Hawaii Day 1 - Friday April 19, 2013 - Getting Away

On January 1, when I looked forward into the year, nothing existed beyond April 19. I knew that once I sat in my plane seat on that day we would have been through all the planning, painting, renovating, sorting, moving, cleaning, unpacking and staff relocation - not to mention the re-budgeting and reforecasting - and we could put all that behind us....and that's what I've been aiming toward for the last 4 and 1/2 months...........now here we are, four days into our trip to Hawaii! Sitting in seat 22J on flight HA444 on Friday evening represented both an end and a beginning (for me at least)....and when I looked out the window this is what I saw - an Air NZ plane getting ready for takeoff. I saw that as a sign and had a little chuckle. I might get there yet!

We left the farm an hour earlier than planned and picked up D&L. We took them via Tba and introduced them to the delights (?) of the TC. In Bris we left the car at a long term car parking place and caught the shuttle bus to the airport. When we got out of the bus, G grabbed his red bag and strode off - only to be called back by a strange lady who owned the bag he was striding off with - with his left sitting forlornly on the footpath. What a shock that would have been for both of them! Once the bags were exchanged we checked in and went through the security process. I got full body scanned and G got checked for explosives. What dodgy looking parents our kids have! We left on time, the flight was good. G doesn't remember taking off. He woke up when we were in the air. He hired a DVD player and watched movies most of the way, in between eating and sleeping. We arrived in Hawaii about 8am local time of the same morning we'd left Aus (Fri) but it was 4am at home. We took a while to get through customs and had finger and thumb prints taken. We caught a shuttle bus to the Sheraton and checked in but had to wait for our rooms to be ready. We went off and booked a snorket tour for the next day, had breakfast and a look around and were the last to gain access to our rooms - not until nearly 3pm.

The infinity pool.

It's a long way up.

We went shopping for a pair of cheap sunnies for Gibbo and found these birds.

We're 26 floors up!

The view across to Diamond Head.

Our room. The bathroom is behind the shutters. There's the (right) red bag.

The infinity pool, zoomed in.

Banana lounges overlooking the infinity pool and ocean.

The famous Waikiki Beach, Honolulu, Hawaii. I can't really believe I'm here!

In the late afternoon we had drinks in our room. Dave fed the pigeons.

That night we had welcome drinks and nibbles at a restaurant/nightclub overlooking the ocean. It was quite magical with the palm trees and fire drums and lanterns and a little surreal - sitting on the beach at Waikiki, Honolulu watching the sun go down when only what seemed a few hours before I'd been watching the sun rise at Bell!!

Sean and Gibbo. We haven't seen these guys for nealry 3 years!!