Luau!

Monday was spend working out the activities for our time on Oahu and also scoping out the neighbourhood.

The boys went for a walk down the beach while Margaret, T, and I went down the main drag of Waikiki to the Royal Hawaiian for a coffee and to walk around the grand hotel. You could really imagine the panama hat and white suits being the dress standard though these days it was pretty much beach attire.

We then walked Kalakaua Ave again checking out the shops. I know we are in a tourist trap here but the shopping is no where near as good as New York, everything is pretty much Sydney prices. We are aiming to get out of Waikiki in the days after Christmas so it might be better then.

There are millions of Japanese tourists here. Some of the shops even have signs up saying they will accept Yen as payment. There are a few Australians around but not as many as I expected.

Dinner that night was at the Hilton Hawaiian Village where we attended our first Luau. This is basically an outdoor dinner with traditional Hawaiian dancing as entertainment. We all learned how to Hula with varying levels of success and then tucked into a big feast. Pork always figures in the Polynesian diet and dinner was really good and plenty of it, throw in a couple of Mai-Tai cocktails and it was all good!

The dancing was excellent, especially the fire dance.

Afterwards it was an easy stroll back to the hotel.Read more