!) & beach with our friends, cruised Waikiki, joined our friends again for dinner at Cheeseburger's in Paradise, and then closed the day with an Entourage marathon on Rich's new netbook once Ryan fell asleep!

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On Saturday we walked over to Ala Moana to get some obligatory chichidango and peanut butter mochi for the parents, some t-shirts for Keni & Riki, a stop at Jungle Fun so Ryan could ride every ride in there twice (he played his first games too!), and then met up my Uncle for a decadent, indulgent lunch at PF Chang's. We ended up deciding to walk back to the hotel so we could burn off some of 4,000 calories we each consumed, then hit the beach for a third time, and met our friends at the Aston's Tiki bar for dinner followed by a hula show & fireworks display on the beach. Our nighttime entertainment was to watch Date Night on the netbook, because yes, we're such wild ones!

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On Sunday I wanted to take Ryan to brunch, the beach and the zoo for a final visit (since he loved it so much), but since I woke up with a cold, Rich ended up doing it all solo! So I got to rest in bed with the Sunday paper and also ended up watching Grown Ups and part of Whip It! (kinda slow). We had to check out of our hotel around 1pm to catch the bus (more adventures with a homeless man who told the same story four times about the police, FBI and CIA all being in a conspiracy to stop him from telling the truth) back to the airport!

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Here, in random order, are some of the pics we did manage to take once Rich fixed our 'broken' camera!

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The happy family walking the beach at Waikiki...check out the classic Rizzle smile!

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Ryan playing with his ocean-themed Silly Bandz in our hotel room.

Ry & I at the beach with a little boy that refused to leave our side the entire time and insisted on jumping into every picture we tried to take!

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We spent nearly every night sitting on the beach at dusk with our friends...

Ryan dancing on the beach to the beat of the drums from the nearby hula show!

Ry & his boyz on the beach

Daddy & his brutha from another mutha, T-dawg...

Ry Ry at the zoo (one of three trips this weekend!)

The playground at the zoo is as fun as the zoo!
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Riding the bus during naptime? No problem for Rizzle! Zzzzz. (Psst- if you think I look pale and sickly, it's because I am. I was getting motion sickness from the bus driver's brake-happy feet)!

Snacktime for the boyz outside the Waikiki Aquarium! Ry was so cute while we were there- at one point he ran up to a huge tank of jellyfish and said "Oh my! Looks like jellyfish!"

Ry doing what Ry loves best- running up and down a hill!

I showed Ryan how to roll down a hill for the first time...he loved it! (And I'm sure I looked like Model Parent of the Year rolling her little son down a hill!)

Ryan with daddy (& Diamond Head looming in the background) on their way to the beach (the second of four beach visits this weekend)!

It's becoming a family tradition to build Ryan his own 'bathtub' at every beach we go to!

Ryan (smiling of course) & daddy by the Duke Kahanamoku statue

Ry learning to swing poi balls around!

At the International Marketplace!

Ryan performing "Pupu hinu hinu" for our friends at dinner!

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I will leave you all with a short glimpse of our little hula dancer (who is unable to resist dancing along to any music he hears) on the beach of Waikiki...