Two Days to Build A Home

When we left the mainland two days ago we had nothing waiting for us on the island. No car. No hotel. We figured all that would just fall into place as so many things for us tend to do. I planned on finding us a hotel while Joey was gathering our baggage, but I was having a hard time choosing a place online because I didn't know what we'd really be getting, nor how close it actually was to the beach. When an airport shuttle employee asked me if we needed a shuttle to our hotel I told him we didn't have one but we'd like one in Waikiki, within close walking distance to the beach and he recommended the Ohana East Hotel, which turned out to be a very good choice, grand but reasonably priced. We booked two days thinking we'd be moving into one of the two condos we had found online.

We landed before noon so immediately after the bellboy "shaka bra'd" us we put on our suits and headed straight to the beach. We were totally relaxed without a care in the world when I find out our condos are gone! Immediately now I'm stressing, then the kids start bickering. We spent the late afternoon internet searching for another condo, only these we'll have to see first but we don't have a car yet to even go check them out. So we start looking on Craigslist for a car when he found a great deal on a minivan and unlike all the others this one happened to only be about a thirty minute walk away, so walked along the beach parks East past the Zoo and the Aquarium and all the homeless people in tents. When we get to the van we immediately like it and I'm already thinking "well...worse case, it can double as a condo". Too late to get cash so we just sign the sale agreement and walk back to the hotel, and get caught in a rainstorm. Of course.

The next morning, yesterday, we go looking for our bank and after locating one on my phone we catch the trolley there (which is free with our hotel key). After getting off the trolley at the Ala Moana center we wandered around but couldn't find it so I call them and they say they're not a bank, just a mortgage center! We try a local savings bank and the girl was pretty rude and didn't want to help us get any cash, which was difficult because of all the security measures, but still! We went across the street to Bank of Hawaii and had a very pleasant teller without any attitude....and finally got the money to go pick up our van. What we expected to take about thirty minutes ending up taking up half our day, and we had to meet the guy in only an hour after finally getting back to Waikiki so our plans of renting boards for the day were shot. To make it worse there was a Bank of Hawaii right across the street from our hotel.

While everyone else rested in the hotel Jake and I walked down to get the van, and even though we had an appointment, the guy wasn't home. We waited in his backyard, aka sandy beach, for him until he showed up and then before I even leave Joey calls and says he found us a condo in the area we wanted and now instead of going to the beach we have to drive all the way out to Makaha to see it and beat the other person there that is interested. They'll be waiting out front of the hotel for me.....only I couldn't take the same way back to the hotel that I walked because of one way streets and the whole time I was wanting to go left but I could always only ever go right. Then when I could take a left, it was closed for construction. I'm in busy Honolulu, trying to get across a canal that only has one bridge across it and Joey keeps calling me asking me where I am. And now my fuel light comes on. Great.

I finally get to the hotel....and promptly pass it. Finally we make it, pick up all my pretty people and drive as fast as we can on the bumper to bumper H1 freeway. Honolulu is just a mini L.A., really.

We beat the other couple to the condo and pass them on our way out, but the realtor already told us she liked us and we had the condo so she was just going to show them it out of respect. Whew! So on our second day in Paradise feeling like everything is going against us, things finally start looking up. We have a PAID OFF car and got a condo for a quarter of the price than we had planned on. The Universe just made us work for it a little harder, which I can respect. I already appreciate it even more.

We may not have touched a board yet, but we have plenty of time.

We're moving into the condo today and with any luck our stuff is waiting for us at the Post Office.

Ala Moana Hotel on Dwellable