Hawaii Aventures 09: Day 1 - flying to Honolulu and Waikiki

Sometimes before we can reach the sublime (surfer, famous beach, warm waters, sunset). We must suffer through the perils! Yes, that is me, tongue stuck out and on oxygen. Me not like little metal bird! Want off!

Here I have just cleared customs and my hands and feet have been swabbed to make sure they are not explosive (and they kept trying to make me take the concentrator apart and I kept going, "It IS a concentrator!") (hey, I tell you what they tell me. I didn’t mention the episode of McGuiver where he turned a titanium bike into a bomb and I have titanium wheelchair!).

After asking about getting a refund for an attendant seat, we were all three moved to bulkhead. We asked if we could have a seat for the medical equipment. But they just told us to go to the gate. We arrived at the gate 5 minutes before boarding, and was told to wait, then someone else came and told me that I was 12 minutes late and thus must wait until the end. And that because I had oxygen we did not have bulkhead seats but the row behind. Here were are in the second row. Bulkhead people had an extra seat, the row next to us had an extra seat. But us and our friends like an oxygen concentrator and ice break packs, we are all still smiling for some reason. No word yet on the free seat yet, odd that.

We drove to the lookout before going to the Japanese Temple. This was our first OFFICIAL Hawaii tourist act. Cheryl gives it a TA-DA! (though my navigation we got a wee lost and arrived at the temple gates a few minutes too late to even take pictures of it – grrrr!).

Linda had said on the plane that “I would like a Mai Tai on Waikiki Beach” – well, what Linda wants, she gets, so back to town we came, ahead of sunset and we wheeled down to the beach. Noting along the way that when it comes to tourist spots, the saying is true: Build it and they will come!
I found the beach, and before Linda and Cheryl could stop me I found the sand, indeed I was so far out I was almost stuck when they caught up to me. But here we are, at Waikiki Beach at sunset, now how Hawaii is that?
After a shoulder roll out of my chair and a bit of flopping about, I got us the, ‘oh so sweet honeymoon’ picture of Linda and I, thanks to Cheryl’s photography. In fact her camera came out with this beauty, even at the dusk of post sunset, which is probably one of the screensavers I will use. Ahh...the memories...which I won’t have by then.

Of all of us, only Cheryl actually went into the water, and said it was “Warm” so I would want to try it, I think. However, the waves and amount of people going by her to surf indicates this may not be the best beach for ME to try.
I bet you think I forgot about the “Mai Tai on the beach” – no not I! We went over to CheeseBurger in Paradise (which Cheryl assured us was a famous song) and got ourselves…a cheeseburger and a Mai Tai.
The food was really good, and really filling, but the humidity of the place didn’t exactly decrease the humidity outside. Still we enjoyed the food and the location and if Linda wants it, Linda gets it – “Mai Tai, on the beach in Waikiki.”
As I wheeled out of the restaurant, the die hard surfers were heading home. This woman, changed from wet suit, had a rig hooked up to her bicycle to hold her surfboard, as she came down probably nightly and on weekends. When even the die-hard surfers come in, it is time to go.

So under the full moon we wheeled home, exhausted, but already planning a new day, one that involved the terror the ancient Hawaiians could never have thought of….yes, San-X, otherwise known as HELLO KITTY! But that is for tomorrow.