We got back from the triathlon later than I had anticipated and the drive to Diamondhead took a little longer than anticipated as well, so when we go there the lot was full. Our options were to park at the park down the hill and walk to the entrance or come back another day. If we had opted to park and walk, that would have added an hour to the hike and we didn’t have that kind of time since the bike had to be back by a certain time. We decided to skip Diamondhead today and come back tomorrow. Instead, we headed to the swap meet.
The Aloha Bowl Swap meet is a bunch of venders who set up booths outside of the Aloha Bowl. They go all the way around. We parked, made note of where we were and set off walking. Madison had in mind some things she wanted but the rest of us were just looking. There was some interesting stuff, some cheap stuff, some food and lots of beach towels, bathing suits and luggage. Along the way we got hot and decided some shave ice sounded good. And it was, but it also melted pretty fast. We made our purchases and found our car and headed back to the resort to get the bike.
Back at the resort we ate lunch and then loaded up the bike. We dropped it off at the bike shop and then headed into downtown Honolulu so we could make sure we had time to find parking and figure out where we were meeting for our segway tour. The confirmation had said to meet at the Hilton Hawaiian Village so we figured we would try to find parking there. We did (for $24).
We got out and went to find the tower we were supposed to meet by. Oh my! That resort is HUGE. And it’s not just a resort. They have all kinds of shops on the property. High dollar ones, too. I almost think that the place is too big for me. I’m not sure I would enjoy staying there. It’s like its own little town. Anyway, we found where we needed to be and it was close to the beach so we went to check out the beach there. It was pretty but very crowded. We hung out in the park next to it until it was time for the tour to start.
When the tour guides got there we discovered it was our family and one other couple who would be on the tour. It turns out the other couple was from Australia. We all got to put our lovely helmets on and then one by one they taught us how to get on and operate the segway. It’s actually quite easy once you get the hang of it. The sudden stop took a little bit, but the rest was easy.
As soon as everyone was comfortable, we headed out for our tour. We went fairly slow at first. This was so that we could get use to the segway and also to get us out of the busy part of town. Once we got to Ala Moana Park, he let us go full speed and even took us up and down some of the hills there. We went to several landmarks and took some scenic pictures. We took a small break to give our feet a rest and then we headed back.
Going back through the park were some bumps and Dalton was getting bumped around on his segway, so the tour guide gave Dalton his heavy duty segway with the offroad tires. Boy was Dalton happy! The tour was really fun. I would have liked to see more of downtown during the tour, but you can’t do that tour unless you are 16 or over so it wasn’t an option for us.
When we were done, one of the tour guides took us to the penguin exhibit. Yep, you read that right. The Hilton Hawaiian Village has a penguin exhibit and have real penguins. Somehow they have the temperature regulated for the penguins. It was pretty weird to see penguins in Hawaii.
We then headed home where I had to get warm and we all at a little something before heading to bed for the evening.
No comments:
Post a Comment