This morning, we stopped by Ala Moana Center for some shopping, and I ended up spending quite a bit of time at the Kanile’a Ukulele store. I fell in love with two ukuleles: a concert model with honu inlay and a soprano. Both were stunning, played effortlessly, and sounded incredible! The soprano, in particular, felt perfect in my hands, and with frets extending to the soundhole, I could easily play anything from my current repertoire. Someday, I’d love to make that ukulele mine!

In the afternoon, we went on an amazing 90-minute catamaran ride from Waikiki out around Diamond Head and back. The views were incredible, and as a bonus, they offered free alcoholic drinks – which, of course, we made the most of. What an awesome 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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