Day 16

Pancakes, Haircuts and Waikiki Sundays 🍳🍹

Even though we’re still waking up ridiculously early by normal holiday standards, we are at least sleeping reasonably well. This morning it was around 5am again, but there’s actually a real advantage to being awake early in Hawaii because you can get so much done before the heat and humidity properly settle in for the day.

Just like the other morning, Ted suggested we head out for an early walk around Waikiki before breakfast. One place we specifically wanted to go was IHOP - one of those classic American diner-style chains famous for enormous breakfasts, bottomless coffee and pancakes in about fifty different forms.

While we were walking to breakfast, I messaged Sean to see if Jordan was feeling better and whether they might like to catch up. Sean said Jordan was much improved and thought breakfast sounded like a good idea. The only slight issue was that while we were already sitting at our IHOP eating breakfast, it suddenly dawned on me there was another IHOP closer to where Sean was staying. Not disastrously far away, but it did mean we finished our meals, paid the bill and then walked across Waikiki to the other location. Ted also paid for a homeless lady’s breakfast while we were there, which was genuinely kind of him.

It was really good finally meeting Jordan too. He’s extremely animated, funny and outgoing, and kept us entertained the entire time we were there. Sean’s mother-in-law Andrea also joined us and is originally from Romania but now lives in London. Jordan visits her and her husband there quite often, so he’s already travelled far more internationally than most adults. The whole morning had a much more relaxed feel than dinner the night before, and it was nice properly catching up with Sean again. What’s funny is that we originally met over twenty years ago on MySpace, and we’ve managed to stay in contact over the years and have caught up several times around the world since then.

One thing I’d been putting off for a while was getting a haircut. I’m always a little hesitant getting haircuts overseas because it can either go very well or become a complete disaster for the remainder of the trip. Eventually I found an older woman operating out of a tiny little room inside the Sheraton Waikiki Beach Resort who had apparently been cutting hair for more than forty years. The price was reasonable and thankfully the haircut itself was too.

What hasn’t been easy though is finding a proper gym. Most gyms around Waikiki either seem attached to expensive resorts or located well outside the main tourist area, so my usual workout routine has definitely suffered slightly while we’ve been here.

For lunch we grabbed some simple food and sat on the grass beside the beach, which was nicer than another expensive restaurant meal anyway. The afternoon was then spent back at Hula's Bar & Lei Stand, although this time the atmosphere was completely different from the quieter crowd the previous day. Sunday afternoon drinks clearly seem to be a Waikiki tradition because the place was packed.

The biggest surprise though was running into our friend Shade again, who appears every single time we come to Hawaii! It’s almost becoming a tradition at this point. I even managed to dig out an old photo from 2012 showing the last time we’d seen each other, which definitely reminded us all how long ago that actually was.

Instead of going out somewhere expensive for dinner, we had the supermarket meals Ted bought yesterday and heated them up back at the hotel. Not exactly glamorous, but eating out constantly in the United States is becoming eye-wateringly expensive, even by Australian standards. Tomorrow is our final full day in Hawaii before we fly onwards to Japan.Read more