Very cool, if true

I neglected talking about the mall yesterday, which was a sort of surreal experience in the best way.

When I looked up where to see the Superman movie last night, I just got the address and passed it straight on to our Uber driver. I had no idea where it actually was, especially since there was a confusion about which "Consolidated Theatre" we were going to (which was also how our starting time got confused).

It's the type of thing that could only happen in the age of the internet, where we ordered a ticket online, then told a driver where we were going, without really knowing anything except how far away it was.

So anyway, the Uber driver offloaded us at a mall, and we went in and headed straight into the theatre.

I always find it a little disorienting when I emerge from a movie theatre, when two hours in a darkened other world are suddenly translated into reality. But moreso last night, since we'd been delivered to this mall and we had no idea what it was (and just barely where it was).

When we emerged into this fantasy land following the showing last night, we had to explore it.

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It was the Kahala Mall, on the opposite side of Diamond Head, past where we rode our bikes around the crater over a decade ago, past where we saw Mamma Mia at the Diamond Head Theater last year.

A slightly up-scale mall, slightly touristy, though neither as upscale nor as touristy as Ala Moana. (That's not saying much.)

Nothing particularly notable, other than a few shops with Hawaiian crafts. But it was fun to explore a place we'd never seen.

I'm somewhat shocked how many malls seem to have survived in Honolulu, when they're all but dead back in the Bay Area. But I've been to at least five or six I can think of. Lots in Waikiki, sure, but this was off the beaten path.

I guess it might be a reaction to the warm, humid temperatures here: malls offer a way to get out of the sun.

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This morning I went for a walk in the morning before eating. I love being able to walk down to the ocean early, here in Waikiki, and see it when it's a little less crowded.

I walked down to The Walls, which was the area of the ocean Kimberly and I had been watching while eating at Lulu's yesterday afternoon. I'm sure I've seen it before, but it had never really registered that it was a protected little swimming area, with those Walls being a stone pier off to one side and then rock walls along the back.

So my other point in the morning, besides just enjoying the ocean in the morning, was to check out whether the Walls might be a nice place for Kimberly, who is not that confident in the water.

The back rock walls were maybe two feet out of the water (which made me wonder about the stories of kids climbing over them as an initiation when they were ready to swim in the waters outside, as that seemed a bit high when you were scrambling up wet, slimy rock). There'd be an occasional wave that would send some spray over the walls, but the water inside was relatively tranquil.

When I came back to the hotel, I reported back to Kimberly that it looked like a good place to swim, maybe in the afternoon.

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Because Kimberly had a BTS-related concert to see today (livestreamed to a theatre), with some Oahu friends, she headed off around 10. I lounged around a bit, mostly reading (as has been my wont for our vacation), and then went out for a meander around Waikiki.

My plan was to bike out along the far side of the canal along the Lei of Parks trails then to walk back along the beaches of Waikiki.

Biking out requiring using a Biki bike. Sadly, Biki has devolved in the last year. I used to be able to pay $20 as a resident for 300 minutes of Biki without the silliness of making sure any ride was no longer than 30 minutes, though sadly those minutes expired after a year. But Biki increased all of their prices last year. Most went up 10% or 20%, but the 300-minute pass jumped to $55!

So, none of that. I opted for just the $5/30-minute/one-ride pass. Except I couldn't get anything to work. I just kept getting an error every time I tried to unlock a bike. It turned out that Biki had swapped over to a new app sometime in the last year. Once I got that figured out, I was able to have a nice ride along the canal, taking me from near our hotel, on the east side of Waikiki to the far, west side.

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I then walked back along the beach, as planned.

The most notable thing was that some of the beaches along the way were the least crowded since when I was out here in 2020 in the middle of COVID.

There was a reason for that, and it wasn't a global pandemic.

For years and years, the county allowed the hotels fronting the beaches to jam up the entire beach area with rental lounges. Not even RENTED lounged, but rentals. They just filled the beach area in front of their hotels every morning, blocking everyone else from using the public beaches.

Sometime in the last year, Honolulu cracked down on that, still allowing the hotel to do the work of dragging the lounges out to the beach and setting them up, but only after they've been rented.

It's clearly working. One of the beaches that used to be 100% jammed with rental lounges was now only a third full. Further along, I actually saw staff dragging a lounge back into the hotel after it was no longer being used.

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You used to be able to walk all or most of the beach on Waikiki, but last time we were here, a stone walkway that was a vital connection was blocked off. Since then it's been torn down. It was actually some of the coolest part of the walk, as you were right up against the ocean, and could get splashed with waves. But, that's either why they took it down or else that closeness eroded the walkway, I don't know which.

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In the afternoon, after Kimberly returned from her livestreamed concert, we went down to The Walls to swim.

As we got down to the shore (just two blocks from our hotel), I realized that the rock walls protecting the area from the ocean weren't visible any more. The beach was mostly gone too. It turned out that the walls were just under the water level (looking at the charts, the water had risen a bit more than two foot since I was there), so the (huge) waves were still breaking on the walls, but the waves were also carrying very large swells into the protected area.

It was not at all what I expected, and I think Kimberly was intimidated at first, but it turned out to be great fun. Yes, there were big swells, but within the protected area they were't breaking, just churning everything up and down.

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Dinner was our anniversary dinner, which was back at Lulu's, but this time for their fancier dinner menu.

They'd laid out a "Happy Anniversary" card for us, which was very sweet.

The meal was delicious.

And we got a gorgeous view of a nice sunset. (I predict it's going to be better tomorrow as the vog rolls back over the island, but tonight it was impressive enough that our server stopped to take a picture as we were finishing up.)

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So, 25 years, semi-officially. (Our real anniversary is in 3 days, after we get back, but we planned the trip over the weekend, and this was our anniversary meal.)