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Speaker 1: It is time to talk travel.
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Speaker 2: And I'm joined by Megan Singleton, blogger at large.com.
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Speaker 3: Good morning.
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Speaker 2: Good morning. So have you had a moment to.
00:00:27
Speaker 1: Recover from Hawaii?
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Speaker 2: Because it felt like it was a very busy trip. It was busy. I'm actually packing for Japan as we speak. But no, it was busy.
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Speaker 3: Although for one of the first times ever, I did squeeze in some lying about on the beach time.
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Speaker 2: And I never usually do that. Yeah, I'm always rushing off.
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Speaker 3: Because if I don't take a photograph of it, it might as well have not have happened, you know. So I've got to go everywhere and see everything. But I thought we'd just do a little wrap up because I hadn't really finished some really key things yet. particularly about Waikiki and Honolulu that I wanted to tell you about. And firstly, I was also reading some stats this week that Hawaii are really battling with tourism being down. And they're saying that international tourism is still not back. It's domestic tourists they've been seeing and they don't spend as much apparently. Maybe they just don't go for as long. That might be why. And Hawaiian Airlines stopped flying direct out of New Zealand this year. So it's only Air New Zealand three times a week. You know, and maybe that's indicative of Australia and other places too. Although we did see a Japanese airline, the big double-decker A380 landing when we were there.
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Speaker 2: So they're starting to come back. Megan, do you think it has something to do with just the dollar? could do, and also the Trump stuff.
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Speaker 3: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: It's really, you know, we never heard a single conversation.
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Speaker 3: Mind you, you probably don't when you're just out and about. People just don't run up and talk politics with you. So we never heard a thing. We never felt a thing, nothing about politics at all. But I think maybe people are generally just kind of boycotting America.
00:01:56
Speaker 2: However, that's not what I wanted to tell you about.
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Speaker 3: No, no, no.
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Speaker 2: I wanted to impress you. Yes, go for it. I wanted to impress you with my hike up Diamond Head, Francesca.
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Speaker 1: I am impressed, Megan.
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Speaker 2: Me. Yes, I am impressed.
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Speaker 3: I even didn't have hiking shoes, so we even went to Alamoana Mall and I bought my favourite shoe, which is the Hoka.
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Speaker 2: It's a pretty rude looking shoe, but I tell you what.
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Speaker 3: Oh, it's the most, I bounce like a gazelle up that hill.
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Speaker 2: I mean, I'd like to call it a mountain. But the whole track.
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Speaker 3: Is 2.5 kilometres, you know, there and back. Like, to be honest, it's a 90-minute round trip. We were up at the top of the summit in 35 minutes, you know, me. And that's a few stops to take photographs, not catch my breath, to take photographs and make video.
00:02:42
Speaker 1: Yeah.
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Speaker 3: But I would say, okay, so you do have to register online. It costs $ 5, and you book a time slot. Time slots open at 6 a.m., and they run for the hour. So it's not– you've just got to get there within the hour that you've booked. So we booked a 7 to 8 a.m. hour, and it was getting busy, and it was getting warm. I mean, obviously, now it's going into winter, so if you're going to sort of head there from now, you'd probably want to be up there by 9 a.m., though, because it's still in the mid-20s degrees by the time you're coming down– So that would be one tip I would give you.
00:03:13
Speaker 2: And you'll pass lots of people.
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Speaker 3: It's a bit of a path to start with and then it gets really uneven where, you know, it's obviously a volcano and they've made a track, but it's serious stone and you're sort of, you know, climbing over the stone. There are some stairs, quite a lot of stairs, and you can actually choose to go up a really extreme staircase or go around.
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Speaker 2: I went around. Cousin Kate went up, but she's like that.
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Speaker 3: And then we met at the top at one of the military kind of– you know, shelter-y things where they looked.
00:03:43
Speaker 2: Out for bombers.
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Speaker 3: Not that they found the bombers, which brings me to another exciting thing. Most mornings, we watched fighter jets taking off from the airport for their refuelling practice in mid-air. That was pretty cool. If you're a plane spotter, that's where you want to be. Yeah, and that was the F-22 Raptors. You see them, like, they look like a mosquito out in the distance and then you hear this amazing noise and they go out to meet the Boeing Strato which is basically the flying gas station, and practice those maneuvers.
00:04:15
Speaker 2: Not that you can see that, but you can watch them. I know, it's very cool, yeah.
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Speaker 1: And free fireworks.
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Speaker 3: Every Friday night down at the Hilton Hawaiian Village, you just need to get around that lagoon area.
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Speaker 2: And it goes sort of between the lagoon and the beach.
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Speaker 3: And it's at 7.45, so you can go and do your sunset cruise because that's where the marina is as well. Come back, get a bite to eat in the Hilton Village, and then watch the fireworks. Really fun. And actually, that lagoon is excellent for families. Really safe, like little families. Really good swimming gear.
00:04:48
Speaker 2: Yeah. And Cirque du Soleil.
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Speaker 3: Just have to finish with letting you know Cirque du Soleil's got a permanent show running there at Outrigger.
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Speaker 2: There you go. Done.
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Speaker 1: Love it.
00:04:57
Speaker 2: Thank you, Megan. Nice to catch up with you.
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Speaker 1: Travel safe to Japan.
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Speaker 2: We'll talk soon.
00:05:01
Speaker 1: For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rutkin, listen live to Newstalk ZB from 9am Sunday or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.