This morning, we woke up to a charming little rainbow over the city and decided to walk to Rainbow Drive-In for lunch. Sharing a mixed plate and a pork cutlet plate was such a treat – delicious and so satisfying.

Later, we strolled over to Waikiki and watched the kids riding waves on their boogie boards. Our flight back to Maui was in the afternoon, so our time on Oahu was short but sweet. Oh, and I’m still feeling sore from the massage we had earlier – definitely a sign it was amazing!

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Today we went on a fantastic trip to the summit of Mauna Kea with Mauna Kea Summit Adventures. It was so good. We were picked up in Kona and driven in a nice new van up to the summit, while the driver (Arthur) told us a ton of interesting facts about the Big Island. At the summit we enjoyed a beautiful sunset, and then returned to the visitor center where our driver set up a telescope and we spent a couple of hours stargazing. It was pretty great! Highly recommended.

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We arrived on the Big Island! I love the stickers… so cool. And they make me hungry…

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Giant Cook Pines at Maui Wine were spectacular, and a visit to Iao Valley to finish the day… Life is good!

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It was travel day today! After watching our last amazing sunrise over Diamond Head, we checked out of the Park Shore Hotel and caught the bus to the airport. Again, the fare is only $3 per person, compared to $35 for a Lyft of Uber. What a deal!

It was a short island-hop over to Maui where my nephew picked us up and brought us back to the house in Wailuku. Our house was designed and built by my grandpa in 1956, and has been in the family ever since. It holds so many memories for us, and I’m looking for more memories to be made there! :)

Mariko and I settled in and then went out for some food at Tin Roof. I haven’t eaten there before, but everyone has good things to say about their chicken sandwich, so I had to get one! We also ordered some saimin, then took the food to the beach and ate at the picnic table behind the canoe club building. The sandwich was really tasty, but the chicken was a little dry (which seemed to be an anomaly). We did enjoy the crunch and flavor, though, and it’s really high on my chicken sandwich list, for sure. The saimin was also yummy and made for a perfect first meal on Maui.

After that we did a little grocery shopping at Foodland, then went back to the house to relax with a couple beers with my nephew and watch the baseball game. Welcome to Maui! :)

またね～

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Today we went on a “circle tour” around the island of Oahu. The mini-bus picked us up at about 7:30 am and took us east to see the sights before heading north and continuing counter-clockwise around the island. Mariko and I had both driven around the island before, so we’ve seen most of the sights before, but it was nice to hear the tour guide talk about Oahu and some of the local history. We also stopped by Fumi’s shrimp restaurant and had a delicious plate of spicy garlic shrimp. Yum!

The only bummer about the tour was that there was a traffic jam in North Shore because of construction, so we were stopped for a hour or so and the air conditioning wasn’t the strongest… it was pretty uncomfortable! All-in-all though, I enjoyed the tour. It was $79 per person, and since it lasted about 8 hours, I think it was a good deal.

We exited the tour bus in the heart of Waikiki so we could stroll back to the hotel, do some souvenir shopping, and get some fresh air after spending so much time in the mini-bus. I really enjoy being in “tourist mode”!

In the evening, my cousins took us out for dinner at La Ciccia for some delicious Italian food. It was actually sort of Japanese/Italian, with dishes like mentaiko pasta, kumamoto oysters, and other delicacies. Really yummy, and it was fun to catch up with my cousins, a couple of whom I haven’t seen in 15 years or so!

After dinner, it was back to the hotel and some much-needed sleep.

またね～

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Today, Mariko went out to breakfast and shopping with her friend, so I had some free time before meeting back up with her in the afternoon. I of course put on my running gear and headed out for a run, this time heading farther east towards Diamond Head and just continuing around it counter-clockwise. When I got to the entrance of the state park, I decided to get some hill-work in and ran up the entrance road, then through the tunnel, and into the crater itself. You need reservations to enter into the actual park, and since I didn’t have any, I just turned around and went back down to the road that circles Diamond Head and continued on my circle path and back to the hotel. It was a great run!

Back at the hotel, I looked out at the beach and the blue ocean and thought I might as well take advantage of the awesome location (and free beach towel) and go for a swim. The water felt so good! It was the perfect temperature – not too warm, but not chilly either. The relaxing swim was great after a sweaty run and I felt refreshed and ready to go!

After a quick shower at the hotel room, I was feeling pretty hungry and I looked at a few options nearby. There were a couple ramen shops, but Rainbow Drive-In was calling my name! The legendary plate-lunch place wasn’t very crowded at 11:30 so I was able to order right away and enjoy my mix-plate at the picnic tables in the back. Just 15 minutes later, a long line had formed so I guess I had perfect timing. :) The mix-plate was pretty huge but I was so hungry after running and swimming that I finished it no problem. That morning exercise really keeps my appetite going.

I still had an hour before meeting back up with Mariko, so I strolled around Waikiki, got a coffee at Kai Coffee (and the barista spelled my name correctly on the cup!) and people-watched for a bit. Ah, vacation is great!

Soon I met Mariko back at the hotel, and then her friend and her friend’s husband picked us up and we drove out to Waienae for dinner at The Beach House by 604, We munched on appetizers, enjoyed beer and tropical drinks, and then watched another beautiful Oahu sunset. It was so fun to meet new friends and chat about work, kids, family, and life in general. Shiawase!

I hope you had a great day!

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This morning, I went for another run. This time I headed west, along the beach path that we walked on the night before, and ended up at Ala Moana Beach Park. It was fun to stop and watch the surfers and also the canoe teams heading out. A classic Hawaiian scene. I then retraced my steps back to the hotel, satisfied that I burned some calories and could eat like a king once again. :)

Speaking of eating, we went back to Halekalani for breakfast today, but instead of the buffet, we went to the Orchids restaurant. It was also very nice, but I think I preferred the buffet since the menu options in our package didn’t include the fancy a la carte items like eggs benedict as we expected. However, they did have a haupia French toast that was pretty good.

Next, we hopped on the City Bus and headed over to the Kaka’ako farmers market. We spent a fair amount of time there shopping, but the sun was very hot so we needed to cool down. And hey, we were within walking distance of Hana Koa Brewery again, so why not get some beers we didn’t try the day before? :)

Across the alleyway from the brewery is The Rice Factory, a specialty shop which sells the best rice on the islands. I’ll have to see for myself after we get home, because we bought a couple of pounds of rice to try. Will our two carry-on roller bags be enough for the trip home? Who knows…

By this time, we had to get back to the hotel and get our bags since we were moving to a different (and cheaper) hotel. But along the way, we stopped at a ukulele store to check out the instruments. There were a ton of different models, of all prices… from the cheap Kalas to the high-end Kamakas and KoAlohas. We were the only ones in the store besides the shop attendant, who was fast asleep behind the counter. I guess he was out late last night, or up early hitting the waves. The whole time we were there, he didn’t move a muscle. Good thing for him, we aren’t thieves, :)

We picked up our luggage and took a Lyft to the Park Shore Waikiki Hotel. It’s at the eastern end of the Waikiki hotels and we had a great view of the water. It’s an older hotel, but the location is excellent. Like the Halepuna Hotel, there’s filtered water in the lobby to fill up your bottles and free beach towels to borrow.

After checking out the beach for.a bit, we caught the bus and went to Izakaya Chiba-ken. It’s a fun, inexpensive place for drinks and Japanese food and we enjoyed some beer and yakitori. But this was just the warmup before we headed to another izakaya where we had reservations at the sushi bar. Sushi Izakaya Gaku is quite a bit pricier than Chiba-ken, but the food is sooo good! Everything we ordered was amazing… from the mentaiko potatoes, to the matsutake mushroom tempura… and the sushi… wow! Everyone we talked to had the same thing to say about Izakaya Gaku: it’s expensive, but excellent.

After that, we caught the bus back to the hotel and drifted off to dreamland :)

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I started the day off with an early-morning run along Kalākaua Ave east, passing by shops and other tourists who were also jetlagged. On the flight over, I watched the documentary Waterman – Duke: Ambassador of Aloha, which was the story of Duke Kahanamoku, so I had to stop by his statue and take a photo. I then continued running past the zoo and then looped around Kapi’olani Park and made my way back to the hotel.

After cleaning up, we went to Halepuna’s sister hotel, Halekulani, and enjoyed a yummy breakfast at the House Without a Key buffet, then bought a couple of Holo cards so we could buy daily bus passes. For this trip to Oahu, we decided not to rent a car and just get around by bus. Fare costs $3.00 for one ride, but if you buy a Holo card (for $2 at an ABC Store) you can add day passes which is a great value. It’s $7.00 for unlimited rides per day, and I think you can get a small discount if you buy multiple days.

Riding the bus is super-easy. We just used Google Maps and chose bus instead of car. It tells you walking directions to the bus stop, which bus to take, what stop to get off at, and then walking directions to your destination. It also has information such as if the bus is on-time or late, how many stops the bus will make, and any alternate routes or transfers. It’s really easy!

For our first ride, we went to Ala Moana Shopping Center to check out my favorite store, Uniqlo. This particular Uniqlo had some really cool tshirt designs featuring local brands like Hawaiian Sun and Leonard’s Bakery. I ended up getting a Hawaiian Host shirt since my grandpa drew the original tiki design that is featured on many of their boxes. And I also got a nice button-up shirt, and two pairs of nice shorts, which meant I could finally replace my very old shorts. In fact, later that afternoon, I changed into the new pair of shorts and threw away my old ones in a hotel restroom.

After Uniqlo, we shared a spicy ramen from Ramen Bario. It was yummy! We were still kind of full from the breakfast buffet, but we’re on vacation, which means try all the delicious foods. :)

Next on the agenda was another one of my stops: a visit to Kamaka Ukulele. Kamaka is the grandfather of all ukulele companies, so it was really cool to visit their store. It’s actually very small, but I got to try out a couple of nice models including this long-neck soprano pineapple. It was a beauty! I’m thinking of getting a nice ukulele, and Kamaka is on the list. My dad has a Kamaka at his house, so it would be neat to get one too. I’ll think about it!

Two very nice vacation destinations down, and it’s still early afternoon. Now it was time for one of Mariko’s stops, which was for a foot massage. We went to Dynasty Foot Massage and I ended up getting one too. Why not, right? It was my first foot massage, and I really enjoyed it. Maybe it will help me run faster. :)

As I mentioned in one of my Indy blog posts, Mariko and I really like visiting local breweries. And there are several in Honolulu to try. The first brewery we went to was Lokahi Brewing Company. I really liked the location and the beer, but the selection was a bit small, which is understandable because it’s a small brewery. Worth a visit, though.

After that, we hopped on the bus for a short ride down to Hana Koa for a couple of flights and pupus. The selection was large and varied, and it was lively but not too crowded. Just right!

Mariko had an appointment at Soho Hair Salon for a cut so we took the bus again back to Waikiki. While she was at the salon, I listened to some live music at the Ilikai Hotel patio and enjoyed the view of the marina. When she was finished, we watched the sunset while we waited for our dinner reservation at Pesca.

The restaurant is on the top floor of the hotel, and Mariko reserved a table so we could watch the Friday fireworks. It was a pretty show, and paired with the yummy seafood, made for a memorable dinner.

After that, we walked along the beach path back to our hotel, and retired for the evening. What a long day!

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Today we began our Hawaiian vacation! It’s so nice that Hawaiian Airlines has a non-stop flight between Austin and Honolulu. It’s 8 hours and 20 minutes, but it actually goes by quickly, especially with plenty of movies to watch.

After we landed, we took a Lyft to our hotel, unpacked and then headed out for a walk around Waikiki. It was so much fun to be back in Honolulu! I loved seeing all the yummy treats in the convenience stores, like local brews and musubi. Yummm.

We had a nice dinner of katsu, then caught the amazing sunset from the beach. It was a long, but amazing day.

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