Waking up in Hawaii

Heyoooo!

So today was my first proper day in Hawaii and it was hot.
I got shweaty.
But that's ok because I'm still fabulous.

This morning I got up and walked down the road to the Safeway supermarket where I picked up some brekkie and some things to snack on in the day. The sun was already super warm at 10am but it was really nice to walk in.
So I kept walking for like, 40 min, meaning to find the university but I'd gone down the wrong street so I was just walking by heaps of random shops and stuff. (Apparently nobody ever says "heaps" here. It's what really old people say.)

That's pretty much how the rest of my day was, just wandering round the streets of Honolulu and stuff, not knowing where I was going.

But somehow I stumbled into Nordstrom (I used their toilet) which then lead me into the Ala Moana shopping centre. That place is amazing.
They've got every single shop in the world there and it's all kind of outside but also covered at the same time.

They even had koi ponds along the middle:

And they had a Tiffany's but I held myself back.

I went into a store called Bath & Body Works which smelt amazing AND they were having a sale! I got this antibacterial hand spray which is Warm Vanilla Sugar flavour. It'll protect me from nasty germs while making my hands smell like cookies. Mmmmm. And a "Mad About You" triple moisture body cream which smells delicious and fruity. I used it tonight after my shower.

This was the cute lil bag I got it in, even though it's not Christmas:

On my travels I eventually found the uni campus:

That'll be me next week!

Then I went back to Jay's and got changed into better walking gears because I was preparing for the adventures ahead.

I was meant to meet Yohan (the other Vic exchange student) at Waikiki but I ended up on the wrong beach so I just kept walking along the sand of all the hotels' private beaches, disturbing all the hotel guests. But it was really nice.

I saw a turtle in the water.

FINALLY I made it to Waikiki and saw these cool palm trees at the park next to the beach:

Just kidding, that was the wrong beach again!

So I just kept walking.

I like taking these sorts of photos because you can take it without looking like you're taking a photo.
People already thought I was weird though because I was the only one wearing a top.

One place had these tricycle things that you ride along the sand and into the water, then you just cycle floating on the water!

Then I really got to Waikiki where I met up with Yohan. We caught a bus to the start of the Diamond Head trail. Diamond Head is a really high point of the outer ring of a crater that formed after a volcano erupted there 300,000 years ago.

You can kind of see the shape of the crater, the hilly bits are the rest of the outer ring:

 These are some views from like, 3/4 of the way up:

Classic Panorama, didn't turn out that great:

There was a little collection of surfers and we watched them catch a few waves:

We climbed soooo many stairs to get to the top:

But it was so worth it. You could see heeeaps of the island and the sea was such a pretty blue, it just went on forever.

You could even see another Hawaiian island, Molokai way in the distance.

Went through a really long tunnel too:

That's the crater:

Honolulu with all its super tall buildings:

After we'd been chilling at the top for a while, this guy who had been sitting by us was like, "I dropped by bag down there last Sunday and I really want it back." And he asked us to look out for him as he tied a real flimsy rope to his arm and the barrier, then scaled down the cliff to his bag. 
He really loved that bag.
When he got back up he gave Yohan a high five and me a fist bump because I'm the man.

That's him getting his bag:

Yeah! So then we went back down and caught a bus back to our places. I still had another bus to catch back to Jay's but I couldn't be bothered waiting for it so I just walked back.

My legs are soooo tired and sore now!

Think I'll have a sleep in :)

Don't know how exciting tomorrow will be, just gonna sort stuff out at the uni and stuff. But I'll update if anything cool happens.

Thanks for reading!

Madeleine

xoxo