A Hawaiian Kaleidoscope - O'ahu: Honolulu and Pearl Harbor - February 2012

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Izumo Taishakyo Mission

Closeup, Izumo Taishakyo Shrine

Shady downtown Honolulu Street

As we wandered about, we discovered that a seemingly defining characteristic of the weather seemed to be a very cyclic shower-then-sun pattern. It would be pleasant and sunny, then a rainbow would appear, then it would shower upon us (sometimes heavily), and then shortly thereafter, it was sunny again. And this repeated itself again and again, all day. And during the night. And the day after.

Hawai'i State Capitol

Reflecting Pool, Hawai'i State Capitol

Rear entrance, State Capitol

Interactive Trackmap - downtown Honolulu walkabout - double-click map to expand

Interactive Trackmap - downtown Honolulu walkabout - click to expand

After completing our walking tour, we retrieved our rental car and headed back to our hotel. We'd gotten a nice overview of downtown Honolulu. We had a few hours to kill before dinner, so we decided to drive eastwards to a prominent local geographical feature known as Diamond Head. Brian's guidebook said there was an easy hike culminating with a fantastic view of the downtown.

The hike starts in the center of an old volcanic crater (Diamond head is the high point on the edge of this crater), requiring a neat drive that bores through the crater wall to get into the center. Unfortunately, once at the park entrance, we were turned away. The park is 'closed to hiking' after 5pm and we were too close to that time to be allowed in. Strange - a hiking park 'closing' at 5pm?

On our way back to downtown Honolulu, we decided to drive through the famous Waikiki beach district of the city. More or less this turned out to be a mistake. The area was jam-packed with slow-moving traffic and tons of people, and with a road layout that forced you to drive a big, very slow loop. It wasn't long before we'd had more than enough of it and decided to head off to dinner.

Honolulu Industrial Harbour

Downtown fishing port

My good foodie work colleague Chris had done a little research for us before we'd arrived in Honolulu. Research of the culinary kind, of course, and had come up with three different interesting and well-rated restaurants for us to try. We settled on a spot called "Nico's at Pier 38" - an upscale-looking place situated alongside the working docks and piers district of Honolulu's Fishing Village. The restaurant is an interesting hybrid - offering something called "plate lunch" delivery.

Nico's at Pier 38

Sunset-side seats

Ordering from Nico's

After securing a rock-star seat right at the full-height open air window, we proceeded to walk up to the ordering desk to decide what to eat. Then, we returned to our seats to write down our order on a piece of paper and have an order number sign placed on our table. This is the strange thing about Nico's - the place feels quite upscale, but the actual act of ordering and being serviced feels a little lowscale.

Our Nico's dinner

Still, the prices are good and the food quite good, so perhaps this place is on to an interesting trend in restauranting.

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