Hawaii February 2016

Got the keys that day

The day we left I had to go meet my landlord to give him my cheques, get my keys and have my mattress delivered. I also had to go to sephora to return something I bought and exchange some money. Steve had to go to school during that time so it was convenient for me to do this during that time.

Everything went so smoothly that I had tons of time to spare before heading to the airport. The key and money exchange took about 15-20 minutes and I hopped on the bus straight to the mall to exchange my stuff.

I returned a liquid lipstick and exchanged it for a Laura Mercier lipstick lol but I didn't realize the money exchange place was closed, so I sort of just shopped a bit. Our flight was at 5:45PM and he usually gets home from school at around 1:30PM.

Here's when it got complicated. So Steve is the worst person to travel with, he's so disorganized and under prepared for everything. I mean we planned this trip for months so I thought it would go more smoothly but of course, I was wrong.

He didn't finish packing, he left his passport in his car which his dad took to work all the way in Coquitlam, and he wanted to take a shower. He got back at his usual time of 1:30PM but because he took so damn long we ended up leaving the house to go to the airport at around 4PM -__-' but boy was I pissed off.

So this time we flew with Air Canada to Honolulu, which we really REGRET. We booked our tickets back in October and chose our seats on the website. When we went to check in it turns out they didn't take our choices into account and WE HAD TO PAY $50 EACH to switch seats to sit together. So ya we shelled out $100 just so we could sit together even though we booked and chose our seats MONTHS IN ADVANCE.

I was so unhappy plus! We had to pay to check in our bags which was $25 each. Ya NEVER FLYING WITH THEM AGAIN. Paying for bags is fine with me, whatever, its becoming the norm for most airlines, we had to pay with United Airlines last time we went to Hawaii but changing the seats really pissed me off. So total we paid $150, what a great start to a vacation.

 Ease the pain with wine lol

Going through security was easy enough, no issues there. We stocked up on water and some snacks before we found something to eat. We shared a brie and prosciutto sandwich and I had a sampler of wine, afterwards we headed to the gate to wait to board.

 Air Canada sucks

Well technically Air Canada Rouge sucks lol. Service is alright but if you're flying with the rouge service, you HAVE to either download the app to be able to "watch" something - more on that in a second - or bring something to do.

If you download the app you still have to pay for super old crappy movies and TV shows to watch.. So ya we wish we flew with United Airlines again because at least they had an updated entertainment unit available for us to use.

When we arrived it was about 11PM and we picked up the car at about midnight. We checked in into the same place we went to before (but owned by someone else) which was an Airbnb. It was on a higher floor and we had to pay for parking T..T 

We ended up getting a late dinner at some Korean place which was ok... lol. I realized during dinner how much I actually hate traveling with him. He's so sensitive about a lot of things and gets so mad for no reason -___-' I'm hoping next time I have to travel with him some other friends come along.

 Our view

I think I forgot to mention that I was sick during this vacation so.. we ended up not going into the water at all :( So we basically had to figure out what we were gonna do daily that didn't involve the beach. I told Steve it was fine if he wanted to go to the beach, but he said no.

Udon!!!

I love this place, honestly I wish they made udon in Vancouver this good. We went a few times during the week we were there. I always got the Niku udon and Steve always got a cold ontama udon.

Self serve tempura station and other things

One thing I was disappointed about during our first visit to the restaurant was that... they didn't have fried chicken!! Now, if you know me well, you would know that fried chicken is seriously one of my favourite foods. They finished cooking some right after we sat down and I kind of didn't want to butt in line just to get fried chicken, there were already tons of people waiting in line -__-'

Hells yeah lol

I'm craving udon as I'm writing this post lol. I seriously would just go back to Hawaii just to eat food lol.

Kai coffee

Macadamia frappe thing. We went here back in July and we randomly found this place, highly recommended!

678 Hawaii

This is the best Korean bbq place we've been to yet. We came here maybe like 2-3 times for dinner this whole trip. The beef is so fantastic! T_T I want to try to recreate some of the recipes here at home. I just need to figure out the sauces lol and grab a really nice cut of steak.

Plus we tried the melon soju this time... so good :(

Perfection

Discoveries!

We didn't know that the 7-Elevens in Hawaii sold Japanese style chips and snacks! I highly recommend that you try some while you're there! We picked this up as a snack for the car but I ended up wolfing it down lol because it was so good. Basically seaweed flavour lol.

Rainbow Drive in

On our way to Diamond Head we dropped by Rainbow Drive in, truth be told tried to go to Ono Seafood for some Poke but they were closed :( so we yelped and found this place. I wish I tried to ahi steak thing because they only make it once a week. Steve got a fried cutlet of some kind and I got the hamburger steak (I kind of don't recommend that) Steve's was good though lol.

Confused on where to go

We drove up and got super confused on where to go lol but in the end we found the map lol

Beautiful!

Can't deny the beauty that is this island!

Uncle Clay's House of Pure Aloha

Let's just talk about this place. I've never had shaved ice before, I always thought it would be like a snow cone where part of it had syrup and then the rest would be like snow lol. But this place is so AMAZING!

Not only is the shaved ice perfection, Uncle Clay himself is such a kind and wonderful man, the few times we've been there he's always been there and he gave us information about the island and the culture and he even welcomed us into his Ohana, he introduced us to some of the workers and other patrons visiting. 

He is so kind and accommodating! I will not go to any other place for shaved ice!

I highly recommend this place!

Another dinner

We went back to Kyung's seafood (? not too sure what it was called) for a sashimi platter and the seafood pancake. The pancake is so friggin good lol.

I literally got so full that when we got back to the hotel room, I threw up... lol.

Poke!

Finally grabbed some poke from Ono seafood. We grabbed it and went to Ala Moana mall to eat. Honestly... it was good but not as good as I thought it would be lol. Don't get me wrong, it tasted good but it was definitely missing something... not sure what though. Plus! it was our first poke experience.

I love the matcha!

Chiba Ken!

I kind of found this place randomly... we had a massage earlier that day and we walked by this place and I remember reading reviews of this place and we decided to go back! This place definitely reminds me of a restaurant we have here in Vancouver. For the price, its fantastic too.

The rolls!

I highly recommend to order whatever their daily special is, we got the fried oysters which were MASSIVE (see pic above) and they were so juicy and buttery T_T

I feel like we totally found a gem. It was not very busy when we got here plus it was on a random side street lol.

I love temples!

This temple is gorgeous! There's even temple kitties lol, we were too scared to pet them though because the look pretty wild so.. ya lol. I was really tempted to buy this sake bottle set with tiny little cups.. but steve said not to cause it might break if we stuck it in our luggage.

We took a drive all around the whole island

Pit stop for tacos and this pineapple drink

Great day for the drive

It literally didn't take that long to drive around the whole island, just a few hours. We stopped by the outlets and I sort of went crazy at Kate Spade... lol it was 60% off!

Our last night!

One of the bags I bought and a huge kettle of soju lol

Forgot to take pics of the Airbnb

This place was nice but I think we would have preferred to stay at the place we had last time.

Packing up to leave :(

Can't leave without having shaved ice for the last time

Beer Garden!

We went to the beer garden on our last day, I asked Steve when we first got there if he wanted to go here but he said no. Turns out he didn't know what a beer garden was. He thought it was literally a garden where you sit and drink LOL but no.. this one was like a pub with random food stands you can get stuff from.

We ended up buying too much stuff and had to buy a small carry on suitcase so we wouldn't be over the weight limit lol. Came in handy because I needed another suitcase to travel to Ashley's place lol.

Problems

So its a good thing we got to the airport early because apparently what happened was that they weren't letting anybody choose their seats when they checked in and so they kind of randomly scattered everybody and since we were early they were able to change our seats right away.

But when we got to the gate it turns out that tons of people weren't able to sit with their friends/families so we were delayed for about an hour because they were trying to figure out seating plans -___-' yeah lol. Not flying Air Canada again.

During that time Steve's family decided they wanted to be super douchebags. If you recall the last time we went to Hawaii his mom fucked us over last minute when we had to leave, so we ended up taking a cab to the airport and on the way back home my mom came and picked us up. His sister was basically like "we drove you guys to the airport so get Amanda's mom to pick you up - It's not fair that we have to pick you up twice" I was like... you fucking serious? 

Why can't you be normal and just say I don't want to. She always makes excuses to not do shit for anyone unless its beneficial for her in any way. Steve has picked her up - and her ex boyfriend and her fucking friends SO MANY TIMES, from the airport and from downtown whenever she drinks but of course when its for him she's like fuck that shit I don't want to do it. Plus its not like we were coming back at a super early/late time. Girl needs a bite of karma for her childish behaviour.

I'm gonna leave this here for Steve's sister

On the way home

I'm hoping to come back again soon, its a shame I was sick because I was hoping to go to the beach once and get in the water lol but perhaps next time!

Hopefully I can go with someone else other than Steve. I don't want to deal with his anger issues and his shitty sister again. I want to go with some friends this time around so hopefully we'll all get an opportunity to go not with Air Canada though! lol!

See you again Hawaii!

Hawaii - Day 3

 Day 3!!

So we went to bed early the night before because we knew again that we were going to head to the North Shore the next day and it was supposedly like a 3 hour drive or something, plus we had to stop by Walmart and buy some snacks and extra towels so we wanted to leave as early as possible.

After we went to Walmart we drove by Yogur Story - I saw this place on instagram when I was looking through the Honolulu tag and thought that the purple pancakes looked interesting and I wanted to try them but I figured it would be too far from our place, but it turns out it was super close to Walmart, so we stopped in for breakfast.

 Ube pancake and Crab cake benedict

I got the ube pancake (which is made from Okinawan sweet potato that's what makes it purple or something) and Steve got the crab cake benedict. The crab cake benedict was pretty salty to us.. but otherwise I probably would've gotten it over the pancakes. The pancakes themselves weren't too sweet which was nice but there was something about them I didn't really like maybe I ate too much of it?

 Waimea Beach

Definitely the nicest beach I've ever been to, I previously thought that Hanauma bay was the nicest beach I've been to but this was just... I mean look at it!

Snorkeling wise - not much to see its literally just water and sand. If I knew how to swim I would've been in the water longer.  The waves at this beach were so strong, Steve and I went into the water to see how cold it was and we were like WTF because these waves were like crashing all over us lol and its shallow when you take your first 2-3 steps in but then it suddenly drops and gets deep.

If you can't swim bring your own life jacket because there doesn't seem to be a rental place nearby, I was glad that I bought that snorkel set with the life jacket.

 Not many people when we got there

Had we left without going to Walmart and having breakfast we would've gotten a parking spot so if you plan on going, leave really early. There's a random lot like across the street but you have to pay like $10 or something. There's a shower and bathroom facilities at this beach which was nice and also a lifeguard but there didn't seem to be any food stands or anything so bring your own food.

 Endless sands

If you've ever been to Vancouver and been to the beaches you'll know how shitty our beaches here are. There are tons of rocks and sticks everywhere, I'm paranoid that I'll step on broken glass or needles when I go there but here.. its so clean lol

I forgot to mention that there are no lockers that we saw when we were here so I was pretty paranoid about leaving our stuff unattended but it was fine but be vigilant.

 In Waimea Valley

So when we were parking, we were curious about what was along the path, we asked the guy who was in charge of the parking about it and he said there was like a small hiking trail that led to a waterfall or something so we decided to go in.

If you're totally into nature then its a nice park but otherwise its kind of a boring walk lol. Did I mention I hate tourist sites? Not many tourists were here but I think it was like $30 for both me and Steve to go in, which was a rip off, there wasn't really much to see but Steve seemed pretty happy about it.

 Waimea falls

So we didn't know that you could go swimming at these falls but wearing a life jacket is mandatory if you want to go into the water. But the water looked dirty so we were like ... no lol.

Ashley told us that at these falls they filmed Lost (I think I gave up after season 2 lol) and that they made it look super huge when it was actually really tiny lol.

I think the total amount of time spent at this park was like an hour? Walking from the parking lot to the falls and back. Yeah... don't want to do that walk again lol. We got back to the car and when we drove back we stopped by the Dole plantation.

 Near the train

So we only got to ride the stupid train and there's also like a pineapple maze but we didn't get to go lol. We did explore the gift shop and the mini garden they have.

Pineapple express and a random pineapple growing!

This thing was so boring! LOL that's because I have no interest in how pineapples grow and the random stuff that dole grows lol. Steve enjoyed it - he even bought the soundtrack that the train plays lol.

A shitload of koi

After we got off the train there was a group of people around the pond so we wanted to see what was happening. Then bam! we were like WTF? there were so many koi! I felt bad that they had to fight for food T_T

Foood

Our first proper meal of the day. I got the BBQ pork quesadilla and Steve got the BBQ pork sandwich (the sandwich tasted better lol) The lineup for food took FOREVER, we didn't get a chance to get the ice cream which looked mighty tasty because we were too full from the food.

There's a lot of meat in there

I ate almost half before I gave up, it was pretty good though and it wasn't too expensive.

After we ate we went to the shop and bought some dried fruits and candies to bring home to our friends/family, which I regret. I bought a bag of dried coconut for my dad because I know he likes coconut and my fucking asshole mom gave it away because she's an asshole - I said that's the last time I fucking buy anything for them when I go on vacation if she's going to give away shit I buy for my dad.

Anyway.. we drove back afterwards and headed back to the hotel to drop off our stuff and shower. I know I took a nap before we went to dinner and Steve sucks at putting sunscreen on people I kept getting burnt on the places where he applied the sunscreen -__-'

Go Sampler at Doraku Sushi

Ok so most of the places we went to I found on Yelp, this place was.. a disappointment. But I'll get to that in a minute. We wanted to drink again so we got this sake flight because I never really had good sake before and I can't really drink that much anyway so it was mostly for Steve lol.

What we had from left to right

The sake was ok, the very last one was so dry and bitter I hated it but the middle one was my favourite and there was also one that was really like soju.

Toro Sashimi and Tuna Poke

So why the disappointment?

The price - the food itself was good don't get me wrong but for the price you pay it is overly expensive (especially because they are small plates). The sashimi you see above cost $16 for 4 pieces.. the quality was good but I can go to a sushi place in Vancouver and if I paid $16 for toro sushi for similar quality I could get way more - maybe there's a low supply? Not sure but definitely not worth the money.

Based on the reviews I didn't think this place was a izakaya style restaurant, I wouldn't have picked this place if that were the case.

Surf and Turf roll

One of the best rolls I've had in a long time, great combination. Frankly I would've just got a bunch of rolls had I known that this place was going to be so expensive.

Miso butterfish and our bill

That was the best fish I've had in a long time but it's such a tiny portion for almost $15. Anyway as you can see, we spent like $80 on 4 small dishes and sake.. we were not full AT ALL and if we ordered more food it would've cost like $250-$300 to get us both full. So we decided to go back to the Korean restaurant which was like down the street LOL.

Pork this time

So we got the Pork combo which was like $40 or something, which was super filling we couldn't finish. We were like "we wish we came here first" the whole time. 

My outfit

Semi-red from all the drinking but yeah we were really disappointed about Doraku Sushi... Now we know not to go there again if we go back to Honolulu.

Otherwise Day 4 is our official last day in Hawaii because in day 5 we have to go home T_T