Working for a Living, Hawaiian Style

Honolulu was a pretty good place to work for a couple days. I'd flown there on Alaska Airlines, having spent the last night in the hotel in Oakland dreading the flight, as I had landed a middle seat in coach. But when I did the online check-in after waking up that morning, I saw a first class upgrade was available. It was the best hundred bucks I've ever spent, and I spent the five hours across the Pacific relaxing in the wide comfortable seat looking out the window at the clouds that covered the ocean almost the entire way from the mainland to the islands.


View Larger Map That pretty much set the tone for experience on Oahu---relaxing, with little stress. Even the difficulties I did encounter, such as the fact that I arrived at the Waikiki Grand too early for my room to be ready, were ones I could let slide. My stoic acceptance of the situation in the lobby prompted the desk clerk to upgrade my standard view room to one with a kitchenette partial ocean view.

And who could have asked for a better view. The old Waikiki Grand, built in 1963 and half converted to condos at this point, was at the very end of hotel row, and thus my new room looked out over the park and the zoo without obstruction straight at Diamond Head, as well the palm trees and the ocean. Each sunrise and sunset there became a meditative reverie.

Ironically it felt like the height of decadence to stay in my room during my first full day there, working at my day job while lounging on the bed with the window open and the sea breeze coming through. Only after sunset, having stormed through a long list of work-related to-do items, did I venture out of the hotel, walk the hundred yards down to the boulevard along the shore and intermix with the streams of Asian tourists there.

It was one of the moments where I couldn't help feeling as if I'd done something right to land in such a place---and I wasn't even on vacation.