Friday, July 8 (HI time)

Last night, while flying from Majuro to Hawaii, we crossed the International Date Line, so today is a do-again. Not a do-over, but an actual second Friday this week.

We departed Majuro around 9PM Friday night, and landed in Hawaii around 3AM Friday morning. Both Fridays are July 8. We left the airport, made it through customs, and arrived at the hotel in time to fall asleep around 6AM.

Grace and Claire were up earlier. Grace went back to sleep, but Claire stayed awake. I slept until a little before noon. Still on Majuro time, my body thought it was just 10AM. Tired doesn't begin to explain my state. I'd had a bit of rest, but fatigue owned me. Still, the day had begun, and time in Hawaii would be short.

The hotel is drastically different, but we expected that, and given that it's about triple the cost per night, it better be, right? We've got a king-size bed, for one thing. It seems to be one of those fancy Tempurpedic or similar, at least on the top of the mattress. The size and mattress make the bed much more comfortable; in a simple test, Claire couldn't even tell I was jiggling around on it.

The bathroom is huge, and everything is fresh water. That's one thing that we hadn't considered in Majuro; the toilets are fed with lagoon water. This was pointed out by the visiting family, and when mentioned, made perfect sense. This is probably why there was a little funk in the bathrooms all of the time. The salt water has a bit of a heavy odor when it evaporates. Also, the toilet flushed at every try, the sink and shower worked, and the water was hot enough to hurt.

Most noticeable, we realized that we hadn't seen any bugs. In the hotel in Majuro there was always an ant in sight. We also had a share of roaches, flies, and the occasional wasp or hornet or whatever they were. This is a little due to the maintenance of the hotel, but also due to the way things work there in general. I'm not disrespecting the Marshall Islands Resort, or bragging on the Hawaii Prince Hotel, Waikiki. I'm just noting the differences.

We shook off the tired and got ready. We pulled a happy, well-rested Grace from her crib. Everyone got dressed, and we left the room. Adventure awaited. We went downstairs and started checking the hotel for a quick and easy place to eat. The time had drifted to about 2:30PM, and the hotel's restaurants were closed. This was a little odd, as we figured there'd always be something open in the hotel. I brought the Mac to make some notes and maybe take advantage of the WiFi Claire thought was in the lobby, and we left the diaper bag in the room figuring we'd just zip upstairs if we needed to.

We checked with the concierge and confirmed the hotel was kind of shut-down while the kitchen switched from lunch to dinner. She directed us to the shopping mall, just a piece down the street. She said “a half-mile” like that's a long way. It wasn't really a long way before, equating to a handful of blocks in our neighborhood, and certainly after walking to the Payless and NTA as we had, a half-mile isn't even a challenge. We set out for the mall.

Hawaii is loads different than Majuro. Of course it is. We're on the island of Oahu, which has a big mountain in the middle. Actually a pair of small mountain ranges, with a generous valley in the middle. The hotel is oceanside, with a marina on the other side of the road between the hotel and the water. The water is as smooth and calm as the lagoon in Majuro, and the surf can be seen washing over what I guess is a wall, natural or otherwise, at the end of the marina.

We walked out the island-side of the hotel, and were greeted by a busy, two-lane road. Busses and SUVs and cars and motorcycles whizzed by as we walked down the sidewalk. The air was clear and crisp and not very humid. The sky was a beautiful blue, peppered with wispy clouds, and the sun was high and bright, but not too hot.

We chatted about the differences we'd noticed so far. There's litter along the roads here, as there was in Majuro, but not nearly as much. We crossed a bridge, and in the water below were some floating rings, like the ones that separate racing lanes in a swimming pool. They'd collected much floating debris. We couldn't see the whole rings, and guessed that they were there to trap the trash before it drifted into more scenic areas.

Of course, the traffic is much heavier. We'd actually encountered heavy traffic in Majuro on a few occasions, but it was on the order of dozens of cars in a row going in each direction on the road. Sometimes there was a bit of a jam up as someone waited to turn left across the traffic. Here, the traffic is three or four lanes in each direction. At nearly 3PM it was flowing smoothly, but heavily in both directions.

After the bridge we came to an intersection. It was busy in both directions, so we waited with the few other pedestrians for the signal. We made it from one corner to the other, waited, and then crossed the rest of the way. At the corner was the mall.

We walked into the parking area at the street level. There we learned that the whole mall must be elevated, because it was parking level all the way through. We made our way to a stairwell and climbed up to the first level of the mall.

The mall is huge. We saw a brochure at the hotel that bragged this to be the biggest mall in the world, and it might just be true. Sure, the Mall of America, in our home town, is a huge building, with shops on five levels surrounding an amusement park, and containing a zoo-quality shark-filled aquarium. We found an information board and studied the map, looking for the California Pizza Kitchen that the concierge mentioned, prompting our visit. It's on the fourth level on the opposite end of the mall from where we stood. We meandered and found the elevator on that end and found the restaurant.

We were seated in a big booth, so we could flop Grace out. She wasn't asleep, but was calm and took to laying on the table just fine. Plenty to look at on the ceiling. The waiter appeared, apologizing for his delay, even though I'd not yet had time to open my menu. We ordered drinks, Claire an iced tea, me an Arnold Palmer, and an appetizer. The guy returned with our drinks, apologizing for taking so long, and took our pizza orders. We drank and chatted a little, and he returned with our appetizer, and topped off our drinks. Only once, when I tried to beat him, did I come close to draining my glass before he topped it off.

While I appreciate the whole different island time atmosphere on Majuro, this island had a much more responsive time. Our whole dining experience, from entry to declining desert and paying for everything lasted about an hour. In Majuro, it sometimes took an hour for food to appear after ordering it. Again, we had nothing keeping us from lounging while we were there, but it's nice to have the speed. We liked being relaxed, but now that we're a little closer to the race, we're liking the pace again.

After lunch, we wandered the mall to Sears, where we looked for sleepers, or fun red, white, and blue outfits for our new American. We also peeked at really inexpensive umbrella strollers, but didn't find one that suited our need, and we decided we're not quite that lazy yet. On the way out we strolled through Old Navy, but didn't see any outfits there, either.

Further on the way out, we stopped and chatted with some guys at a Verizon kiosk. More accurately, they were at a Diamond Wireless kiosk, selling Verizon services and phones. They didn't have the connections or accesses to Verizon to get everything related to our account and its discounts and upgrades and so on. Claire did get a peek at the phones, though, so she's got an appetite to replace her drowned Droid.

We made our way back to the room, for a little bit of a rest. More from the travel and busy day the first time around on Friday than anything we did today. I managed to doze off with Grace for a while, while Claire made with the on-line research of the phones. I'd tethered my Droid to the Mac, and while slow, it's still faster than we'd gotten used to in Majuro. Also, there wasn't a warning clock ticking down. The NAT software I have that allows me to tether my Droid occasionally hiccups, so there was a lot of frustrated “retry” clicks to load pages.

Around 7PM we decided we'd had enough lounging in the room and wanted to get out. We stopped by the Reef Lounge in the hotel lobby, but no one else was there. It's definitely set up as a quick-drink bar, and while they sell food, it's really just the room service menu. The guy manning the empty bar recommended the Chart House, which is just in the next building over, on the marina side.

We took a walk down and found it without any trouble. The guy had tried to give us directions with landmarks and so on, but in reality, all he needed to say was “out the door, left, go until you see the big sign that says 'Chart House'.” We peeked at the menu, and between that and the loud music coming out, considered not going in. We went up the stairs and requested something a little far from the music. The three piece band was good, but a little loud. As they took us to the other side of the house, we quickly realized that the proximity to the band is what made it so loud, and where they seated us was pleasantly acoustic.

We both chose their Sunset Special, which included a salad, entree, and dessert. We chose different entrees and desserts. Grace fussed a bit, so Claire took her for a little walk about. Just then the guy brought salad. I waited for what seemed like a very long time and slowly ate my salad. Claire came back with a sleeping Grace, and told of the nice couple she'd gotten into a conversation about. She wasn't gone because Grace was trouble for so long, as I'd feared, but because of the conversation. The waiter came with our entrees, but happily put Claire's under a warming lamp while she finished her salad, and then brought it out when she was ready. We were just about done with dessert and yummy fresh decaf Kona coffee, when Grace stirred.

We finished up with dinner and returned to the room. Grace went down for the night after playing with her a little, and another bottle, and we turned in, too.