2018 Visitor Industry Charity Walk

RHS'69

By this time we were ready to sit down. At the end we received our final stamp and meal ticket.

What? More to eat? YES! We earned this deluxe plate lunch, so with this gastronomical delight in hand we grabbed our seats under the tree.

The next checkpoint was a delightful choice of fruit cup, watermelon, Otter Pops, and some other stuff I forgot about.

This was the pattern the entire journey. Some treats were gourmet-like crab cake slider, kalua pig soft taco, fried rice, smoked meat, coconut water, chicken salad nacho and more.

The atmosphere was happy, light, carefree and filling but we soldiered on.

Time for the 40th Annual Charity Walk, benefitting the Hawaii Visitors Industry Foundation. Everyone used to call it the Hawaii Visitors Bureau. Yes, they changed the name.

There were seven of us that represented the Class of '69. Our leader and coordinator, Bobby Imoto from Kalani '69.

Following him on this great adventure: JoAnn Oshima, Dayle Hoopai, Sandy Nishimoto, Dwayne Nasu, Donna Miller and her hanai daughter, Natasha Ansai. It was a picture perfect Hawaiian day with blue skies and comfortable weather. For us locals, that means T-shirt, shorts and sunglasses. Yup, we got dressed up.

2018 Visitor Industry Walk

Saturday, June 16, 2018

Read Sandy's other blog: Hitting the Airwaves

It was the annual gastronomical charity walk through Waikiki.

The Annual Charity Walk is the BIG fundraiser for the year and a ton of people turn out.

We strolled the length of Waikiki making lots of pit shops for food that is donated by just about everyone... literally eating our way from beginning to end.

Think of it as walking off the calories as you stuff them in.

There is a yearly event fitness-folks look forward to.

It allows gym rats to get their exercise, support worthy causes and eat their way from one end of Waikiki to another without thinking about calories, carbs or that other nasty stuff they normally try to stay away from.

The Annual Visitor Industry Charity Walk has arrived.

We gathered at the ungodly hour of 7:00 am at the Ala Moana Beach Bus Stop. The crowd was at checkpoint #1 - McCoy pavilion but as experience is our guide, we met at checkpoint #2. Grab and Go was the theme and we were ready. Preparation is the key and we followed the main rule - keep our hands free.

Our first treat breakfast, granola bar & water.

There were 17 checkpoints and each with something yummy to eat.

We crossed Ala Moana Blvd, walking the Ala Wai Promenade to Checkpoint 3. Waiting for us was fresh baked cookies, our first stamp and Tahitian entertainment.

As we circled around to Kalia Road and headed back to Ala Moana with our backpacks overflowing we tried to catch up with each other, managing our time as we saw familiar faces and grabbing the next treat that came faster with the booths being closer together.

The 5 mile trek led back to Ala Moana Beach Park.

The setting had many booths of various sizes - some more elaborate than others.

The most impressive was a giant rainbow balloon tunnel with cooling spray and people on each side passing the next treat before entering the tunnel.

There were also people with umbrellas for those too chicken to get wet in the tunnel.

At the other end lots of folks congratulated us for making it this far.

We passed the halfway point.