Hawaii 2007 Part III

15-18: Oahu continued

Friday was a jam-packed day. My dad took the day off so he took us around the island with the final destination at North Shore. On the way there, we stopped at the Chinaman Hat, Pipeline Beach(where the sandstorms hurt like hell), and Turtle Bay. The first stop at North Shore was Giovanni's Shrimp Truck, one of two in the area. The other must have at North Shore is Matsumoto's Shaved Ice where the shaved ice comes with ice cream and/or red bean at the bottom. I tried the Hawaiian(pineapple, coconut and banana) with ice cream on the bottom and condensed milk on top. Yum!

That night we met up with Ty and his co-worker Jeff for a night out in Honolulu. I guess the trick is to get there early when the cover is free, get your hand stamped and pick out which one is the best bar. Here, you can walk in an out of the bars/clubs as long as you have a stamp! While waiting for the clubs to get going, we got some drinks at the Yardhouse, and decided on Zanzibar's. By the end of the night we were thouroghly intoxicated and STARVING. We ended up at Ono's Cheesesteak where they import their bread straight from Philly! It was almost as good as a real Philly Cheesesteak. Heaven.

The next day was mine and Erwin's graduation party at the Dole Cannery. It was much fancier than I had expected; almost like a wedding. There was a sign in table, a DJ, drink tickets, prepared speeches, catered buffet with prime rib and bananas flambe. Afterwards we went to Ala Moana to buy some last minute gifts, came home and rested. At around 5pm, the BBQ started at my dad's house. Erwin's girlfriend, Natasha, brought over Dance Dance Revolution and it was all over. We spent the night drinking and playing DDR and Guitar Hero(particularly Sweet Child of Mine which is still stuck in my head!)

After an extremely eventful week, our last two days were very low key. Novette and I stayed at the house, while Ben and Maryann met up with Ty at Waikiki to surf/lay out. We made some carne asada nachos, packed, relaxed and played MORE guitar hero. I had a wonderful time and it was a great way to end my days off before I started residency.

Somehow, I got the feeling that someone didn't want me to leave.....

For more pictures click here: OAHU

Hawaii 2007 Part II

June 10-14: Oahu

The first day in Oahu was airport and rest day. All four of us came in at various times throughout the day, which resulted in my dad driving back and forth from the airport 3 times. After we unpacked, planned our itinerary(thanks Ben) and settled in, we had some dinner and polished off a bottle of Captain Morgan(and coke) plus 3/4 of a bottle of Bicardi O Rum(and sprite) with my dad. Halfway through the bottles we decided to play a game of drunk Pac-Man.

The next day was choc full of tourist activities: Punchbowl Cemetery, Pali lookout, the Byodo Temple(below) and hiking up Diamond Head. Needless to say, we were exhausted and decided to stay home and take the night off by watching "Blood Diamond" on DVD. A nice bonus while staying at my dad's house for the week was that his wife's uncle loves to cook and he was our personal cook when we were home. For dinner that night, grandpa made us some Chow Fun.

TueSday, the 12th, was supposed to be "S" day: Shopping, Surfing and Snorkeling. Ben and my brother, Erwin surfed in the morning, while Maryann, Novette and I went shopping at the Ala Moana Shopping Center. After an impromptu lunch at the Pineapple Room with my friend Ty, who lives on the island, we were ready to go snorkeling at Hanauma Bay. Unfortunately it was closed and we drove along the coast stopping at scenic spots. We found oursleves at Sandy Beach, which we later found out was a pretty dangerous beach to swim at. Grandpa made oxtail for dinner and we finished off the night with another African themed movie, "The Last King of Scotland" and some Kahlua root beer floats.

Day four on Oahu lead us to Pearl Harbor and the Aloha Stadium Swap Meet. The timing for those to events ran like clockwork. Unfortunately, since we had made plans to go to dinner and bowling later that night, we had no time to go to Hanauma Bay -- 2nd attempt foiled. Instead we went to Waikiki to lay out and relax for about an hour. There Ben discovered Banyan Trees. That night we took my dad and his family out to dinner to Makino Chaya as a "thank you" for letting us stay and eat in their home. Afterwards we went bowling, which I haven't done in over a year. I scored a 105, 115, 110.

The next day was officially reserved for HANAUMA BAY since we failed our last two attempts and we had a free day. We FINALLY made it to the bay, despite the cloudy weather. Afterwards we went to the Paradise Cove Luau(main picture) where the Mai Tai's rule.

And now I am tired. Since this is a pretty long post, I'll just split this up into 3 parts. More to come later!

HAWAII 2007 - Part I

June 7-10: The Big Island

The whole reason for my trip to Hawaii was that my dad was throwing my brother Erwin, who graduated from high school, and I a graduation party. I invited all of my cousins and fortunately 3 of them were able to come with me! Novette and Ben came with me to the Big Island and Maryann met up with us on Oahu.

The trip started off a little rough -- we missed our flight!! Fortunately, after four hours, we were able to catch the last flight out of LAX on stand-by. We picked up the car, checked into our room and rested up for the next day. Below is the view from our hotel room at the Royal Kona Resort.

The next day we ventured south to the Volcano National Park to see the active volcano and hot lava. On the way down we stopped by random beaches to lay out and take pictures as well as a Kona coffee farm. After hiking thru lava rock in the drizzling rain, we still didn't even get to see the molten lava. At best we saw a red light in the distance that came from the lava. It was dark, raining and we were exhausted so we made our way home without dinner :(

Day 2 we explored the north side of the island; and by "explored" I mean we drove up the coast until we hit a dead end. That dead end was Polulu Valley. We hiked down the valley to the beach, played around in the little camping area, hiked back up and drove back to the hotel in Kona. There we had our last and only dinner on the Big Island at Don the Beachcomber. Not only did it have great food, but it had a great view.

Novette and I decided to go out and drink since it was our last night on the island. On our way to the bar and while at the bar, we got stopped by TWO groups of people who thought we were locals. One asked us where was a good place to eat(they followed us into the bar we randomly chose) and another wanted to take a picture with us(we should have charged them money).

The next day we took my cousin Ben to the airport, returned to the hotel and laid out for an hour or so. We got to the Kona airport an HOUR early, they couldn't find our names on the reservation and we missed our flight AGAIN!!! Good thing inter-island flights run every 30 minutes or so. We landed in Oahu safely. Stay tuned for the next installment of Hawaii 2007!

Here are more pictures(complete with captions) of the Big Island.

Hawaii 2007

Relax. I'm starting you guys off slowly. I have a lot to blog about. This is the first in a series of posts about my trip to Hawaii. Because I just sorted through a bajillion pictures right now I'm a bit lazy to start a real blog. So, for your entertainment I have a 3 picture progression of my tan.