Change of Plans

We slept okay last night but we were still up by 6:00. I'm sure after today the time change will be even more in our systems.
We started the day out trying to find stamps for postcards. We had to go to the "ABC Store" to get them. So we walked down the street. "ABC Stores" are EVERYWHERE!!!
We had a welcome breakfast to go to at 8:00 at the Maui Divers Jewelry. This was a sells pitch for Expedia. They wanted us to book things to do on the island. We couldn't believe how many people go on vacation and don't know what they are going to do until after they are there. We found that we booked all of our things for cheaper prices and we booked all the popular and fun things. We are so excited. At the end they had 3 door prize drawing. We won one of them. We now are going to go to the Sea Life Park on Saturday. We loved winning, it just made us move some things around. They took pictures of us and wanted to charge $16-20 for postcard size pictures. NOT! They did have a free photo shoot with a free 8X10 also. So once again we rearranged things and will be doing that on Thursday.
We then went on a "free" tour of the Maui Divers Jewelry. Whatever. They sold us a pearl right out of the shell and then tried to make us buy the jewelry to put it on. The cheapest jewelry we saw was $170. Once again, NOT! We got out of there as fast as we could.
We then went to "The Cheesecake Factory" for lunch. We have never been there and I really wanted to go. We had to have cheesecake for dessert of course. We decided on the Hawaiian cheesecake, the "White Chocolate Carmel Macadamia Nut Cheesecake". What a mouthful. Litterally. That was a sugar high for me. We worked it off later though.
We then went to the International Market Place. It had tons of shops and most of the shops had the same things. We found a Sarong for me and a nice shirt for Aaron. I also got some things for my hair. It was fun. I have such a hard time buying things for myself. Aaron does it well though.
On our walk back to the hotel, we walked down on the beach, sometimes being in the water. We were supposed to go look at the statues in downtown Honolulu but Aaron now had a giant craving to get in the water. We changed into our suits, borrowed some boogie boards from our hotel, and went to the ocean. I immediately swam out as far as I wanted. After a time Aaron asked me go back closer to the shore with him. He was riding the waves in and having a lot of fun. I was trying to ride the waves but just was not getting it. Finally Aaron helped me a bit and I started to get it a little. We played for about 2.5 hours. The water was a nice temperature and there were people around but not too many. It was just plain old fun.
Aaron decided that the camera had too much sand in it so we went back to the hotel and "fixed" it. We couldn't believe how much time had gone by. We decided we had better have dinner. We looked in some dining books we have and I found "Ono Hawaiian Foods". It looked kind of close so we walked again. We saw a side of town we hadn't seen yet.
This restaurant makes you wait outside before being seated. It's a quaint and small place. We wanted to try "real" hawaiian food and that's what we got. For $20 we shared Laulau (pork wrapped and cooked in taro leaves), Kalua Pig, rice, poi, (which Aaron really liked, and I liked it with the onions. Aaron decided that the taste is SNABBY!) Picalaula (meat that tasted like beef jerky but tender, really good) Loni Salmon (which had tons of tomatoes so I ate it. Yum!)and they gave us some dessert thing. We don't know the name of it. We loved all this food, the atmosphere, and the hawaiian feel. We are so glad we went there.
When we walked out we found that it was raining. Almost like a heavy sprinkle. It was nice. We walked back to the hotel in it. After a short rest, (my back isn't liking being up and going without rest) we went out to a gazebo on the end of a pier. The waves were Huge! I should tell you that it was way dark by now. We enjoyed the sound of the waves crashing and could see the moon shining across the water.
We then walked up the beach by the shops. It was crazy to see all the people and the way people are in touristy places. We walked all the way back to the International Market Place and a little more. We liked looking in some shops and just seeing what they have. We found a really nice dress but not willing to pay so much money. We took some pictures in front of the Duke of Kahanamoku. He's the father of modern surfing. If you get on some website, you can see Waikiki live from this Dukes statue. We found that we had been close to this statue a couple of time and even past it before we realized it was there.
After walking for 2 hours we have finally made it back to our hotel. We are exhausted and worn out. I can't see us not sleeping well tonight.