Japan!
We started off May 6th, 2019 by going to the Skytree. It was also our hotel check out day and we planned on going to Kyoto, but as nonrev life goes, we had new plans... we were heading to Hawaii! More on that later.
Kites in the train station near Skytree
The Skytree is located in a very touristy location surrounding by a huge mall. It is the tallest building in Japan and the main radio tower because Tokyo Tower (visited previous Tokyo trip) became too small with all the surrounding highrise buildings. When we entered we read information about the tower on the way to the ticket counter. We found out that it is also a lightning rod and has a Rogowski Coil which measures lightening currents. The tower is 634 meters tall (taller than the CN tower in Toronto and Eiffel Tower!) And provides a 360° view of Tokyo. It was slightly cloudy, so we didn't get to see Mt. Fuji, but the view was still awesome.
Once we were finished at the tower, we looked around the mall and wanted to have lunch at this awesome conveyor belt sushi place, but there was a line of about 40 people so we scrapped that idea. We looked around the mall more and finally decided to grab quick KFC. Unfortunately, it wasn't great but we weren't feeling very adventurous so it was fine.
We came across a fish store
The beta fish in Japan are so much more pretty than the North America ones
We headed back to our hotel to pick up our bags and then took the hour long train ride to Narita. Thankfully we managed to get on an express train which helped knock off some time. We did enjoy the view out the windows though. Once at the airport, we headed to a landside lounge to get a drink and finalize plans. We checked in for our flight, drank some Coke Zero (they don't have diet Coke in Japan) and looked for AirBnB in Kona, Hawaii! Once we were in the 2 hour until departure window, we checked in and went through security and customs. We then headed to the KAL lounge for a little bit where I tried a cup of noodles. It was really good but like the ones we have at home. Hunter started to see some people cleared on our flight so we quickly left for the gate and checked in with the agents. We were given Delta One 7B and C! Boarding began and we quickly got to our seats. Hunter tried some drink called Maitai. It had a big pineapple chunk in it and a mini umbrella. The flight to Honolulu was 7 hours and we planned to have dinner and sleep. We also watched Crazy Rich Asians.
Hunter always likes to take plane pictures at the airports
Maitai
Ice cream with a delicious peach topping
breakfast nearing arrival
So the story behind going to Hawaii originated from the aquarium in Tokyo. While looking at the tanks, they each had maps of where the fish were from, and I really liked the Hawaii region fish. Hunter stated that "you know, we could go there" and I said, "let's do it". He checked the flights and surprisingly enough they had tons of room in first class! As we were both feeling a bit exhausted from Japan (it gets exhausting from such a huge language barrier and having fun to look up everything before knowing if it's what you want. For example getting food is truly painful as we're not wanting to spend a fortune but also don't want to order a ton of weird raw fish and we don't know if a place is good or not because everything is in Japanese), it was a slight relief to be able to go somewhere a bit more known to us (English!!). So in the end, we got to enjoy 2 May 6ths, the Japanese one and the Hawaiian one!
Hawaii
Our flight left Japan at 7:08 pm and arrived in Honolulu at 7:22am! Two May 6's, 2019! The flight was 7 hours and 14 minutes. So far May 6 has lasted 26:22 and by the end of the day, May 6 will have lasted 43 hours exactly, our longest day yet (longer than our around the world Singapore adventure)!
When we landed, we took another flight on Hawaiian airlines to Kona, the Big Island. It was a quick 26 minutes and both our first time on Hawaiian so that was fun. They have a really pretty uniform.
The plane we took to Kona
Hawaiian Airlines doesn't provide much of a seat (its just a plastic shell really) but thankfully the flight was only 26 minutes!
Aircraft upon arrival in beautiful Kona
Once we got to Kona, we picked up our rental car, which was a small truck, and headed to Costco and Walmart to pick up some essentials because we had originally packed for Rome! Also thank goodness we didn't go to Italy and Spain because the weather there was unpleasant (cold and rainy). Hunter and I both got bathing suits and flip flops as well as some water and sunscreen. We then headed to a beach just north of the airport for some afternoon fun before checking into our AirBnB. The weather was beautiful and playing in the waves was quite exciting.
After about an hour and a half at the small beach, we headed back to the car and Hunter noticed my shoulders were super red even though he lathered me up in sunscreen. Thankfully we caught it quickly and I didn't burn like we thought I was going to. We next headed for some ice cream further into the town and closer to the place we were staying. Hunter had two kinds with macadamia nuts and I had a coffee cookie flavor one. The ice cream was made locally and really delicious!
Little lizzards ran around and I almost got one to go on my hand, but it ran away
Ice cream with an ocean view
After icecream, it was time to check into our AirBnB. We arrived, got a key from a lockbox, and entered the room. Upon further inspection, the studio room was really unclean. There were gross bits on the ground, big spiderwebs in the corners, the shower floor mat was dirty brown. We were shocked because all the reviews praised the cleanliness of this place and we were paying a hefty cleaning fee on this location. We messaged our host and told them our concerns as nicely as we could and they said they would come look, we hadn't moved any of our things in yet so we offered to go back out to a beach we had wanted to go to anyways. While at the beach the host messaged us and said that they were so sorry as that was not how the place was supposed to look and their cleaning person failed them. For our troubles, they refunded us back one night which was very nice of them. When we got back and looked around, the place was much cleaner which was wonderful. We brought our things in and read the guestbook to see their suggestions which included the best beach for sunsets. Hunter also found a dinner place online called Kona Brewing Co. which was supposed to have really good pizza, and it did! They actually had a pub favorite pizza that had exactly all the toppings we normally get on pizzas we order. We quickly ordered it as we were very hungry. We ate it all except one piece which we took back with us for a later snack.
Hanging at the beach while our AirBnB is cleaned
We were both pretty tired and headed back to our AirBnB. It wasn't long before we were fast asleep, excited for our day in Hawaii tomorrow.
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