Our plane landed at 10:14 this morning. Since we were traveling from east to west, we arrived on the same day we left Hong Kong. Please don’t ask me to explain international time travel. I’ll leave that to Hubs.
Speaking of Hubs, the man is genius. When we arrived, he had already set up an appointment letting the immigration officials know we were coming so they expected us and processed our paperwork rather quickly.
We were traveling with one precious brown envelope to from the US Consulate in Guangzhou. We were forbidden by American law to open the envelope. Imagine our surprise, when we gave the immigration official the precious brown envelope only to watch her literally rip it open.
The immigration official stamped us back into America and activated Sianna’s visa. All official documents in the precious brown envelope were hand delivered to the Homeland Security Office by an immigration official. And so begins Sianna’s American citizenship process!
Hubs payed attention to what was going on and answered all questions. Meanwhile, I chased Sianna and Schäfer around immigration. She crawled. He ran and jumped and climbed.
Once through customs, we met our new friend, Karen, who is blessing our time in Honolulu. She came with lei’s for our entire family – except Sianna who received a pink Hello Kitty sippy cup. Karen also brought a large vehicle with 2 car seats to get us to the hotel. Amazing.
Of course, Hubs who enjoys hunting down anything found the most comfortable hotel in the best location for the best price. My man loves to hunt! We’ll be in a hotel for a few nights until a nearby guest house is available.
By 12:30pm, we were settling into our room. I’m pretty sure I fell asleep before the kids went down for their naps. Hubs did not slow down. It was man vs. jet lag and man won. He went out in search of a SIM card and milk. After trying many local spots, he hopped on a bus and got himself to Best Buy. On the way there, he passed the Homeland Security Office where we’ll have our appointment tomorrow.
By 4:30pm, we were all awake, happy and ready to go for a walk on the Waikiki Historic Trail.
Everything was going smoothly until Schäfer saw the ocean. He simply wanted to get in. NOW. Without floaties. We informed him that we didn’t want him to be sucked out into the ocean and he’d have to wait until he had floaties on.
Sianna loved watching the ocean. We put her down in the sand and she still enjoyed watching the water until…
…it came up and touched her feet. She wasn’t too pleased. We’re not worried. In a day or so, we probably won’t be able to keep her out of it.
Meanwhile, Schäfer was begging to go swimming in to ocean.
Eventually, we got back on the Waikiki Trail which has lots of statues and tells the history of Waikiki long before tourists and hotels. For Schäfer, the statues on the trail were less interesting than the actual surfers walking by with their long boards. “Mommy, can we buy a surf board?” was requested more than once.
For supper, we stopped at Hank’s Haute Dogs. Hubs is on a mission to eat at as many famous, local spots as he can.
Isn’t this stroller amazing? Karen loaned it to us! I wasn’t sure how Sianna would like it. Our stroller died in May so she’s been in the Ergo exclusively for 6 weeks. I put her in a friend’s stroller a couple of days ago, but she didn’t like it at all. She calmed down as soon as she saw me. She didn’t like me being behind her pushing the stroller. Well, the stroller Karen borrowed is perfect! Sianna is so content and happy. She loves watching Hubs or I push the stroller along and she feels really secure.
At Hank’s Haute Dogs, Hubs had the classic Chicago dog with “the famous snap”.
Schäfer and I shared the Hawaiian dog with pineapple relish, passion fruit mustard and grilled Maui sweet onions. Of course, Schäfer ate mostly all the toppings!
Sianna tried some of our Hawaiian hot dog, but mostly ate raisins and goldfish crackers.
After supper, we continued our walk and enjoyed the view of Diamond Head Crater Park.
Our last stop of the evening, was for a shaved ice at Puka’s.
Hubs ordered the Hawaiian Dream which was pineapple, coconut and lilikoi (aka. passionfruit).
Schäfer couldn’t not contain his happiness.
Since we’re back in America, of course we’ve had a little culture shock:
- It’s strange that we’re in America. Maybe it’s because when I think of the beach, I think about Thailand? Or maybe it’s because we’re in such a touristy spot that we’ve been hearing so much Japanese and Korean.
- Even though we’re here during the touristy season, it doesn’t seem crowded at all.
- The best deal for using the bus is a $40 one month bus card. Hmmm… that’s $40 per person! YIKES.
- The price of food is to be expected. We’re in Waikiki. I’m trying not to think about it.
- Everyone here has huge SUV strollers with for multiple kids. They are really convenient and easy to use – until in China where it’s crowded, stairs galore, and buses.
Yes, just add water to our children and presto, fish appear!
Shaved ice is a Taiwan thing. We have reached the age we can't eat it as much as we would like. Have fun and we are remembering the process to dad.
hi
So glad you guys are on your way to finishing her adoption stuff. I freaked out at giving that brown envelope away. In our travels, I told hubs that we could loose almost any piece of luggage and it would be ok, but to lose the backpack with that brown envelope would have thrown be into a tailspin. Have a great time in Hawaii! Hopefully you'll get to relax a little and have some good family time