October 18-23, 2012 - Oahu, Hawaii

My friend, Barb, and I were working in Los Angeles and decided to take a girl's trip to Oahu for a long weekend.  We stayed in Waikiki at the Moana Surfrider hotel.  On our first day we started in the morning by going to Pearl Harbor, but the wait to get on one of the boats was over 2 hours.  So we decided to come back later.  We set out with no real direction, just driving up the coast.  We ended up at Ka'ena Point Trial, where we parked and enjoyed a walk along the coast.  The views were just amazing, with the waves crashing against the rocks.  In the afternoon we made our way back to Pearl Harbor and got a ticket to take the boat out to the USS Arizona Memorial, which was definitely worth the visit!  We walked through a couple of the museums and then headed back to our hotel.  We had heard about the Mai Tais at the Royal Hawaiian, so of course we had to go get one and watch the sunset.  For dinner we found a great sushi restaurant, Doraku Sushi.

The next day we headed over to Diamond Head Crater.   We took the trail to the top, which was fairly strenuous, not to mention it was really hot!  But the views from the top were definitely worth the effort!  We enjoyed hanging out at the lookout for a while, taking some great panoramic pictures, then made our way back down.  After that we basically made a whole day out of looking through the guidebook and just working our way up the coast to the North Shore.  We stopped at Lanikai Juice, Kailua Beach, Sunset Beach, a macadamia farm and had the best food ever at Giovanni's Shrimp Truck! That night back in Waikiki we ate dinner at A House Without a Key.  They had live music and a hula dancer - it was very nice.  

On our last day I decided I was going to try Paddle Boarding.  I found an offer for a private lesson just down from our hotel and said why not!  It was actually much harder than I anticipated...especially with the beach waves!  But my instructor was good and very funny (and crude at the same time), so it was a fun experience.  I definitely had my share of falls, but by the end I finally started to get the hang of it.   I will have to try it again one day...maybe in some calm water! That afternoon we relaxed by the beach, did some souvenir shopping, had another Mai Tai at sunset, and finished our trip off with dinner at the Hula Grill.

Check out some more photos from this trip here - Oahu Photos