In Hawaii they have the saying that you should adjust to island time. Meaning that everything moves a bit slower here than at mainland US. Well we must have adjusted quickly to island time, as we just realised that we have been already on Hawaii for more than a week and we have not yet written any blog on this site.If you don’t, you might want to follow u as well on Facebook, as we do post more regular there.
Anyway, today we uploaded our first batch of pictures and written this blog for our readers. A little over a week ago we arrived in Honolulu. The huge storm in Sydney did cause some delays to our flighty, but otherwise the flight went okay and the kids and we managed to get a few hours of sleep. But when we 
arrived in Honolulu we were utterly confused; we left New Zealand Wednesday evening, but we arrived in Hawaii Wednesday morning. We somehow traveled back in time, at least that it was what we thought until we realised we crossed the international date line. Anyway after a quick call to the landlord we managed to check-in to our beach house in Waimanalo a day earlier.
When we researched Hawaii, we got advised that if you don’t like thousands of tourists, sleeping in high rise buildings on the beach of Waikiki, it might be better to stay on the windward coast of Oahu. The beaches are nicer there and there are much less people, so you can get the real Hawaii’n beach experience and enjoy the almost empty beaches. During the 
weekends it tend to get more busy with locals, but throughout the week the windward beaches are nearly empty. This is what we like, so hence we ended-up in a beach house a few steps away from Waimanalo beach.
We spent less time sunbathing at the beach than what we had anticipated originally. The windward coast is called windward because…..right…….it is windy sometimes. And for most of the days of our stay the tradewinds (the winds blowing over the Pacific Ocean) were particular strong. It’s not that it gets cold, everyday the temperature hovers around 27 degC, but the sea gets choppy, the waves a bit higher and it is less fun to sit on the beach and swim in the sea. However, the beaches are still great for walking or building sand castles and the leeward beaches are only half an hour drive away, so we had plenty of beach time. We even started a new activity, collecting sea glass. Coloured pieces of glass that have been tumbled in the ocean for years washes up onshore and is used for decoration or making jewellery. The sea glass pieces have round smooth edges and the surface is frosted from the time in the sea.
What else did we do on Oahu. One day we made the classic road trip to the north shore. In winter time the
north shore is the surf mecca of the world, as the surf can rise up to 20 or 30 feet and surfers from all over the world come here to practice and show-off their skills. Now it is spring time and the surf is less high, but still worth a visit. Also the north shore has a beach called turtle beach, as you can find often green turtles sunbathing on the beach. This is very rare, as in most places where turtles occur they only come onshore to lay their eggs. But here in Oahu they do come onshore regularly and we managed to find 4 turtles and enjoyed seeing them close-up. Also north shore supposedly has the best shaved ice-cream of Hawaii, something we did not want to miss-out on.
We had one rainy day and on that day we decided to visit the Children discovery centre. This is kind of mix between a museum and a children’s indoor playground. They have all kind of things that kids can play with, they can dress-up as a firemen, a doctor or anything else, but while they play they also manage to teach you things about your health, about jobs or about Hawaii’n culture.
We also spend a day on Waikiki beach. What a difference from our quiet Waimanalo beaches. In Waikiki 
the beach is full with tourists and it is difficult to find a nice spot for yourself. There are hotels, shops and restaurants everywhere and the place is really busy. We liked to see it once and we enjoyed the day at this beach, but we were also glad with our choice to stay on the windward side of the island.
Tomorrow we will fly to Kauai, for a different island experience. So stay tuned and enjoy the pictures.