Tag: Waikiki

Oahu 2026

Oahu 2026

Day Two Monday 

There is another Cat Cafe Moff! The Ala Meow-ona location at the Ala Moana Center.  It’s about 1.9 miles from my hotel 😻 it shouldn’t  take that long to walk there.

I watched the MLK Jr. Parade as I was walking. It was pretty awesome and inspiring.

Along the way I crossed over the Ala Wai Canal.  In 2019 they started the Genki Ala Wai project to clean up the water in the canal with Genki balls. Genki balls are tennis ball sized and made from soil, rice bran, and microorganisms to improve the water quality.  This may or may not have worked depending on which study you read. I’m still not jumping in but it would be perfect for a couple of waterski passes lol.

The maps took me down some sketchy alleyway and I came across a cell phone laying face down, right in the middle of the sidewalk.  It looked brand new and was probably fine but I stepped over it.  Not today lol not today.

I made it to the cat cafe just in time for kau kau time! There was a lot of meowing going on and they lined all the cats up with a bell. The cats chowed down pretty quickly and there were only two slow eaters.  After that, the cats went back to begging for treats lol.  This Cafe didn’t have a bandana system so it was basically a free for all.  Treats and pets for all!

Waiting for lunch to be served

I walked around the Ala Moana Center for a while.  All the snobby stores were on the second floor and the regular ones were on the third floor.  My toe was starting to hurt from walking and hitting my shoe.  My toenail will probably fall off. I considered buying new shoes for the walk back lol but I couldn’t find anything that looked normal. Well, normal for me. Black, low profile, and cushioned lol.

On the way back I stopped at Ululani’s shave ice.  My favorite!

Next up swimming and packing in that order! 

Lolol

Oahu 2026

Day one 

The taxi service picked me up from the airport.  The driver was very nice but either he needed new glasses or he didn’t realize he was drifting lol.  I made it to the Circle Hotel alive and got checked in. They upgraded me to an ocean view room for free.  I took the elevator up to my floor. Yes, there is an elevator lol.  My room really is shaped like a piece of pie and it has a lanai that overlooks Kuhio Beach. Perfect 😁

It was 7 pm here in Oahu but back home it was 9 pm.  Starting to feel a bit hangry so I walked down the sidewalk.  Right next to the hotel is McDonald’s 😂 I ordered on the app and took it to my Lanai to eat and watch people.  

Kalakaua Avenue is the street in front of my hotel and it is around 2.75 miles long.  It is the main road down Waikiki Beach with all restaurants, shopping, and hotels.  I think it’s the street people cruise at night because there is a lot of traffic.  It’s three lanes and is one way. There is no street mirroring it in the other direction.  If you need to turn around you have to take a side street and hope for the best.  I’m glad I’m not driving lol.  There is going to be a parade on Monday for Martin Luther King Jr Day. Maybe I will watch it from my Lanai.

I woke up really early because of the time difference. Two hours too early lol.  I hope I don’t get used to it or waking up for work is going to be terrible. 

I walked down to the ABC Store and got a banana to go with my protein bar.  In my opinion, eating is such a waste of time.  When is someone going to make a breakfast lunch and dinner pill like on Willy Wonka? This would be so much easier than deciding what or where to eat and then don’t get me started on cooking. I just wouldn’t want to turn into a blueberry lol.  iykyk 😂 

Now one of the reasons I was so excited to go back to Oahu was because of the Cat Cafe Moff. (The International Market Paws).  It opened right before we left in 2023 and I didn’t find out about it until the day of departure.  It’s located at the International Market  Place on the second floor.  It’s $28 for an hour of cat petting and treat giving but it was worth it.  The cats wore colored bandanas to put them into categories. Treats, no treats, crunchy treats, and soft treats.  It also let you know where it was advisable to touch them. No touching, head pets only and all okay.  If you visit during the hours of 12pm or 5 pm that’s kau kau time (feeding time) I might have to go back lol

After all that cat excitement, I walked around the mall and found a pen store and it had all my favorite pens. Uni Jetstream. I know. Lame😂😂

I had to get shave ice so I walked farther down the street to Island Vintage Shave Ice.  The first place I had ever tried shave ice. I was sitting there eating my shave ice and some strange lady came up and sat down next to me. Really close.. I  side-eyed her thinking who is this weirdo invading my space.  I took another look and it was Rachel lol. Then Krystal, Randy, Camden, and Noa came around the corner.  They have arrived a couple of days earlier than me, but I hadn’t seen them yet. 

I went back to the hotel and went swimming and then met Greg and Rachel and the kids for dinner.

Oahu 2026

One more day!

Okay. It’s the night before the flight and I tried one more time to cram all my stuff into the small suitcase and I just can’t do it.  No matter how big my backpack is, (31 liter) I can’t fit all of my stuff within the two bags.  So instead of the 20 inch suitcase I’m taking the next size up. It’s amazing what a difference four inches makes.  I get to check one bag for free regardless so I will be utilizing the backpack along with a duffle bag, (personal item) for my pillow😂

I checked my bag and made it through Eugene TSA in five minutes.  I just had to take off my jacket and pile all my stuff in one plastic bin.  Shoes on and electronics still in the bag. They did stop me to check my hat lol.  So much easier than flying out of Portland. 

Both flights were relatively uneventful.  Eugene to Seattle was quick. Seattle to Honolulu was perfect.  Well except for when I was boarding.  First, the flight attendant saw my duffle bag and backpack and said I needed to put one in the overhead compartment.  I told him that it was just my pillow lol. He waited to watch me pull my pillow out and then left me alone.  I always book a window seat on the right side of the airplane.  Don’t ask me why, I just do.  A guy  who was boarding late said, “I think you’re in my seat”? Me? I have been waiting all my traveling life to be confronted over a seat so I confidently pulled out my phone and brought up my boarding pass.  It said 11A.  He said,”that’s over on the other side”.  I wanted to crawl under my seat and die because the two other passengers were already settled in and they would have to get up for me to move.  The guy was nice though and he just switched me seats lol. So lesson learned.  Read the letters above the seats 😂

Me watching this screen 😂

For the first three nights I’m staying at the Circle Hotel on Waikiki Beach.  It looks really cool.  It’s a circular building in the shape of a Chinese lantern.  It has thirteen floors and the rooms are shaped like pie wedges. It’s right across from the beach and within walking distance of everything.  Hmm, I wonder if they have an elevator 😂. Oh well, I can just let my suitcase slide down the stairs. Right Krystal? 😂 oh wait. I might need it to be functional for the rest of the trip hahaha.

Oahu 2026

Two weeks out and I have packed and repacked my suitcase seven times and practiced lifting it up over my head.  I need to be able to get it into the overhead bin by myself.  No, I’m not asking for help.  I’ll die on that hill lol.  

I have been trying to get all my stuff to fit in the carry-on along with my backpack.  I even switched to my biggest and most manageable backpack and all my things still barely fit.  I guess I could leave out the bulk of my food and purchase it when I get there but I’m a weird sleeper and I need my pillow.  I really can’t live without it lol.  I wonder if they don’t count it as your personal item?

I’m debating extending my trip three days, returning Saturday so Kris can  drop me off and pick me up. Then I’m not driving home in the dark but I’ve found that changing flights is a pain.  I have to say I want to change the return flight to Friday and then take a red eye in order to get back Saturday morning.  That would add four hours to the trip back and messes up the seats I’ve already picked out. It does give me all of Wednesday, Thursday and Friday to do stuff on the island before leaving. I wouldn’t fly out until 630pm.  Normally doing anything on a fly out day is unheard of.  At least for me lol.

Hawaii 2026

Oahu and the Big Island

Planning 😁

Meeting up with Krystal and Randy and the kids on Oahu.  I will hang out with them for a week and then fly over to the Big Island solo to blog and decompress.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.  I’m doing carry-on only for this trip.  I know, I know, I have talked myself out of it in the past but I will be flying to two islands and I want the flying situation to be as simple as possible.  I don’t want to drag a giant bag and have to check it and then wait for it at baggage claim. This does pose a problem though.  No self defense weapons are allowed in your carry-on.  Well knives and I don’t know about pepper spray.  I will probably be fine in Oahu with Krystal and Randy but once I get to the Big Island I want to be prepared.  I’m going to ask my local sporting goods store what is legal to pack on board.  I guess when I go through TSA I will find out.

So, what’s on my packing list? I need to pack light and in the past I have always over packed.  I also need to be able to lift it above my head into the bin lol.  I’m not saying that I will be packing (Kris) light lol. I need more than three pairs of underwear and a swimsuit.  So somewhere in between, Kris and Krystal (who packs her whole closet) 😂

I will have my carry-on suitcase, backpack and pillow.  The backpack houses the stuff I can’t live without.  Like my iPad, headphones and car food.  For those of you that don’t know what car food is, it’s quick food that I can stuff in my mouth if I feel my blood sugar dropping. I keep a bag in the car and try to remember to bring it when we go out on the boat.  I am gluten free, dairy free, apple free, onion free… the list goes on. So, protein bars, nuts and fruit snacks.  Maybe a little candy too lol.  I’m flying Delta and I don’t know what the food situation will be.  Normally I go with Hawaiian Airlines and they always feed you but I couldn’t get any flights out of Eugene that I wanted.

I will wear all the bulky stuff that takes up a lot of room in the suitcase.  Water/hiking shoes, pocket jacket (with all my important stuff in the internal pockets) some stretchy pants with shorts underneath, headphones and a hat.  I have found if I wear a hat and headphones my seatmate won’t try to make idle chit chat with me.  No, I don’t need to know your life story and although encouraged by the government, I won’t be wearing formal attire to ride six hours on an airplane lol.

Oahu

Day 6 Thursday

Kalama Beach Park. The surf was good for body boarding. It was super shallow a long way out with a nice sandy bottom. Camden caught quite a few waves and then got rolled in the surf by a wave. He jumped up and got his goggles and went right back out! Noa loved the water and kept trying to run into it lol. We played in the sand.

Manoa Chocolate Factory for chocolate tasting. Delicious. I wanted to eat them all. Well all except the goat milk chocolate bar. It tasted a little too goaty for me lol. Since the dark chocolate was dairy free even Noa got a taste and I think she liked it. We were still wet from swimming so when we stood up we left a few butt imprints on the cushions lol. I bought four of the Maui benefit bars and some cacao nibs.

The Buffet at the Hyatt with Kasey and Liz. We made reservations and after I pushed send it said there was a cancelation fee of $35 per person! Well no backing out of this one. It was awesome. All you can eat snow crab, shrimp and dessert 😁 perfect and totally worth it. That’s all I ate. Kasey and Liz ate the fillers. Unnecessary food that takes stomach space away from the good stuff lol. I was just there for the seafood and mochi.

The super moon is tonight. Waited until 9pm. It really didn’t look that much bigger than the regular moon but it was brighter. I was able to get a couple of good pictures of it. One normal pic and one looking like there was a cat face on it😺 lol I thought it was pretty awesome lol.

Day 7 Friday

Last day in Oahu

Walked with Noa to get coffee while Krystal and Randy drove to find the perfect matcha tea. I don’t think they found it but that is their story to tell hahaha. Noa was a perfect angel. We watched birds, window shopped and she had a snack all while i got my steps in.

Dave & Buster’s for some gaming fun. I must admit I played the coin pusher the whole time but I ended up winning 2600 tickets! I gave the remaining card points to Camden and we did the Hot Wheels racing game.

Pedicure at Tami-A nails with Krystal and Liz. Of course we had to go here lol. Halfway through the pedicure I remembered that most nail places don’t take credit/debit cards. I wasn’t sure how much cash I had but I lucked out. Krystal had some cash and I had enough for me and Liz.

Fireworks show to end the night by the lagoon. They were shooting them off of the docks. Very cool.

Oahu

Day 2

Woke up at 4am which was really 7am at home. Made myself go back to sleep and ended up sleeping until 6am/9am lol

We walked down to swim in the Hilton lagoon. It was a little over half a mile. It started raining but it was more like taking a shower. The water in the lagoon was a tiny bit chilly but refreshing. I walked out towards the middle and looked down and a school of fish surrounded me. Not small ones. These were around 12-15 inches long and pale blue in color. There were 8-10 of them swimming in a circle around me. So amazing. I wonder if they live there full time or got sucked in through a filter?

Kasey and Liz flew in at noon and we went to Costco to pick up supplies. It was a zoo. The parking lot reminded me of the old days when we would go to Costco in Eugene. Searching for a parking spot for fifteen minutes. The inside of the store was no better. Bumper to bumper shopping carts. I like to see what local snacks they carry and I found these. Hmm. I love crab and I was curious as to how they would taste but I just couldn’t do it lol.

Walked down to get shave ice and shopped a bit.

Day 3

Woke up early and walked down to get a Matcha with Krystal. The coffee shop we tried to find on Google/Apple maps couldn’t give us directions so we settled on Honolulu Coffee. Not three minutes later we found Dean & DeLuca lol. Oh well. Doesn’t look like they had matcha anyways so we are all good.

Drove to the Dole Plantation and rode the train. Noa loved it. No bugs this time.

Krystal chose lunch at Beet Box Cafe. Vegan organic vegetable food lol. Yes, nothing there for me to eat so I walked down the street to McDonald’s lol.

Stopped at Green World Coffee Farm and then headed back to the hotel.

Found this notice slipped under our door…. That is so awesome 🙄 in addition to not having a pool, due to reconstruction, we will not have any water from 9am-3pm.

Went swimming at the lagoon again and the ocean side. The ocean side is so much warmer. Like bath water. You just have to watch out for rocks.

Walked down the street for some Spam Musubi for dinner. Yum! Then we walked back down to watch the dancers at the mall.

Total steps today 17,531/7.25 miles😅

Yes, my feet are complaining a little. lol.

Oahu / Molokai

This trip for packing has been much different from my past trips. Normally I am packed at least three months in advance and ready to go. Not this trip. As I came across things I knew I wanted to take I put them into a big plastic container. That started three months ago but there was no organization involved. Two days before travel day I started going through what was in that box. OMG I stayed up way past midnight packing into a small suitcase and then switching to a medium sized one. I won’t go into all the details because I don’t want you all to think I’m crazy lol. I loaded my suitcase and backpack into the car and left for work. No turning back now.

Stopped at Krystal’s. They were still packing lol.

I am staying at the Country Inn and Suites, taking the shuttle to PDX at 6am. Long term parking is $10 per day and I don’t have to drive to the airport. I was assured there would be plenty of time to check my bag, get through TSA and board at 7:15 am. Makes me nervous but okay….

I got stopped at TSA🙄 No pat down this time. TSA agent holding up my backpack and waving my Nintendo Switch: “Whose bag is this? All electronics larger than a cell phone need to be taken out of your bag”, people staring…….oh well, I made it to the gate by 6:20am and I beat Krystal and Randy.

PDX

First one on the airplane and sitting in First Class. Hawaiian Airlines sends out an offer to bid up to first class and I won! Scored seat 3G. It’s a middle seat so no window but hey, first class lol. Worth it!

Mai Tai in hand. Flight attendant said she would keep them coming until I said when. Um, on number one and, when lol. Coffee please. Well one third coffee and two thirds cream lol. Does that really count as coffee? Or coffee flavored cream?

Krystal and Randy are in the back of the airplane. I think I hear Noa…

8:14am and we are in the air. There is a three hour time difference so when we land it should be around 11:14am. Coming home will be brutal though lol.

Ipad loaded with movies? Yes please. Movie=The Weird Al Yankovic Story. 😂😂 I love Rocky Road! Like a Surgeon! My Bologna! Sing it😂 If you know, you know.

Touchdown 11:00am. I love that we have the whole day ahead of us.

Called the hotel for an early check-in. They will text me when available. Randy took the shuttle to get the rental car so we are hanging out at the airport. Otherwise we would all be grumpy lol.

Checked into the hotel. It’s in a cute little shopping area that is convenient and walkable to the beach. Five minutes in the room Noa locked herself in my bedroom. By herself. Poor baby was so scared. Ten minutes of coaxing her to unlock the door while she was wailing and calling the front desk for help. Second call stressing that she was locked in the bedroom and she is one and a half years old. Mimi to the rescue. I asked Krystal if she had any pens and used the barrel to unlock the door. I know. Genius right? lol. That’s from all my years of taking those pens apart to create chaos in school. That’s a whole other blog though.

Noa didn’t sleep much on the flight so she went down for a nap with Randy while Krystal, Camden and I walked to the beach and looked for food. We decided on PF Changs. Camden ate like a ravenous animal, devouring almost everything in sight. Poor kid was starving.

Walked back down to the beach for sunset. Perfect ending to a great day.

Oahu /Molokai

Of course. Nothing ever goes as planned. I just got notification that my return flight will be delayed two hours. That will put me back in Portland at 11:30pm. since I’m not a fan of a 3 1/2 hour drive that late I will need to find somewhere to stay the night. Which also means I need a hotel that will come and get me from the airport. So I will end up staying there the night before the flight.

Staying the night in Portland before my flight does two things for me.

1. I no longer have to watch Krystal pack the night before the flight. This is good.

2. I will be at the airport waiting for Krystal and Randy to show up to board the flight. This is bad lol.

Historically they are never early for a flight. Not “Kris” early, (5 hours before boarding and not even able to check my bag) 😂 but early like me. Normal early. Two hours early. No, they will run in with 45 minutes to spare 🙄 One time, Krystal forgot her phone and we had to drive back to the house to get it lol. They have been lucky though and never missed a flight. Yet.

Getting packed up. I am taking the bare minimum. The least I have ever packed for a trip to Hawaii. We will see how that goes.

I was asked by a reader why I blog my trips.

I blog to let friends and family know what I am up to. I blog to let others that have thought about traveling solo know that it’s possible. Once upon a time I had my doubts I would ever be able to go and see what I wanted without a partner. Don’t get me wrong. Traveling with someone is fun. Experiencing things together but it’s also exhausting. Making sure the other traveler is having fun too. You might want to go shark tank diving or parasailing and they are afraid of heights or sharks lol. But mainly I blog to remember. To be able to look back and have zero regrets. My first blog to Vegas 2016 solo got deleted off of here but I learned a lot from that trip. Part of it was saved in my personal archives and it’s fun to go back and read it. I’m pretty sure that trip was all about buffets and eating lol.

Well, see you in the air ✈️

Oahu /Molokai

Good news! I booked my flights. I decided to fly out of Portland. And when I say Portland I mean Portland Oregon, PDX. The actual flight with Hawaiian Airlines was down to $400 and adding my seat choice put me at $600. I love flying Hawaiian. You are guaranteed one meal and I always choose the extra comfort seats. There is more leg room and I’ll get a window seat. Flying out of Eugene would have been around $1300 with my seat choices. It also didn’t match up with my flight home from Molokai. This way I can stay on Molokai until the day I fly home.

Now that my flight plans are all buttoned up I can think about packing. I still plan to check a bag but my goal is to use a small, manageable piece of luggage along with a small backpack. I don’t want to have to wrangle a big, heavy bag along with my carry-ons. I will pack a weeks worth of clothing. I’ll be able to wash them at the condo before I travel on to Molokai. I wear my bulky clothes and hiking shoes on the airplane. I always bring my jacket and hat for the flight. Its usually freezing and by wearing a hat and headphones nobody will try to strike up a conversation with me. Lol. Not a fan of small talk lol.

I will be flying over with Krystal, Randy and the kids. So the night before the flight I will drive up to stay with them. I know this will probably put me over the edge mentally. Krystal has a habit of waiting until 10pm the night before to pack. The horror😂. I really don’t know where she gets her traveling skills from lol. Obviously not me. I am Ms. Prepared, most of the time. Just depends on what has been forgotten lol but I do try to write up a good list.

Well, I’ve got a couple of months to get into shape, pack and plan my itinerary.

Wish me luck 🤞🏽🤙🏽😁