I awoke around 7 a.m. before the other sleepyheads and decided to start my first day in Hawaii running near the beach. I ended up near the east end of Waikiki, at the corner of Kalahaua (the “A1A” of Waikiki) and Kapahulu, stretched and began my run eastward. I was not alone. Many other tourists had the same idea. At 7 a.m. the sidewalks can get a bit dense with runners. I ran until I was fully in the residential areas, then ran back along Queen Kapiolani Park, which is on the OTHER side of Kalahuau Avenue. I can’t recall such a pleasant run in my life: the gently pounding surf, the beautiful trees along Waikiki, and the enchanting call of birds I had never heard high in the trees (magpies?) made the run especially memorable.
I was “home” and showered before the rest of my family stumbled into wakefulness. After breakfast we pondered what to do with our day. Terri spent part of the morning talking to the concierge in the lobby, working logistics like car rentals and trips to the Big Island later in the week. Car rentals looked chancy: most had been booked in advance and we weren’t astutute enough to do the same. We walked down to the beach, walked out on the pier and watched the tourists in the water. It made for a very serene experience. There was so MUCH beach to enjoy, and the water was SO clear. But oddly none of us are big beach people. We’d much rather watch others in the surf than go in ourselves.
Nearby and across from Queen Kapiolani Park we found there was an artists fair already set up, so we wandered through the vendors and found many a delightful (but belated) Christmas present. We bought some curved Plexiglas that was hypnotic to watch in the wind: it gave the illusion that it was hovering in mid air!
The Waikiki Aquarium itself is neither particularly large nor particularly impressive, but it was a pleasant way to spend an hour or so. Most of it is indoors. By now it was after noon and time for my 13 year old daughter’s tummy alarm to go off. There are few things more predictable than a teenager’s tummy alarm! Following Tom Cheever’s recommendation we headed to the local ABC store and found some sandwiches that satisfied our hunger without adding much to our waistline or subtracting much from our wallets.
We had talked about going to see “The Lord of the Rings:
The Two Towers” on vacation but I didn’t think we’d have time to see it
our first day. There were hurdles to overcome, like how to find a theater that
seemed somewhat daunting. The only theater in Waikiki had recently closed down
and we didn’t have a car nor did we have a great lay of the land. Fortunately
a complementary copy of the local paper came with our room. We eyed the
potential theaters and tried to find locations in our AAA tour book. I found a
bus ride guide at an ABC. The Ward Center was a couple miles away and had a
theater showing our movie, so it was just a matter of getting on the right bus.
It was only a block to Kuhio Avenue to catch the bus, and we didn’t have to
wait more than a couple minutes for the right bus to come by.
I had actually seen the movie before I left and I was
certainly not amiss to seeing it again – what a great flick! But I knew it was
going to be long! Terri and Rosie were just hopping with excitement over the
movie. We are all such Tolkien fanatics and so enjoyed the first movie (our
extended DVD edition is getting well played!) that it was almost a given that
we’d enjoy the second movie. I had refrained from telling Terri anything about
the movie so it would all be a surprise to her.
Once at Ward Center we just had to walk a block to the theater.
Fortunately, it was a very nice theater, and ours was one
of many. Our particular theater was huge. I estimated it could hold at least a
thousand people, and we nearly packed the 3:30 show. Every seat was good because
all theaters had stadium seating. Terri pronounced it the classiest theater she
had ever been in. Unfortunately there was a bit of a wait for the movie, and we
had to queue into a line outside the theater for the show. That’s when we
discovered that in the sun and away from the wind you can indeed get hot in
Hawaii. We took turns running for the shade. I didn’t feel too bad though because just outside the
theater were a Santa and Mrs. Claus doing the tike on the lap thing. I wondered
how he did it until I ventured over and noticed Santa had a personal air
conditioner! Eventually we got inside and waited half an hour for the movie to
start.
For a review of the movie you’ll have to look elsewhere. Both Terri and Rosie enjoyed it immensely, and I enjoyed as much the second time around. In fact they enjoyed it so much they talked me into seeing it again later in the week! It was pushing 7 PM by the time we were out of the theater and it was dark.
I noticed in the morning that on the beach the city had put up a huge electronic screen and there were signs saying that Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone would be showing tonight. Hundreds of metal chairs were laid out on the sandy beach in front of the screen. Rosie wanted to see the movie on the beach but it didn’t look like we were going to make it because the show started at 6:30 PM. We arrived to find that we hadn’t missed much of it. Vendors like Pizza Hut put up stands near the area. The crowd was very large and there weren’t enough chairs for everyone. We found a spot on the grass at an odd angle to the screen. Rosie and Terri were satisfied with a hot dog dinner. I ventured to Wolfgang Pucks for my dinner and joined them. It was a pleasant experience to see a movie on the beach like this, even if the occasional bus made it hard to concentrate. The City of Honolulu knows how to please the tourists. Waikiki is kept immaculately clean. Free movies on the weekends seemed to be the latest way to say thank you to us for coming and dropping gobs of money.