Pretty quiet day today - Mom and I woke up at 9ish and called the Kualoa ranch to see if there was any chance of getting on a ride today or tomorrow - they said they were all booked up, but we could call them at ten to see if they'd had a cancellation. We went out for a quick Mcbreakfast, avoiding the spam platters(!), and then tried to phone again at ten, but there was still no room at the ranch, so we decided to just have a quiet day around Waikiki.

Mom and I headed to the beach by the Hilton Hawaiian Village to read for awhile while the boys ate breakfast and got organized to go. Mom, Grampa, and in the end Peter all headed to the Bishop museum which they all seemed to really enjoy. I didn't really want to go to a museum today, so I struck out on my own, walking down through Waikiki, into the International Marketplace, along the beach, etc. I ended up buying a huge rolling duffel bag to cram in all the crap I seem to have acquired, including a bunch of workbooks and stuff to use for teaching in the New Year. Bringing only one, overstuffed to begin with, backpack on this trip was probably always going to be a mistake!

After I dropped the bag off at the hotel, I walked to Walmart, about 20 a minute walk away, and got a few photos printed, and then framed them for Mom, Grampa, and Peter as mini end of vacay pressies. Since they weren't allowed to be 'Christmas' presents, we'll call them oshogatsu (sp?) presents, or just because presents, or something - I couldn't resist anyway ;) I wanted to have them wrapped by the time I got back to the hotel in case they beat me back, so I wrapped them on the patio tables outside the Walmart-framing and wrapping photos outside doesn't get you weird looks or anything :p

It turned out we all arrived back at the hotel simultaneously, just after six, and then split back up again - Peter finally got in touch with his friend Yuki, and they went off for dinner, while Grampa and Mom watched hockey and I halfheartedly packed in our room. A bit later on, Mom decided she wanted a bag like mine, so we walked back down to the International Marketplace to procure and even (!) larger one...

As we were packing, we watched a bizarre show about people who are Chimeras - in this case, they have two different sets of DNA... It was weird, because just before we left, I listened to an All in the Mind podcast about chimeras and then to hear about them again in three weeks was probably not too likely!...interesting show and topic though!

At about 11:45, Peter and Yuki swung by the hotel and picked me up and we took Yuki to her first ever Honolulu Walmart experience, I hope she enjoyed it :) We got our cereal, peanut butter, baking soda, etc. to bring back into Japan, the requisite Macadamia products, and then Peter also got a pay and talk cell phone, so next time he comes over here he'll have a Hawaiian keitai number...I'm shocked and disappointed that you can't get Stoned Wheat Thins here! Who would have known those are a Canadian thing-I didn't think we had anything individually on our own like that...well other than ketchup chips and timmy's donuts, but anyways... weird!

Back to the hotel at about 1:15, and just basically heading to bed now - tomorrow we're doing the North Shore again, a Kualoa ranch and movie set tour, and then Peter and I are dropping off Mom and Grampa at the airport :( before heading out for some New Year's celebrations :)

D.