Aloha!

So after the monsoons from my last Hawaii trip, I decided to give it another try. This time, the weather was actually quite pleasant so it turned out to be a fine trip. The crew I flew with was real nice and we all went to a great restaurant for dinner the night we arrived called Chuck's Cellar (http://www.restaurantswaikiki.com/ChucksCellar.htm). Our purser, Ric, had been there before and said it was a great place to eat. They have an early bird special (not a problem for the crew as they were "older") with a fixed menu. You get a choice of entree and they have a great soup and salad bar. Live entertainment is also a staple of this joint too. I had the mahi-mahi and a baked potato.

After dinner we strolled along Waikiki back to the hotel. It was quite a difference from the week before when the place was almost deserted because of all the rain.

I went back to the room and wrote out a few postcards before turning in.

The next day, I went down to the International Village to do a little shopping and then met Judy, another one of my co-workers for lunch at the Pacific Beach hotel. They have a great restaurant that sits in front of a two story aquarium and during lunch time, a diver goes into the tank to feed the fish and rays. http://www.pacificbeachhotel.com/Content.aspx?path=/ServicesAttractions/TheOceanarium. The tank holds over 280,000 gallons of water. When we left, we got to see a little display of the 12 days of Christmas (Hawaiian style) made of frosting.

I wanted to head over a shop near the hotel called Del Sol, which sells shirts that change color in the sunlight, but they were closed for construction, although they did not appear to be doing any construction at the time, so I am not sure what that was about.

I went back to the hotel and tried to take a nap before flying home, but could not fall asleep. I ended up watching Wall-e on my laptop, and then went down to the Fossil store to get my watch band replaced and then walked down to Diamond Head before getting ready for pick up. Arriving back home to below freezing temperatures was less than ideal.