This is part two of a three part series. You can read part one here.

Following our week-long Lemurian Huna retreat on Kaua’i, Isabelle and I flew to O’ahu for the remainder of our trip. We were going to spend the next few days in Honolulu, more specifically in the Waikiki area. It was a bit of a culture shock to return to such a tourist-heavy and populated area after a week surrounded by lush greenery, open space and minimal people. Gone were the quiet, lazy roads. Now we were surrounded by freeways, skyscrapers and many, many people.

We had found an Airbnb that seemed to be quite reasonable in price and location. We were on the 28th floor of the Hawaiian Monarch Hotel, with views of the city towards Waikiki Beach, and Diamond Head (more on that later). We checked into the quaint studio flat and freshened up before a quick walk to a local grocery store to pick up some food and drinks. Because this part of the trip would be a more traditional Chris & Isabelle vacation, it was a quiet night in our room – time to rest up and get a good night’s sleep before our next few days of walking, eating and exploring!

The next morning found out heading out bright and early. We had no real plan in place other than ‘let’s walk to Waikiki Beach’. So that’s what we did. By 8AM, we had headed out and found ourselves a Starbucks for a drink (ah, how we’d missed you!) and continued our exploration.

Waikiki was a bit of a surreal experience. As we walked down the street towards the beach, on the one side of the road you had a beautiful expansive beach full of people sunbathing and surfing. On the other side of the road were high-end shops the likes of Dior, Gucci, Tory Burch and Coach. It was the kind of vibe where you’re standing at the street corner, waiting for the crosswalk light to change, and next to you is someone in an expensive dress with armloads of expensive shopping bags; and then a barefooted, wetsuit-wearing guy shows up with a surfboard under his arm. The juxtaposition of the two was vert weird to us, but is everyday normal to the people of Waikiki. The North American norms of “No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service” do not apply in Hawaii!

We strolled for a while, seeing the beach and some of the landmarks of the area like the statue of Duke Paoa Kahanamoku and the Stones of Life. We shopped a bit and visited some of the nicest shopping malls we’ve ever seen. Some of these malls were expansive, taking up a few blocks. One even had a large banyan tree growing in it! We spent the entire day walking from our hotel to Waikiki and then past our hotel in the opposite direction to the Ala Moana Shopping Center and back. We hit some 22,000 steps over the course of the day.

Our second full day in Honolulu was the day Isabelle was most looking forward to – hiking Diamond Head.

Diamond Head is a dormant volcano, now a State Monument and park. It was once home to a US military base, and some of the monitoring equipment is still present along the rim of the crater. The hike to the summit of Diamond Head is visually stunning with incredible vistas everywhere. While just short of a mile in length from trailhead to the summit, it is a very steep climb in parts – you gain 560 feet of elevation as you ascend. You climb through a 225-foot long tunnel through the mountain, and come to a ridiculously steep set of stairs to finish the climb. Thankfully, there was an alternate path that goes a little longer, but less intensely vertical, that you can also take. We chose the latter. I honestly don’t think I could have managed the last set of stairs otherwise.

In all, it took us about 90-ish minutes round trip, with time spent at the top (and a few times on the way up!) to pause for views, photos and to catch our breath. We had chosen to book the earliest timeslot available for the hike, wanting to avoid both the heat and the crowds. The park opens at 6AM, so we booked the 6AM-7AM slot. By 7:15, we had made it to the top. By 8:15, we were back at the entrance of the park. By 9:15, we had walked back to Waikiki and were enjoying post-hike croiffles (waffles made with croissant dough) at Kai Fresh (thanks for the recommendation Arianne!)

You’d think that climbing a volcano was enough for the day, but it was only 9:30AM. And anyone who knows Chris and Isabelle knows that we like to wander, explore and eat. It’s what we do best. After freshening up at the Airbnb, we spent a couple of hours just chilling around the hotel and doing laundry and reading. After a quick lunch at the food truck park across the street from our Airbnb, we headed back out to wander the streets. We did a bit more shopping, ate a few more things, stopping for supper at a sushi restaurant called Doraku. Delicious meal.

It was another full day of walking and eating. We walked about 28,000 steps that day. To end our final night in Waikiki, we headed back to the Hawaiian Monarch and ordered some slices of cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory via Uber Eats. Nothing like having cheesecake delivered to your room to make you feel like you’re truly on vacation!

Our final morning in Honolulu found us wandering out to get breakfast. We had intended to go to a little breakfast spot not far from our Airbnb that had good reviews and a nice looking menu. When we got there, we found a lineup of some 15-20 people waiting for spots (it’s a tiny location with only a handful of tables) and a note on the door saying they were accepting cash only that morning as they had an issue with their payment system. Rather than wait here, we found another spot just around the corner called Sunny’s Local Grind where we had a delicious breakfast with little-to-no wait.

This brought an end to the Waikiki portion of our trip. We returned to the Airbnb to finish packing up and to wait for the Uber to take us to our third and final destination – Disney’s Aulani Resort. More on that in the final installment of our Hawaiian Adventures blog posts. Stay tuned!