We’re up early and shake the bedbugs from our bad selves (oh god we hoped not…) and leave the Beverly for the airport.

I was excited about the drive. If you Google-Map (is that a verb?) a route from the Beverly to LAX you might get a route that goes through Century City or if you’re adventurous enough, through Culvert City. I chose that purely because I’m playing Grand Theft Auto V right now and there’s some good dirt biking there. Virtually.

Thankfully at 6am the traffic was light and we made good time. At one of the lights we stopped and met with one of LA’s finest landmarks:

I was super jazzed.

We hit the check in desk for Hawaiian Air. Our first Hawaiian helped us with our boarding pass and if her sweetness was any indication of what was in store for us, we were going to have an incredible time.

The fight was uneventful. For me.

Much like an 80s stand up comedy routine, poor SharkBoy had a baby kicking his seat for 5 hours. A few words were exchanged even before we hit the tarmac and while the mother was embarrassed, she did little to stop the runt from kicking. She was the kind of “hands off” mom that apologized for the kid’s behaviour yet did nothing about it. Hate that. The Dad was worse. He tried to get us to switch with his parents so they could all sit together – give up seats we chose 8 months ago for something in the middle section? I think not.

Anyhoo… other than that the flight was ok. I’m getting better at suppressing panic attacks when I fly over water!

We land and pick up our rental car. Pro Tip: Never take a black car in a tropical location. Ugh. So hot.

What was our first Hawaiian destination, you ask? A temple? A surf shop? Shaved Ice? No. Costco. We grab some cheap beach towels and crap-load of macadamia nuts. Seriously. We need snacks!

One thing about driving in Oahu: signage is seriously lacking. I think we have it easy in Ontario where we have kilometres of warning before your exit. But in Waikiki/Honolulu, the exits explode upon you like a hyperactive kid on Halloween. Over the 11 days we were in Oahu there was a lot of shouting and fuming as we cut off many drivers.

We hit the hotel. Check in was fast and as SharkBoy turned on his magical Check-in charm, we were upgraded from a King bedded room, lower floor overlooking the city to a 2 Dbl bedded room on the 29th floor. Yay! They also gave us a small paper bag to go into a candy boutique to fill up – FOR FREE! They knew us too well.

We dump the luggage and do some exploring. We walked along the beach, hit the gayest bar in all of Waikiki (Hula’s Bar and Lei Stand) and stumble home to eat some food. We’re in bed by 9pm because we had a full day ahead of us (plus it was also 3am, body time). I’m surprised I didn’t take a lot of pictures on this day. Mostly InstaGrams,

Next up… Diamond Head!