honoZOOlu

At 9:30am the kids were still sleeping soundly. I guess we’re wearing them out. To be honest, it’s strange not to have the kids wake us up at 5:20 (Sianna’s preferred time) or at the very least by 6am. We usually get a good 2 hours of family time together in the morning before our day begins.

Today, by 10:30, we finally had them out the door and heading to the zoo. Everyone was excited.

On our way, we decide that breakfast would be good. Of course by that time it was getting near lunch, so we stopped off once again at Teddy’s Biggest Burgers. The best thing about eating lunch at 11:00am: no line!

Sandra had a small Teri burger and I had a Jala Burger. Hers was fab like last time. Mine was really good as well – it had jalapeno poppers inside. We had the pineapple shake which was also good, but certainly not as tasty as the peanut butter shake.

The Honolulu Zoo is just across from Teddy’s Bigger Burgers.

Schäfer insisted that we take his and Sianna’s photo on this elephant. She wasn’t too thrilled with the idea, but you can see that his love for Sianna is unlimited. He adores her.

There was a little tumble at the end, but thankfully no blood was involved.

Sianna absolutely loved the zoo.

Schäfer requested that we take a photo of him with the giraffe’s.

We especially liked the African savanna with the zebras, giraffes, rhinos and Sandra’s personal favorite: the African crowned crane. Of all the zoo’s we’ve been to (Beijing, Guangzhou, Yichang, JiuJiang) I’d say that animals in Honolulu were pretty happy.

While walking through the zoo, Schäfer would say, “Follow me. I’m going to show you something very scary!”

This is mostly what we saw of Schäfer: the back of him. For most of the day, he was either looking at an animal or running ahead to the next exhibit.

Our family at the zoo.

Sianna loved pointing to all the animals and saying, “deh! deh!”

We thought the zoo might take an hour or so. We were wrong. The zoo is large. The animals are active. And our little monkey found his own place to hang around.

In Asia, we take our shoes off whenever we enter a home. Even in our own home, we don’t wear shoes inside. Schäfer has assumed that means we take our shoes off whenever we are in a “nice place”. Today, he kept asking to take his shoes off so he could play on this nice playground. We told him all the other kids were wearing shoes, but he insisted.

Schäfer also keeps speaking Chinese to everyone who is Asian or who looks Asian. Bless their hearts. Bless his heart too. Although we have met quite a few Chinese tourist, we tried to explain that some people are Hawaiian, Japanese, Korean, etc. but he just doesn’t yet have that in his worldview.

Sianna also enjoyed the play area. She wrestled a crocodile.

While Schäfer played, I took Sianna over to a rocker and got her down for a much needed nap. We decided that since the kids slept until 10am then we would skip Schäfer’s afternoon nap with the hopes of getting everyone to bed by 7:30pm or at least closer to our normal schedule. (Seriously, we pay for it when the kids don’t get enough sleep.)

While Sianna slept, Schäfer went to the petty zoo. He enjoyed petting the goats. The llama wouldn’t oblige.

His favorite part of the petting zoo was dressing up like a zoo keeper and playing with Legos.

Schäfer had no interest in seeing any more animals if it meant 1.) taking off his zoo keeper uniform or 2.) leaving the Legos.

Meanwhile, Sianna absolutely refused to go down for a nap. While in the rocker, she took a light rest in Sandra’s arms, but then a large group of Spanish speaking tourists sat down on some benches and began their fiesta.

Sianna was awake for the rest of the day with maybe a 40 minute mid-day nap. (She needs a solid 3 hour nap to make it till bedtime with joy.)

The zoo was filled with tropical flowers.

Eventually, we left the Legos to check out the tigers. Then, we were off to finish the zoo. Birds. Hawaiian Nene Goose. Birds. Komodo Dragon. Exit.

A 200lb. Komodo Dragon can eat over 80lbs. of meat at one meal. That’s the same as a man eating 64 hamburgers for lunch.

Schäfer said seeing the Komodo Dragon was his favorite animal.

He also complained that he didn’t get to see any snails.

The stroller isn’t just for Sianna! Schäfer also rides quite comfortably.

All in all we spent more than 4 hours at the zoo! Who knew?

We walked back to our hotel, changed the kids into swimming gear and headed to the beach for the remaining hours of the day.

Mount Schäfer at Waikiki Beach.

Sweet Sianna plays in the sand.

Schäfer built a “rocket space ship”.

Then, he needed to jump on it.

We ended our day with a small ceremony. We heard the blowing of the conch shell and saw the lighting of the torches.

There were also local dance troops displaying traditional Hawaiian dances and a storyteller who shared the history behind each dance.

We all enjoyed the show and wanted to stay for longer, but Sianna was ready for bed.

We left the show just as the sun was setting.

It was hard to leave when the ukulele started playing. Cool!

We grabbed some food for the kids and went back to the hotel. Schäfer and Sianna were both exhausted. Getting the kids to bed at a normal bedtime was the best decision we made.

Hubs ran out and grabbed us some supper: nachos and a burrito – the second best decision made.