The Hughes Zoo

Honolulu was the first of our four stops in Hawaii and to make sure we eased into things we had absolutely no plans. Everyone on the ship needed to go through US immigration before anyone could disembark, but it was relatively painless and before long we were walking down the gangway. Ange was keen to do some shopping, so after a brief detour through Chinatown we found a nice semi-open air mall called Aloha Towers which is right on the waterfront.

As usual, the first order of business was food. Luck was very much on our side - Ange fairly randomly picked Don Ho’s Island Grill which had excellent, down to earth food and great service. I had these vegetable lettuce wrap things that we just beautiful. During lunch a warning came over the radio about he earthquake in Samoa and the possibility of a resultant tsunami, although of course nothing eventuated from it.

After lunch Ange took Will for a bit of a shopping adventure and Jeremy and I watched ships and forklifts and planes and helicopters do lots of interesting things. Then we wandered back into the city where Ange picked up some clothes, the boys got some toys, and I got a mild gastro bug. Shopping done, it was time for Will’s afternoon sleep so we headed back to Aloha Towers, which was quiet, outdoors-ish and cool. While Ange walked Will around, Jeremy played with his new motorbikes and I tried to catch up on some blogging. Ange did some more shopping, including finding an Hawaiian babushka store which her and the boys loved.

This was my first time in the US, and I have to say I really like it. I’m sure it varies a lot around the country, but Honolulu felt really… well.. comfortable. If it wasn’t for the different accents and backwards traffic we easily could have been wandering around an Australian city. So despite in the past being fairly nonplussed about  going to the US I’m looking forward to the next 3 days and adding the rest of the country to my ‘places to visit’ list.

Photos for the day