Tantalus is a set of trails in the back woods of Honolulu. Surprisingly I haven’t checked them out until I was over in the area the other day and I had Jess meet me to explore. We could only get a couple miles in, but it was a great exploration adventure!
First of all, you drive up these switchbacks and end up at a lookout with an amazing view of Honolulu and Diamondhead. It’s a little paved path out to this lawn area and overlook.
It happened to be raining so I got a couple epic rainbows
We had just enough time to fit in a small loop so we took Uala’ka and nearly got lost a bunch of times because there a few off the record trails. We got two miles in before the sunset though.
I didn’t want to spend too much time lallygagging but here’s a really beautiful tree. Pictures never do these justice.
This is one of those things you just go to experience once… well, for me at least. Essentially the tradition started at the Moana Surfrider hotel to drink tea and escape the sun in mid afternoons. So now you can reserve a spot at a table to eat finger sandwiches, drink tea (or cocktails), and enjoy time with friends. I thought the experience was good to do once, but “not my cup of tea”. We were there from 1pm-4pm and the food was just meh, especially for the price ($80 including one cocktail). I drank a little bit of tea, but I’m not a huge fan. Lots of sweets. Again, glad I did it, but probably won’t go again… there are plenty things I’d rather do/spend that money on. I was glad to have carpooled with someone from the group who I got to know better. We also stopped and shopped quickly after and I was reminded why I think Waikiki is so crazy… it’s so busy! I got another sun shirt this time with manta rays on it… I was excited about that because I didn’t buy any souvenirs from our manta ray scuba at big island.
Our experience in Waikiki was a HUGE difference between when we were there in May. Here are some (ok, a lot) of pictures I took during our walk to the restaurant from the convention center. We walked down Honolulu’s version of Newbury street, Kalakaua Ave. I won’t bore you with a million photos of expensive stores, but here are a couple.
There are opportunities to cut through to the beach along the way and plenty of board storage we are assuming is public.
In this picture I am about 20 feet away from four homeless people. You can see one barely on the right. It’s a significant issue in Honolulu.
We walked by a lot of fancy hotels, including the Surfrider.
This post is getting to be very lengthy, so I’ll break up Tiki’s and walk back into a second post. I’ll end with this quintessential picture of Waikiki. First of all, these trees are the coolest. Banyan trees can walk. The cars are meant to give you perspective to just how big it is. Second, you’ll see kids in the back of a pick up truck. In Hawaii, Hawaiians can travel in the back of trucks. Third, this is a roundabout of sorts, and you’ll see people packing their boards on top after a day of surfing. And last, you can see the hoards of people walking to the beach (Still… at 5pm on a Saturday.)
For Brian’s birthday I made reservations at our favorite Honolulu restaurant for sunset (we’ve only been to three Honolulu restaurants… so that isn’t saying too much). I also wanted to go see what this Van Gogh Immersive Experience was all about. I think it’s the first real event since COVID. So we scheduled that at 3:15pm and then made a slow walk to the restaurant. Tickets were ~$40 each, we had a military rate for that.
Overall, I would do it again but at a different time with less crowds. It starts off kinda slow and museum-y. You start by walking into a big room with standing “powerpoint slides” which talk a bit about his life, make some big assumptions about his artwork and essence, and have some cool hanging frames. (I’ll compare a couple “slides” to high school english when you go to class and the teacher says “the carpet was red in that room to signify power” and really for all we know the carpet was red because the author liked red. But who am I to say how much these people studied Van Gogh?)
The color and art behind the slides was beautiful. There is beautiful classical-y music playing in the background. Next, you walk into another big room which is projecting colors on the wall that start at the top and flow down. That is a door to the left the colors get “hung” on.
Brian was entertained by this
Finally you get to what I consider the real “immersive” part. You walk into an even bigger room with a ton of people. A “presentation” plays for about an hour cycling through different aspects of his work. Portraits, landscapes, flowers, etc. There are projectors projecting onto the walls and floors.
They incorporate a lot motion, above the writing was being written in real time, and here the stars are actually twinkling.
In the above portraits of himself, some of them blink.
The transitions were wicked cool Here you can see the house scenery getting colored. It happens really slowly.
And this turned from a static picture of flowers on tree branches with lots of that teal blue background to completely raining pedals.
You can tell how packed it was because I hardly got any pictures without anybody. When we had entered the room, we saw the signatures showing up (which made it a bit confusing). But then the rest of it started playing. When the signatures showed up again we knew it had cycled and made our way out. So did everyone, so I got a pretty clean picture.
There was a group of 5 families who came together that happened to be in there with us… all with kids no older than 7. It happened to be pretty distracting. I am all for bringing kids to experiences, but maybe not in a posse of 15?
I didn’t get bored at all watching it, it was really well paced. Would recommend going on off peak hours. It was really impressive the work they did to add motion and flow and get all the projectors synced. I’m glad we went.
Brian is one of three department heads on a boat, he is the Nav (navigator). There is also the Weps (weapons officer) and Eng (Engineer). I will be known as Mrs. Nav. Mrs. Weps is from Vermont, so we clicked really easily. She’s very down to Earth, and Mr. and Mrs. Weps met playing hockey, so we all get along really well. We went to their place to watch a Bruins game on May 23rd, 2021… our 1 year anniversary. This is the view from outside their apartment, inland from Honolulu.
I am convinced that building on the left is the Prudential Center, and unless I see both in the same place I won’t be convinced otherwise.
Four more boxes unpacked and the Peloton was put together today, progress!
Leonard’s is famous in Honolulu for their Malasadas. They are portuguese donuts, basically sugar dough balls that can be stuffed. I did not get an actual picture of the donuts, whoops. I will say they were more filling than donut. The line was long but moved fast. 6/10 on my scale of foodie experiences. I like my donut with a side of filling. They also have a ton of other goodies. I’d compare this experience to going to Mike’s Pastries in the North End, except the cannolis are way more worth it.
The views were pretty incredible and we already booked reservations for sunset for when my family visits in April.
The food was great, drinks were great. 10/10 recommend this place. Some places we’ve visited but don’t have pictures:
Waikiki Brewing 8/10 Decent food, relatively easy to get a table, cocktails available
Maui Brewing 5/10 I had a symptom flare here… I was feeling overwhelmed by their ordering process (walk up to a window and it gets brought to your seat which you have to fine), it was really loud, decently long wait
The signature Prime Steakhouse (top of ala moana hotel) 8/10 Really delicious food but you pay the price, piano music, have to have luck getting a table near the windows, service was great
Beach place that I mentioned previously that’s not worth remembering
We tried to go to Duke’s, which seems famous, but it was a THREE HOUR wait. Pass. Stay tuned for more food adventures.
Brian’s new Captain is trying to turn the morale of the boat around, and I think we were early benefactors. When we arrived at the airport we had a greeting party of four men in uniform and two leis for each of us. We were also given a welcome bag with some sunscreen, Hawaiian treats, water, etc. We felt very welcomed. The flowers smell beautiful. And of course we had to wear our matching outfit.
We stayed in a hotel for a few days when we first arrived in Honolulu, otherwise we would’ve had to sleep on the floor in our new apartment. We chose the Ala Moana, which wasn’t the most optimal choice… we should’ve picked the Hale Koa which is apparently a really nice Navy hotel in downtown. The Navy will help pay for your hotel, but TBD whether they will pay for ours or not because we already had an apartment available. Yes, you’re expected to land and get into your apartment with furniture on the same day. Whoever manages those logistics is a superhero. Nonetheless, Ala Moana was in a great location in Honolulu. I took a walk to go see the beach. Here’s looking the direction of Diamond Head.
Then in the opposite direction toward Pearl Harbor. I am not totally convinced I was in the same spot for both those, but you get the point. Beaches and high rises everywhere.
This whole thing was pretty much a blur, so who knows when we did what, but one afternoon we went to Barefoot Beach Cafe. It was the epitome of touristy tourist place, and I would 10/10 not recommend going there unless you want that. You have to fight for a table and the food was typical beach quality. There was live music which was kinda nice. We had this pineapple smoothie? Thing? In a pineapple. But it was like orange juice with pulp except thicker and pineapple. Anyway, just take my word for it and don’t go here. However, the busser was really nice.
At one point we went to a huge mall, called the Ala Moana mall. It really is huge and there are no directories… like what? I would get lost without phone GPS. But of course I went to the Disney store and proceeded to buy Hawaiian Disney Dress, shorts, and a beach blanket which has come in very handy. This my best hoola dance stance. Room for improvement.
