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 Trip - Day 1

Hawaii Trip

Alright, let's start at the beginning!

The day we were flying to Hawaii I had to work a few hours before the flight. The flight was at 6AM and I got off at 2AM. Steve was supposed to pick me up but of course he forgot -___-' he fell asleep. He came after I called him though, its a good thing he doesn't live that far from the hospital, and then we went to his place to finish up packing.

 Our luggage

Steve had finished packing (he had the grey suitcase) but since I wasn't packing much clothes I had to shift his clothes over to mine and we put all the non-important stuff into the grey suitcase.

 Took a cab...

So Steve's mom was supposed to drop us off in the airport. My mom offered to drop us off earlier but I told her it was alright cause his mom was supposed to drop us off but no, she bailed on us last minute. She told us to take a cab because she was tired but she got up at 4AM to check to see if we were ready to go and all packed up, so I was like WTF.

I told Steve I'm not paying for a cab because he had said that we were getting a lift and I rejected an offer from my mom, plus he had to go back to work to pick up his debit card because he left it there. The cab ride ended up being like $60 something dollars. So.. yeah... good job Steve's mom.

 At the airport past security and baggage drop off

We flew with United Airlines and we departed from YVR. I am so glad that we got nexus cards because when we arrived at the airport it was close to 5AM and there was a huge line for security, we probably would have taken like 25 minutes going through but we got through in like 5 minutes hahaha.

When we got to the nexus declaration part Steve had to get pulled in for questioning LOL. Its because someone shares the exact same name as him and that person has a criminal record so I guess they had to confirm it wasn't him LOL.

For breakfast he got a whopper from burger king LOL I ended up getting something to eat in San Francisco.

**********

Day 1 in Hawaii

 At San Francisco Airport

Our connecting flight was to San Francisco and our layover was just an hour so we grabbed some pizza and went off to wait at our gate.

 Boarded the flight

Flight to Hawaii was about 5 hours. I usually can't fall asleep on planes, I guess since I worked before we left and didn't get any sleep, I managed to get a few hours of sleep. I ended up playing earthbound on a net book I had lol.

 At the car rental

We rented a car from Dollar Car Rental (...? I can't remember what it was called) It was a mess trying to get to the car rental place from the airport. There were huge lineups and the shuttle that takes you to the car rental place only picked up people from one end and there were tons of people waiting at the other end.

It took about 30-40 minutes to pick up our vehicle too because there were so many people >.< We rented a 2013 Jeep (not sure the model, but we think its the base model)

 Made it to the AirBnB

I got a message from our airbnb host saying that our room was ready but we had to wait like 20 minutes at the lobby for him to come. I was getting really impatient lol.

 Our room

The hotel was a little dingy and smelled kind of weird but the room itself was quite nice and air conditioned, there was a small view to the river too which was nice. The bathroom was a decent size but I think the bathtub is clogged or something because it drains water really slowly >.<

 The buildings around the hotel were quite old..

I sent that photo to my friend and said we were in the ghetto lol. We changed and put some stuff away and went off to explore. Mainly get lunch.

 Marukame Udon

We went to the udon place for lunch, I went with Ashley the last time I was in Hawaii and I knew Steve would like it. He got the cold ramen and I regrettably got the hot one (my legs were so sweaty after I ate it LOL)

I also got an egg tempura, potato croquette, a piece of fried chicken (WHICH WAS AMAZING super juicy and crispy T_T) and a prawn tempura.

Afterward we went off to explore the waikiki area.

 Kai Coffee Shop (?)

I can't really remember what the name of the coffee shop was but it was Kai something.. Kai Hawaii?? Bah.. I don't know but we got this Macadamia nut coffee iced drink thing (I can't blog anymore.. LOL) which was really really good.

We ended up going back to the hotel to rest up for a bit and went out to dinner after.

 Nice walk to the restaurant

The restaurant was really close to where we were staying (like a 10-15 minute walk) and plus we were gonna go drinking too so it was a good thing we walked.

Yogurt Soju

They give you SO MUCH in a kettle and! it was all for me LOL. I wanted to finish the whole kettle but Steve wouldn't let me because I turned so red. Steve ended up drinking a giant Hite beer and a bottle of soju to himself, he had a bit of the yogurt soju too but he wasn't that drunk...

So red!

Couple the alcohol with lack of sleep and the long flights, I got fucked up LOL.

678 Hawaii

One of the best Korean restaurant experiences I've had in a long time. Great food and drinks. I drank so much my whole back and legs were red... (I literally can't drink that much). I want to do a full on blog post for this place so just wait for that!

Walking home wasn't fun LOL I was so full of food and super drunk, Steve was worried I'd jump into the river lol.

And that was the first night!