HOORAY HONOLULU

Hooray.  We are in Hawaii.  It turns out that our room still has an ocean view, limited though it is, it is  still an ocean view.  and we have a very nice spacious lanai. 

So we changed our clothes and started down to the beach. On the way we were distracted by the fact that there is a farmers market right across the street from our hotel which is only there on Mondays and maybe Friday so we looked at, but didn't buy, these giant avocados

and we bought some cut up pineapple and regular sized avocado, and coconut tapioca pudding  and a malasada, these local kind of donut things that are absolutely delicious. Of course we ate that right away, in spite of the fact they gave us both breakfast and lunch on the plane, and I had a bagel in the airport and bought a sandwich to eat on the plane. 

I have just finished "shopping" for grass mats, which means scavenging the beach for people who have left them when they went home. I now have one good one and one crappy one but I have my eye on another one down the beach if nobody claims it in a half hour.  The evening cruise boats are going out to watch the sunset and we are sitting on the beach and I think it's about half an hour until the sun sets at six.  It's warm, the water is warm. 

We just came down in our clothes and didn't bring our swimsuits today so didn't swim.  

But I finally came up with three grass mats.    

When it got close to sunset we went to the Moana Surfrider and listened to a wonderful group with a hula dancer and had a drink at the bar -- you know, one with lots of fruit and umbrellas but not actually served in a pineapple.   There was a little girl in the audience who was totally enameled of the hula dancer and went on stage and danced with her.   

Then we went to the International Marketplace, which is our favorite place to eat, and it's gone!!  It has fallen to the wrecker's ball, and I swear they're going to put up a multistory building there and call it the international marketplace but it's not going to be like it was. It's going to have a Sak's Fifth Avenue in it.  Yuk.  Nobody of the people that used to be there will be able to afford to have a booth. 

For us on this trip, this means the food we get won't be as good and we're going to pay a lot more for it. We ate tonight at a place called surf and turf tacos. Street food at a restaurant price, and wasn't very good. 

 It's now 8:30.  I'm falling asleep and John is snoring.