10-30-10: Our Apartment

Welcome to our Apartment! We signed our lease on Friday and "moved in" on Saturday. By moved in I mean carried our suitcases into an unfurnished apartment. Uh oh. We spent the entire day at Walmart and carrying stuff to our apartment. It's still woefully under-furnished, but it's a fantastic building. 24-7 doorman and a swipe key that you need to use on the elevator to get to your floor. Here are a few more pictures from the place.

This is the view from our kitchen looking into the living room. That window faces east. Notice the Lanai (balcony) to the right! The entry to the bedroom is to the right of the balcony door.


The view to the right (south) from the Lanai


The view to the left (north) from the Lanai

View from the living room back towards the door and kitchen.


Bedroom + air mattress! Bathroom entrance to the right.


Bathroom

So you can see its a work in progress. We also have an outdoor common area on the 9th floor that includes a pool, jacuzzi and BBQ area. This is a picture I took over the pool.
Rainbow was included. It's an awesome place!

10-29-10 Waikiki Beach: Dark and Grimm

As many of you know our friend Adam Gidwitz recently had published his first book two days ago. It's called A Tale Dark and Grimm. Raquel and I are awfully excited for him and yesterday swung by the Barnes and Nobles on Ala Moana Blvd to see if they had it yet. To our great delight they did! We purchased it immediately and I started reading it last night. Raquel started reading it today on the beach (as seen). I, of course, read it on the beach as well (as seen below).

We're both enjoying it very much. It's worth getting!

10-28-10 Downtown Honolulu

Day 3 of apartment hunting. Raquel and I took a break and walked across downtown towards the water to try and find a Starbucks for a water bottle. We didn't find it, but saw this spectacular view looking north at the city skyline.

10-27-10 Waikiki Beach and Diamond Head

So for the second morning in a row we decided to go for a swim in the early morning before starting our apartment hunt at Waikiki Beach. This is a picture of Raquel there, at about 8:00 AM (2 PM EST) with Diamond head in the background. Pristine and empty at that time. Pretty ideal.

10-26-10 Manoa Valley

Our first day was great. After a morning swim in the pacific under a rainbow (really) we began our apartment hunt. It began in Manoa Valley, inland (and uphill) from downtown Honolulu, where we visited James and Makana's house. The picture is the view from their house.

10-25-10 In Waikiki

Not surprisingly the first picture is blurry. We landed in Honolulu, took a cab to our apartment, changed, and went out in search of food - which is when this picture was taken. We were a block away from our hotel and completely exhausted.