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| The 36th Annual Visitor Industry Charity Walk emblem as modeled by some random guy. |
Hello everyone, it's the weekend!
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| Good morning to you too, Oahu. |
It was an early wake up this morning to get down to Ala Moana Beach Park in time to register for the
36th Annual Charity Walk. This 6-mile urban course through Ala Moana and Waikiki slingshots charity walkers through nearly every major hotel chain in Waikiki. It's $35 a pop, but you easily get back what you pay for in a T-shirt, hotel refreshments, and a plate lunch at the end of the walk. I have my two co-workers to thank for helping sponsor me this time around! Thank you both!
According to the Official Charity Walk form -- "In 1974 the Hawai'i Lodging and Tourism Association sponsored a charitable 'superwalk' to benefit one major charitable organization. Over the years, the HLTA annual walk has grown to become one of the largest single day fund-raising events in the state. In 1979, the HLTA members voted to extend the reach of support offered by the Walk's fun-raising capability."
Thus, the Visitor Industry Charity Walk, which now benefits multiple non-profit charities, came into being.
Just as you would imagine, the Hawai'i Lodging and Tourism has walkers skirt past their properties, providing refreshments at 18 stamp-checkpoints all along the way. The running joke is you'll eat back all the calories you burn. And with some of the goodies you get, it really comes as no surprise.
I did this walk two years ago with my sibling. The course was the same though some of the refreshments had changed. We still got fed a light breakfast, were given plenty of water and had to endure the wait at numerous stoplights, but I was always eager to see what would come up at the next checkpoint.
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| The breakfast tent. They had mini doughnuts, muffins, coffee, bananas and water. |
Today was a beautiful day for the walk. The sun was out though some clouds moved in and threatened a shower, which I think would have been a welcome relief as we rounded the middle checkpoint at the Waikiki Kapahulu Library. (But we got watermelon wedges and shave ice instead which suited me just as well!)
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18 checkpoints, 18 stamps--collect them all!
Or no lunch for you! |
My mom, her friend and I participated this year. The closing time to register was 7 a.m., the start of the walk, and we made the deadline. There were only X-Large shirts left by the time we arrived, but I'm not terribly picky. We swung through the breakfast tent and picked up some mini-doughnuts and muffins; perfect because I knew we would eat along the entire course. Though I was sad to not have any yogurt this year.
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| The starting line. Good lord this part took forever. |
We got to the starting line and probably didn't push past until roughly 15 minutes in. Every walker has to get their cards stamped, so the press of the pack to get this first stamp was the most choked checkpoint of them all. It was still pretty heavy traffic rounding the first immediate turn and didn't lighten up much until we got well into Waikiki. I was so happy to see at least one lane closed for us to walk in because the sidewalk simply would not cut it.
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| The Ala Wai canal on this beautiful Saturday morning. |
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| Double Tree doesn't lie when they call their cookie "The Cookie." This is my favorite part of the walk. |
We got water and a granola bar at the second checkpoint (Ala Moana Hotel) and Double Tree cookies and water at the third off Ala Wai Promenade. The Double Tree cookies are the BEST!
The Royal Hawaiian Center was muddled because half of our party decided to pit stop the restroom here and we had to backtrack for the stamp at checkpoint 4, but we were treated to milk tea which was absolutely delicious. I was naughty and snagged two of their little sippy cup samples.
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| Waikiki Beach proper. Surf's up, baby! |
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| POG and chocolate-covered strawberries at checkpoint 5! |
Kuhio Beach Park (checkpoint 5) served us strawberries dipped in chocolate and POG (Passion Orange Guava). I groaned watching the surfers ripping at my usual surfing spot. The surf was up today and glassy and I wanted to get out there so badly! It was really a great day for it.
Queen Kapiolani Hotel (checkpoint 6), our next major turn by the zoo, gave us those little fruit-jelly containers and more water and we pushed on to Jefferson Elementary School (checkpoint 7). Last time they served Spam musubi, but this time we got Kohala chocolate. It was very salty!
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| Rounding back to the Ala Wai we got a cool shave ice--well welcomed and well received. |
Waikiki Kapahulu Library (checkpoint 8) turned the crowd back down along the Ala Wai--and I saw a HUGE puffer fish in the water. I also saw one canoe ripping along in the canal. Most of the pack had stretched to a more comfortable intermittent presence, I didn't feel so claustrophobic anymore. We followed the Ala Wai all the way until we hit Aqua Island Colony (checkpoint 9) where we were given macaroons, large bottled waters, and serenaded by a band. Halfway there!
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| Walkers heading back along the Ala Wai and road closures for the walk. This is just after checkpoint 8. |
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| It really was a lovely morning! |
Threading our way back to Kalakaua, one of the main thoroughfares downtown, we hit DFS Hawaii (checkpoint 10) and the Waikiki Beach Walk on Lewers St. (checkpoint 11).
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| The Lewers stampers at checkpoint 11. |
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| Our goodies just after checkpoint 11 were strawberries and a type of carrot cake. This gentlemen said he was flattered I took his picture. You're welcome! |
I could see the beach again as we passed Lewers and moved into the Hilton Hawaiian Village (checkpoint 12) for fried rice and iced tea. Ritzy Hilton doesn't disappoint. This was also one of the slowest spots on the walk besides the initial crush. There was also some cute baby ducklings living it up in their little paradise cove at the Hilton pond.
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| The dancing penguin entertained us at the Hilton. |
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| The crowd literally yelled when the announcer told us we were coming up to fried rice and iced tea. Thank you Hilton for spoiling us at checkpoint 13. |
Hawaii Prince Hotel (checkpoint 13) came up next and had perhaps the most interesting grub of the walk--this taro bread "burger" made of kalua pig and kimchee. Doesn't sound particularly appetizing, but it was actually pretty tasty.
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| I saw people picking these up and I was like 'What IS that?' Yes, taro bread really is purple. |
We carved back along Ala Moana Blvd. toward Ala Moana Beach Park for checkpoint 15, picked up some macadamia nuts, and hit our last three checkpoints in a quick sweep through the remainder of Ala Moana Beach Park.
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| Canoes parked at Ala Moana Beach Park. |
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| Home stretch at Ala Moana Beach Park! |
The Aston Hotel, our 18th and last checkpoint at the end of that long 6th mile, stamped our final box and handed us our meal tickets.
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| The finish line! Whew, that was a long six miles. |
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| Aston's final stamp makes 18 and 18/18 equals one whole lunch. |
I could smell the grub cooking from checkpoint 16, I swear. It was so great to see about 10 lunch lines ready for all the lunch tents and volunteers ladling salad, macaroni salad, hot dogs with kimchee topping, breaded chicken, and cupcakes for all us finishers. We weren't in line very long before securing lunch and finding a shady spot to sit in the grass. I only ate about half the plate having eaten bits and scraps the entire walk, but we bundled the rest for later.
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| Lunch meal of champions. |
I don't normally enjoy waking up early on my weekends. I didn't this morning either. But once I got out into the open air and blood flowing, I had a good time. All in all, I'd probably say we walked closer to 7 miles when you include the walk from the car and all the incidentals in between. It was a good walk on a beautiful day with great grub and great attitudes. I was glad I could be a part of it.
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Happy Saturday.
