Traveling with children really slows you down. It’s why, this year, I’m limiting our sight seeing activities to just 1 a day instead of multiple sights.
Itinerary: Hakone for breakfast, Honolulu Marathon, ABC store for souvenir, flight to Taiwan
Our flight was at 1pm today so we didn’t so much in the morning.
I found out yesterday that Ramada Inn is the designated hotel for China Air, China Eastern, and JAL. Given that this whole trip is half about picking up Chinese, I thought it was really great. A lot of the hotel stuff spoke Chinese, we keep meeting pilots and stewardess who spoke Chinese in the elevator. It’s as if we haven’t really left the bilingual environment back home.
Anyways, I got woken up at 6 with the roar of a motorcycle out our 15th floor window. Astroboy got up at 6:30 am AGAIN and woke Thumper up with his request to go to Berkeley Bowl. Knowing that Astroboy would not go back to sleep and hearing the cheering down below, I decided we should all get up and watch the Honolulu Marathon.
Though the race started at 5am there were still stragglers on Ala Moana Blvd. We sat down and watched them for awhile. There were quite a few Santas in flannel red shorts and shirt. And many Japanese mothers pushing strollers or wearing yukata.
After awhile we made our way to a Prince Court again for breakfst. Again. They were closed till 10am for brunch. But luckily they just moved breakfast to Hakone, the other restaurant on the same floor. We had the same breakfast as yesterday.
The waitress remembered us and said the kids were cute and well behaved. I was surprised to hear that since I was quite aware yesterday how Astroboy got unruly when he got bored yesterday. But I will take any compliment about them!
After going up and down the elevator a few times, we meandered home and Baba entertained the children on Skype while I finish packing. By then it was 10 m and we rushed out the door to the ABC store around the corner for some souvenir and ice cream. It was so hot and all of us were in long sleeves for the flight.
We barely made it back in time to checkout and get into our reserved taxi at 11. There was no traffic today and it only took up 20 min to get to the airport. But even though we were early somehow by the time we checked in, went through security, found a cart for the carseat, stopped to look at airplanes, they were calling for everyone to board.
Maybe it’s because I couldn’t resist and stopped by the gift shop to buy matching Hawaiian dress and shirt for the children. It’ll come in handy in Taiwan and I wanted something to remember the lovely relaxing vacation we just had.
The Hawaii leg of the trip was too short. It was also more of a vacation than a trip. I can’t say that I saw much nature or greenery while I was here; which is a first amongst my numerous trips here. it’s probably because we had no car and stayed in Waikiki. So we were limited to where we can take the bus. Next time, I definitely want to stay in a B&b and rent a car.
Overall though I think it’s a good transition stop before we jump back into city life in Taipei.
