Pearl Harbor

Waking up at 5:30 am was not a big deal at all. Because of our jet lag, we were awake so early that we could turn off the alarms right away.

Christian had moved the car to a different parking lot and came back shortly after.

In the meantime, Heike was busy on the treadmill in the fitness room. When she came back, there was delicious muesli. After that, we wanted to continue exploring the real Hawaii. Because we weren't completely satisfied with our outing yesterday.

But first, there was some history lession: We went to PEARL HARBOR. The whole complex is very beautiful and vividly depicts the history of the day of the attack. You can take a boat to a sunken ship, the Arizona, and view the wreckage underwater. After that, we visited two museum halls that told the history between 1900 and the day of the attack.

After that, we wanted to drive to Turtle Beach, a beach where there are huge turtles. On the way there, we drove across the island. The vegetation was really beautiful. As we drove along a beach road, many cars were parked there on the side of the road. Shortly after, we also saw why: at a small section of the beach, there were the aforementioned giant turtles. So we also got out of the car and walked to the beach. There were volunteers who had cordoned off an area around the turtles with ropes. They made sure that the tourists didn't get too close to the turtles. They also explained a lot about the life of the turtles.

After that, we continued along the beach road and enjoyed the diverse vegetation. Unfortunately, there was no nice beach anymore. It wouldn't have mattered anyway, as the weather became unpleasant and it started to drizzle. After a little detour to a macadamia nut farm, where we ate plenty of nuts and also received some exotic fruits that were picked directly from the tree, we drove back to Waikiki with our convertible. We let the children get out again and went in search of a parking space.

Looking for a parking space with Christian is always a lot of fun. I don't know why, but every time Heike tells him to slow down, Christian steps on the gas pedal. Therefore, we missed quite a few free parking spaces. After the third round, Heike still saw a man sitting in a car, talking on the phone. This time, she was allowed to approach him. Earlier, Christian found it uncomfortable because he was sure the man wouldn't drive away. Unfortunately, Christian was right and the man waved him off. In the fourth round, Heike then saw that the man who had been sitting in the passenger seat switched to the driver's seat and stopped talking on the phone. This time, Heike insisted right away, again to Christian's protest, and asked the man again if he would leave. Actually, the man wanted to stay a bit longer and continue tapping on his phone, but he liked Heike's persistence. He smiled, put his phone aside, and drove away. We could hardly believe our luck. We were very happy to have found a parking space where we didn't have to leave in the morning.

When we arrived at our apartment, Flora had cooked again. We quickly ate because we didn't want to miss the fireworks that take place every Friday on the beach.

We walked briskly to the beach. As soon as we sat down in the sand, it started. A beach fireworks display is really something beautiful. After that, we watched a street artist playing with burning torches and then happily walked back to our apartment.

Although we were quite tired, Christian wanted to find out about the baggage rules of the airline before our flight to Japan. We were supposed to fly with the airline Zipair from Honolulu to Tokyo. We didn't know this Japanese airline yet. Because we were traveling with our big backpacks as carry-on luggage. These were slightly larger than the normally allowed luggage. When we looked at the homepage, we sensed something bad. Instead of the normal 12 kg, only 7 kg carry-on luggage per person was allowed. After that, we looked at the comments of other passengers of the airline. These were very mixed, but in two points they all agreed: the luggage was weighed down to the gram. To avoid any trouble during the flight, we quickly booked two checked baggage items. In addition, we planned to ask at the reception tomorrow if there was a scale so we could weigh our carry-on luggage.

The other point was that there was no food and no drinks served on the plane. Not even water! The plane also wasn't equipped with screens. This shocked the children, especially. For us, it was hard to believe for a nearly nine-hour flight.

After this exciting news, the children complained a little bit, but luckily we fell asleep right away.