Oahu – Thanksgiving Day Weekend

We went to Oahu from the 22nd of October to the 25th!

We camped at the Aiea heights campground – when we arrived I thought it was closed: 25 campsites empty, restrooms locked. No signs of human activity or camping use. Turns out people just don’t camp there, it’s too close to the city. Good for us. Andy got the resident ranger to unlock the restrooms, I got firewood, we had a nice Thanksgiving dinner of salmon salad sandwiches and a great campfire, and felt happy.
That photo was taken at our campsite.

Friday morning we had great breakfast at a small, very local pancake place and we went to the aquarium, but that’s a separate post. Leilani loved it. We stayed more than 3 hours, and she was hungry and exhausted afterwards, had a few snacks in the car and fell asleep. We found a nice Indian Restaurant to have lunch, we liked the food, but Leilani didn’t. It was a little spicy, and she is a spicewimp.

We walked around in Chinatown, got some tea and exotic food, Leilani liked it a lot, and ran to all the fruit stands and wanted to see everything. I think the pigeons were her favorite though.

We arrived at the art museum just 10 minutes before it closed (at 4:00!!! – and Sunday morning they were closed again) but were allowe dto look at the gardens and the buddha exibit for free.

When it was closed Leilani wanted to ride the “horsie” outside. We were kind of reluctant, but still put her on. I was just waiting for a furious museum curator to storm out and jell at us.

Andy and Leilani went to a park, and I went to the biggest Thrift Store I had ever seen. Got lots of dress up stuff for Leilani – her newest favorite. We had to be back at the campsite by 6:45, they close the gates, so we went shopping for dinner and “home”. The next morning we went to the swap meet, a local outdoor bazaar type market.

Later we met our friends Peter and Francine for brunch, walked around in Chinatown again and ot Leilani a new Chinese New Years dragon. She loves them: They make extremely annoying music, walk around, and have red-flashing LED lights. (Other than that they are pretty.) Later we went to the Zoo.

The next morning we tried the art museum again, failed again, and walked around a little in Honolulu, saw Peter and Francine and were invited to an excellent lunch at Francine’s, and almost missed our plane. Flight was at 2:05 and we left Waikiki around 1pm (after frantically searching for the car key, and getting lost and driving in circles for a few minutes). I think in my entire life only twice did I come that close to missing a plane (asides from the 2 times where I actually missed a plane, but these 2 were out of my and even Andy’s control :-). Andy returned the rental car while I checked in, and talked the TSA people into letting us cut the line.

Author: Sonja

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