hawaii, part one.

So that little vacation I teased in my final Eurotrip post was the one I just took with my parents to Hawaii. We decided to get away from the cold and spend Christmas on the island of Oahu, which was such a good idea. The warmth and sunshine felt amazing, and I was able to give some of my summer clothing another wear or two before the year was up.

We arrived in Honolulu in the afternoon on Christmas Eve and settled into our room in a beachfront hotel in Waikiki. With a quick outfit change into something less wintery, we were off to explore the area, as it was our first time on Oahu, but our third time in Hawaii (we’ve been to Maui and the Big Island).

Our first full day, which was Christmas day (Mele Kalikimaka!) commenced with a short tanning session at Kuhio Beach before heading out to Marukame Udon, which is THE udon hotspot in Waikiki. The place hadn’t even opened yet when we got there, but there was already a huge lineup. After a good 20 minutes of waiting, we finally were inside. The restaurant is set up as a self-serve kind of place, where you have your choices of how you want your udon and there are sides that you can pick from. I went with a Karu Udon (cold udon without soup) and grabbed a seaweed musubi (rice ball wrapped in seaweed).

We rested in our room and I tanned a bit before attempting to sort out of Christmas dinner plans. Of course a bunch of restaurants we wanted to go to were booked fully because of the occasion, we ended up grabbing food at a Korean BBQ takeaway.

Part two will be up soon! x