Home - and a Sunday Magazine story

We left Honolulu at 11.00pm on Friday and arrived back at 6.30am today; Saturday, it appears, was simply gobbled up by the ether.

A slightly longer flying time of nine hours - although it could potentially have felt much longer, given the group of babies on our flight apparently on their way to a screaming convention. And all were busy limbering up. Thank the lord for sleeping pills, is all I can say.

But it is good to be home, and to see the fur baby who, thankfully, keeps within a much lower ear-shredding range. And it may not be 32 degrees in Wellington, but at least the sun came out to greet us.

Also, it's been a while between drinks (mainly because my time has been sucked by other publications this year) but my story about PANKS (Professional Aunts, No Kids) was published in the Sunday Star Time's Sunday Magazine today. Click here to read.

Four strings good

Today we joined a bunch of other journos (mainly from the US) for a tour of Kamaka Ukulele, the home of the original pineapple uke, where the charming 90-year-old son of the founder showed us how the iconic instruments are assembled (fun fact: Kamaka has supplied ukes to everyone from Elvis and Tom Selleck to Adam Sandler and the cast of Glee).

And then we had the great good fortune to have a lesson with uke virtuoso and composer Jake Shimbaukuro, who stunned us with his fast finger work and tales of playing for the Queen. Limited time meant we were only able to play around with a couple of chords - but it was a lot of fun and should make a cool wee yarn.

And a few snaps from the balcony of our stunning hotel, Embassy Suites, where we lucked out with a corner room, affording us views of both the ocean and across Waikiki's main drag.

Someone has ripped apart the time/space continuum

How do you get another day in the week?

Leave Auckland at 11.00am Thursday morning, fly eight hours across the Pacific, and you'll arrive in Honolulu on Wednesday night.

Today we had our second Thursday of the week - in temperatures nudging 32 degrees. I am in meteorological heaven.

Only two pics today as we were busy checking out Waikiki Beach and a nearby outlet centre; it's the only day of our trip we have free so we squeezed in as much as we could. Tomorrow the PR activities start with a food walking tour so our time is pretty much other people's from now on.

Two quick pix - the view from our room on the seventh floor of the charming Outrigger Waikiki on the Beach.