Last day in Hawaii

Today we had to move the car at 9:30 am. But that was no problem since we were already awake at 5:30 am. Heike used the time to go for a jog in the park. Since she still had plenty of time, she went to the fitness room afterwards.

We wanted to spend our last day in Hawaii at the beach. We found a very nice beach called Kaliua Beach Park. To our surprise, there were no signs indicating that swimming was not allowed. So we jumped into the water without any worries. And there were indeed no big waves, no strong underwater currents, and the water temperature was almost pleasant. However, the carefree splashing came to an abrupt end when a round fish with spines washed ashore next to us. Christian wanted to know what kind of fish it was and whether it was dangerous. So he asked a lifeguard. The lifeguard simply said, "No, no, it's not dangerous, you just shouldn't touch it." Then I asked him if there were any other poisonous sea creatures here. He simply said, "Well, there are Portuguese man o' war and some other fish. But neither of them is dangerous. Portuguese man o' war only causes minor skin irritations and the other fish is actually very rare. But if you don't touch them, it's not dangerous either. And if something were to happen, there are many lifeguards here. You won't die." That's one way to look at it. That must be the Hawaiian serenity. Heike was not reassured by the lifeguard's statement and preferred to stay on the beach. Unfortunately, the weather became so unpleasant that we had to end our day at the beach. We went to the nearest supermarket as we were all hungry. We were pleasantly surprised by this supermarket called Target. There were actually groceries that were comparable to German prices. We bought plenty of supplies for the flight the next day.

On our way back to our hotel, we hoped to find a parking space quickly. We were delighted to find a free parking space immediately. Today, there was a street festival expected to attract 10,000 people. You could even stand on the parking lot continuously the next day. But that wasn't so important to us, as we had to get up at 5:30 am the next day. Nevertheless, we were very happy to have found a parking space at all.

When we arrived at our hotel, we asked the reception for a scale to weigh our luggage. The receptionist had to make a phone call first. After the phone call, she said that there was a bathroom scale in the fitness room that we could use. So Christian and Heike stuffed all the heavy things into the big backpacks and went to the fitness room to weigh the backpacks. But there was no digital scale as we had hoped, but a prehistoric instrument on which you had to move the weights back and forth on a horizontal rail. The minimum weight of the scale was 20 kilograms. That didn't really help us, as we had to weigh the carry-on luggage, which could not weigh more than seven kilograms. So Christian stepped on the scale, as Heike vehemently refused.

It turned out that our big backpacks weighed about 16 kilograms each. The small ones were almost empty. With the certainty of not having any stress at check-in the next day, we returned to our room in peace.

To relax, we got ourselves a coffee and lay down by the pool. The water was too cold for us, but the atmosphere was wonderful. However, the kids happily jumped into the water. They practiced diving there. After a while and many attempts with Mattis' support and encouragement, Flora managed to swim across the pool.

After that, Christian and Heike went to a street festival. The kids didn't want to join and stayed in the apartment instead.

The street festival consisted of a long row of food and clothing stalls. Heike and Christian strolled along leisurely and admired the sometimes very beautiful dresses and artworks.

After about an hour, they were back and everyone went to sleep. Because the next day we had to get up early..