Vacation 2009: Day 3 - Part 1

May 2
Day 3 of our trip (1st full day in Hawaii) dawned bright and early. We slathered on the sunscreen and went down 2 floors of our hotel for "complimentary coffee and donuts." We came away with 4 donut holes and no coffee.

There are ABC stores literally on every block. The block our hotel was on was fairly large and had 1 on each end. We bought some bread and bus passes at one the night before. On this morning, C and I ventured out and went into the ABC store near our hotel and bought C his first ever pair of flip flops. I got some postcards. We went back to the hotel to drop of the post cards and C's sneakers.

We knew the Honolulu Zoo was nearby, but it turned out to be right across the street. However, it didn't open until 10am, so we wandered down the road a bit. First, we went to the beach to check it out in the daylight. The water was surprisingly cold to me! I had expected tropical waters to be warm! It felt just barely warmer than the Alaskan Pacific to me!

We walked to the Waikiki Aquarium (which was also pretty close) which also did not open until 10, but had just a few minutes to wait at this point. We paid our arm and a leg admission price and were handed some black boxes that were like remotes. Pressing numbers on them that corresponded to the exhibits would talk about each one. C was much more interested in doing so than I was. All I cared about was taking photos. :P

We went through the inside portion full of jellyfish and sharks and tiny little fish. We then went outside where there was an outside pond of fish and coral. And a bigger tank with 2 monk seals. They were interesting to watch. While we were there, 2 trainers came and fed them and had the seals do tricks, so that was entertaining.

We made a stop into the gift shop, where I discovered that Hawaii gift shops order from the same companies that my work does...and we had a lot of the same merchandise (dolphin statues, etc)

We were a bit disappointed with the aquarium. It was not as big as we'd been expecting, but it had a decent variety of animals.

After this, we walked back to the block our hotel was on. Before we got there, C became enthralled with the banyan trees everywhere.

We had breakfast at a restaurant in our block, and then proceeded on to the zoo.