10 Days in Hawaii - Day Four: Arriving in Honolulu

May 4, 2021

10 Days in Hawaii - Day Four

The incredible, stark difference between Kona and Honolulu couldn't be more obvious, even from the airplane. What took up the view of a tiny airplane window were the majestic mountains, sadly littered with the development of condominiums and shopping centers. After landing, the chaos in the airport greatly contrasted the peaceful atmosphere and open-air layout that greeted us in Kona. Eventually, we made it through the stuffy airport and headed to get our rental, which ended up being a huge disappointment. Like I mentioned before, we didn't realize there was a national car rental shortage and unfortunately didn't plan ahead. Jake had a deal for a free car with Enterprise but all the cars were gone. The most affordable option was a piece-of-crap Jeep with a soft top, falling apart, for $150/day! We had it for almost 30 minutes before Jake adamantly decided to return it that night once we settled in.

Check-in at our accommodations didn't start until after 2pm, so Jake and I decided to cruise around downtown Honolulu and the surrounding areas past Diamond Head, out to Spitting Caves. After a surprisingly arduous walk down to the cliffs and a few “Danger” signs later, Jake and I found ourselves on what felt like the edge of the world. Feeling the jolt of culture shock as well as the complications with the car, caused an unpleasant amount of stress to arise in both of us, but visiting the cliffs of Spitting Caves(1) easily carried that stress away with the wind. Before leaving for our trip we were considering cliff jumping here after finding a lot of videos of people doing it, but walking on the uneven surface of dried lava up to a ledge that attracts many thrill-seekers made me decide to put my original idea aside. Instead I opted for sitting down and taking in the 180-degree view of the ocean, listening to the waves crash onto the sides of the cliff, “spitting” water back into the ocean - hence the name. It was windy and risky but totally worth it. Later on that day though we found out some disturbing news about that location from a few years back that ultimately made jumping off those cliffs a bad decision.

Fun fact about the drive to Spitting Caves: the path down to this dangerous area is located off a dead-end street of a fancy neighborhood. When we found it, the street happened to be closed off. We soon realized that this was a movie set! For what movie, we had no idea. We saw signs labeled "Sony Motion Pictures" and “20mukbang20” and as we were coming back onto the street from the cliffs, I distinctly recall hearing a woman call, “CUT!”, and hearing an echo of that word as multiple people took the direction. We wanted to sneak a peek of the set but it happened to be inside of someone's house so we could only satisfy our movie set experience with the busses parked along the street and crew members surrounding the house. I totally regret not getting a photo, but I think Jake and I were just busy pretending to be part of the hustle and bustle.

After Spitting Caves and with our bellies rumbling, we stopped in at Liko’s Tap and Table(2), an oceanside restaurant that surpassed my expectations! I ordered carnitas tacos and Jake got the fresh-caught fish sandwich. YUMMY. Jake spoke highly of the sandwich but I didn't even hear his praise because I consumed four tacos before I could say, humuhumunukunukuapua’a (the state of Hawaii fish). The tacos were dressed perfectly in carnitas, cabbage, black bean salsa, pickled red onions, cotija cheese, charred corn, lime crema, and house salsa. Just thinking about it makes me hungry! If you're ever in East Honolulu, I recommend this place for lunch and if you get the tacos I'm sure you won't be disappointed.

By the time we were all done, our room was ready, and we were thankfully able to make it through the afternoon traffic of Honolulu with our sanity still in tact. At first glance, the Airbnb(3) wasn’t much, but as the chatty and friendly host took us on a tour, we fell in love with it's quirkiness. It was a street-side, private room with our own entrance and a shared space for all visitors of the Airbnb. Our favorite feature was being only a 10-minute walk to Waikiki Beach! After settling in (and trading the jeep for Jake's satisfaction), we took a detoured route to the beach, through the streets of Honolulu, past the seaport, to the edge of Waikiki beach. We thoroughly enjoyed watching the sunset and experiencing the lively nightlife of Honolulu. We walked along the shore and decided to take a spontaneous dip in the ocean at 7pm. The ocean wrapped us in her warmth as we played and giggled like little kids.

After our nightly swim, we took a walk in the cool, humid, night air and landed at Waikiki Brewing Company for a nice dinner. This came as a nice surprise because we didn't have any plans to see a brewing company on Oahu! I ordered the pork belly fried rice and Jake, the pulled pork with cornbread, macaroni salad, baked beans, and white rice. My dish was a little heavy on the grease but it didn’t slow me down much. We were genuinely pleased and couldn't pass up the chance to swag up with some of their merchandise. Two happy bellies later, we headed home for our first sleep in Honolulu.

                              

As a fun exercise I asked Jake to describe our first day in Honolulu in three words/phrases and this is what we came up with:

Jake - (1) we (2) miss (3) Kona 

Nell - (1) shockingly stressed (2) breathtaking views (3) whimsical decisions

(1) Spitting Caves: https://www.alltrails.com/trail/hawaii/oahu/spitting-cave?u=i

(2) Liko's Tap and Table: https://www.likoshawaii.com/

(3)HonoluluAirbnb:https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/30856389?source_impression_id=p3_1621209609_xbJkUdoQKEvNag0n&guests=1&adults=1