What an amazing, amazing 10 days we had in Honolulu! We loved every day we had there! I have so much to tell you guys, so many fun stories to share. Including one horrific toilet story about the Safeway bathroom. @_@ So, I guess I better get started on these Honolulu posts, eh! Ha ha ha. I snapped this pic right after we cleared customs in Honolulu. The flight over was fantastic, it was a night flight so Noah slept the entire way to Hawaii. And Branden watched a DVD and then he slept the rest of the flight as well. I listened to music on my ipod off and on and also caught about 3 or 4 hours of sleep during our 8 hour flight. Flipped through a magazine and also, the in flight duty free catalog a few times just to look. And then they served breakfast and about 50 minutes later we landed. And I was waking the kids telling them we had landed. Our family of 4 had 2 rows of seats. The window seats that seat 3 in a row. We could have sat all together because the plane was pretty much dead/no passengers. But we wanted the boys to stretch out and also get a window each. So, Noboru sat with Noah and I sat with B. We later switched after Noah slept. Noah took the 2 seats to my right and stretched out the whole flight. Same for Noboru and B. B stretched on the 2 seats and also got the window.
This is what our hotels sink area looked like. We stayed at the same place we stayed at the last time. We stayed at the Waikiki Beachcomber. It's a very nice hotel. Before he passed, Don Ho used to play downstairs but now they have Jimmy Buffet downstairs. The song, Margaritaville, might come to mind to some of you. : ) : ) It's right on the main street, a perfect location. We had an escalator that lead from our hotel lobby right down to the main street and heart of Waikiki. Where all the action is basically. Ha ha ha. : )
The entire hotel is sparkling clean. The shower with palm tree shower curtain and the green tiles in the shower were bamboo-esque type tiles. It was a really nice comfortable place to stay and enjoy our vacation for sures.
Nice beds, with leis on the comforters. Sea shell and starfish art, we truly felt we were in Hawaii staying here.
They put us on this 5th floor at first, the hubby disliked this floor so much he went downstairs and had them move us to a higher floor right away. @_@. They moved us to the 11th floor. LOL But look at the rates in this pic, yes that is for 1 night of stay. We didn't pay that price though. We fortunately get an airline discount. I think for the airlines we could choose from about 5 really good hotels. We coulda chose the Sheraton and a few others that I forget now. But I prefer the Beachcomber, we've stayed here twice, well now 3 times so far and I really am comfortable staying here. And with our discount we paid around $80 bucks a night. So, for us it was a pretty good deal. Good deals always welcome, ha ha ha. : )
Flat screen TV and there's the boys getting comfy in the room we spent so many nights in. : )
You know the International Marketplace in Waikiki is sorta like this cool tourist trap, that sells cool souvenirs. Anyway we were so in the heart of it all, we could see the carts from our balcony.
We also could see the ocean and the pink hotel and if you look down below at the pool and hot tub that was our hotels pool and hot tub as well. But we never went to the pool. We spent all our time at the beach instead. : ) That is the main street and where all the tourists wanna walk around at night. We had a great view. We really did. Anyway that's where we stayed. : )
Tuesday morning after we checked into the hotel, we quickly changed clothes and we pulled out Branden's body board from our suitcase and we hit Waikiki Beach right away.
My son, he's grown up so much hasn't he? I couldn't be prouder, he's a real good egg this kid!
Some of these waves got pretty big and they can even sometimes knock a grown up down, if you lose your footing. But there B went, riding every wave he could.
And this pic was from the morning we left. We swam and boarded in Waikiki twice because 98% of our beach time and boarding was done up at Kailua Beach instead. Because we just like that beach better... the sand is more powdery and white, the beach is prettier and way less people. So, our 2 days in the water at Waikiki are shuffled into this post. And as far as walking and strolling around Waikiki, we did that *every* single night we were there and I got pics from that down below. I dug this surfer girl a lot. And I dug that my first born, was riding these waves with all sorts of surfers and boarders.
Body boarding was his number one thing on this trip.
In this pic, he had found this tiny piece of coral and he wanted to keep it and he was running back to where I was, so I'd hold onto it for him.
My boys! Branden and Noah! : )
This I think is now one of my favorite pictures, it's probably one of the pics, I'll use this year when I send out our New years cards, lol.
Man is he stretching out or what! : )
To watch them run along the beach like this. It just makes me so happy.
Hands in the water, breathing that fresh ocean air! He's probably pooped from all that boogie boarding. Time to grab some dinner! : )
The Blue Water Shrimp company. This is what we ate the first night we were in Hawaii. We've been here before and we were ready to eat! And eat we did! We got our food "to go" and headed back into our comfortable little hotel room, with sodas, tea, and lemonade and water we bought along the way. For dinner, for the most part we walked since everything was centrally located. We had the Cheesecake factory restaurant right across the street from us, I mean literally. Ha ha ha. Pizza Hut, Taco bell, Jack in the Box, Church's fried chicken, you name it. It was within 3 minutes or less walking distance from our hotel. We also had our SUV that we used to cruise all over with during the day time. But at night we felt so relaxed and going with the flow we just walked and strolled and walked and strolled like the rest of the tourists, ha ha ha.
We all had #1's. The garlic shrimp. Noboru and I had ours super spicy though. Yumm. Give me some fire! No, I'm just kidding, but I do like eating spicy food, the spicier the better. : )
The hubster all ordering for us. : ) Us and our garlic shrimp dinners rode the elevator back to the 11th floor and we called it a night (except for that shake run the hubby had us all run before we really called it a night). A nice shower and a soda with ice and I was ready to enjoy TV as long as I could keep my eyeballs open for. : )
This was my first dinner. I was a little surprised about the furikake on the rice, since they didn't do that the last time we ate there. But the next time I ordered from there I remembered to ask for mine minus the furikake. Boy was that shrimp hot!!!! I loved it though and even rolled my corn into the sauce and munched away.
Here's a pic from the first night after we had spicy garlic shrimp in the room. I was just about to get ready for my shower or send hubby in with the boys to get theirs. But Noboru said, let's go to Jack (in the box) and get a shake with whipped cream and a cherry on top, lol, seriously yup he said that. @_@ I'm full I said. He gave me that..."oh come on, we're on vacation looks" and I relented, next thing you know we were slipping into our shoes and made a scenic walk through the International Marketplace before getting our chocolate shakes and heading back into the hotel, showers, and then TV for me and bed and lalaland for everyone else. So this is a pic of our two sons and my sweet hubby at the International Market Place before we headed to make that shake run and call it a night. Our first night. : )
Next morning, hubby wanted blueberry pancakes. I agreed they sounded yumm. So, we figured since the kids would most likely get glunk and glop on their clothes why not muck up the ones from yesterday and then just switch to clean ones after breakfast and spills were made. Brilliant idea. So, pancake breakfast check. And an hour of looking for bargains at the Wednesday swap meet/flea market at the Aloha Stadium. It was only 2 bucks to get in for all of us. So cheap. What did we find? Not much, B got a hibiscus navy baseball cap but that's it. We left, they changed clothes in the car and we went and had 1 day of shopping, hubby wanted to get it over with first, that way we could enjoy the rest of our vacation. I agreed. Goodness I think I am too agreeable. :P
Waikele...that's the exit we want. Good thing we know where we are going. : )
There we go! Waikele premium outlets.
There's my 2 little guys, walking together. Branden's holding the Ralph Lauren bag and the Osh Kosh bag and they are heading into the Children's Place as I clicked the pic. See the window tags that says an additional 50% off. The deals were amazing. : )
Here's Noah watching kids TV while I had B trying on a pair of pants in Gymboree. The particular pants looked weird so we didn't get them. : (
They have trolley's for everything tourists might need. We drove so we didn't need it, but there is even a Waikele trolley available and that's pretty cool.
This is the street and condo we used to live at. We lived in Salt Lake/Moanalua. A nice little suburb. Um, our condo faced a really nice golf course, amazing view. In this pic you see 4 condos, ours was the 2nd one to the right. That is where we lived for a few years and where B lived his under 1 year old stages at, where he learned to roll and crawl was at this condo. We lived here rent free since we were actually sent there by the airline for additional training. About 8 other guys and there families were also sent and they lived in the same building so it was really cozy and fun living there.
This is the building right here. I believe we lived on the 9th floor. I forget but I think it was the 9th floor. It was a very nice condo. Really big, huge living room, big balcony/lanai, 2 big bedrooms. Nice swimming pool. A fun place to live.
This is the hospital Branden was born. He was born at the Kaiser in Moanalua. I loved my hospital stay there. My doctor was just so cool. She was Japanese American. Her name was doctor Inoue. I actually have a pic of a less then 1 month old B with doctor Inoue someplace. She was/is a wonderful doctor. : )
They didn't have Target last time we were in Hawaii. But since I'm from the mainland I grew up going to Target. A total Target girl, I am. So, we went.
As soon as I grabbed my red cart, I was on a natural high. LOL. Hubby said he'd give me an hour to shop in peace and he grabbed his own cart and took the boys. Oh bless that man. Shopping in peace. Bliss. : ) : ) I went through the ladies clothes, didn't see anything. I did get a sleep night shirt though in the jammie section. Just a black simple night shirt. Checked the boys section just found maybe 3 things or so, not much. Picked up some face scrub, 2 tubes of cinnamon toothpaste. Toothbrushes. Bikini underwear for me since they're cheap and cute and cotton. Then I hit the DVD area. I had a few print outs of the DVD's I had wanted. So picked those up. Met up with the hubby and we checked out.
Our silver SUV was in front of the white bigger SUV.
We were ready to head back to Waikiki. With whatever outlet shopping, Target shopping we did we were hungry, ready for supper and wanted to head back to the hotel. But we stopped at Bob's BBQ first. We used to eat here all the time when we lived here. It's cheap, fast, and the quanity is huge and it's so yummy too.
BBQ chicken and lots of rice.
Now we were in the safety of our hotel and riding the elevator with BBQ scents coming from some of our bags and the other bags just clothes and DVD's and toothpaste. Boring stuff but we were ready to call it a day. Of course not counting the night stroll.
After the boys got fully charged up courtesy of the BBQ meal they just ate. Jimmy Buffet, " "wasting away again in Margeritaville.....I blew out my flip flop, stepped on a pop top" Anyone remember that song? Ha ha ha. We were ready for our nightly walk and stroll.
So many street performers! See these guys playing the drums. They were playing sorta like an island jam. However......
Not more then 10 feet away this guy was sorta playing against the other guy, he was playing more different and more cool island type jams with his steel drum. Everyone wanting you to put a dollar or some change into their hat or box and stay and listen to their music or whatever it was that they were doing, more then the next performer next to them. So much talent it was hard to decide who we liked best though, but my own personal fave is the tin man.
Playing, walking and having fun as we cruised the strip. What is our purpose of walking up and down Waikiki? Absolutely nothing. Just hanging out, relaxing. Being social. Grab that last shake or last minute snack before we call it a night. Or to walk in hopes to run into the Yuka-sensei. Or just to chill out and listen to the music. Or to people watch. Take your pick, the reason varied from night to night why we went out there but we indeed walked up and down like everyone else every single night.
Balloon hat guy. This guy made balloons and bended and twisted them into make shift hats. Tourist kids wanted said hats.... so tourist parents ended up giving 1 dollar in this very smart and wise mans tip jar. Aha, he figured out, our kids are our weaknesses. That's a good way to get that coveted dollar! : ) : ) Good thing our kids didn't ask for a balloon hat! Phew! : )
Gold man. He's alright but not as cool as the original tin man/silver man. I have seen that tin man around since before we were preggers with B. He works hard on that street and I can say out of all the performers that come and go, I have only ever given him a tip. He's my favorite.
This young gal early 20's I'd say. Had her boom box and it played Hawaiian music meanwhile she danced and she was getting a bunch of tips.
And she was the last on the strip of the performers and wow, she was a fantastic singer! I actually video taped her singing on my camcorder for just like a minute or two. She really impressed me and she had a huge crowd surroundng her in awe, myself included!!!
Kings Village, they have the changing of the guard once a day around 6 or 7pm. It's a pretty cool thing to see. This was sorta on our nightly route as we walked a full lap every night. Ha ha ha.
Walking hand and hand. They sure did get a lot of exercise. : )
And yup this night we made a run for chocolate shakes with whipped cream and a cherry on top again. Happy sigh.: ) : ) And then we called it a night, showers, boys crashed to sleep and we watched TV.
One morning real early we went to Denny's. I had a veggie cheese omlette, hashbrowns and toast. We ate and then hit Kailua yet again. We didn't waste one single day while there, we did so much.
Another morning, we thought a nice picnic of deli stuff at Kailua sounded fab. So, we stopped off at Safeway real early one morning. Only read ahead if you're not easily grossed out. But it's a true story and I have to share it. While picking out our deli stuff, I suddenly had to go pee. A 30 minute drive to Kailua, so couldn't hold my pee that long and we weren't going to drive all the way back to the hotel, so I told hubby I'll be right back I'm going to go pee real quick at Safeway. I walked into the bathroom, keep in mind I was practically pee my pants type having to go pee. When I walked in the bathroom, first thing that hit me was this horrendous smell of shit! Oh good grief, I thought somebody before me, must have just let off a killer load, I thought. It stunk in there but I had to pee, so I just held my breath and peeked in all 3 toilets to see which one looked cleanest. Anyone else do that? LOL, I do that all the time. 3 toilets, toilet to the left, sorta clean and had toilet paper, toilet in the middle sorta clean and no toilet paper, toilet to the right. You wouldn't even believe it! Poop all over the toilet, toilet seat and floor! It was basically spewed every freaking place! Aha that's where the horrendous smell came from. I was so beyond grossed out. I couldn't just unsee what I saw. It stay imprinted on my mind. Poor me! Ha ha ha. I quickly went to the #1 toilet farthest left, holding my breath until I nearly turned blue! Okay here is where it sorta gets funny. I am wiping, I just took a quick pee. And 2 ladies walked in. They both gasped for air. Yup the strong smell of nasty shit hit them too. They saw my feet and they must have thought it was me at first. Now besides about to turn blue my face was also bright red. It wasn't me, I thought, as I was nearly passing out from lack of air and holding my breath. The lady went into the middle stall, because I saw feet on the next stall. And the 3rd lady must have walked into the killer toilet. Because all of a sudden, I could hear the last lady gagging from what she saw. I know what she saw! Because I had just seen it too. I felt her pain, lol! Still I was holding my breath or just breathing from my mouth by now. She waited for her friend to use her stall and she said, "Vera" or whatever he name was she called out. "You don't wanna know what's in the 3rd stall" What is it she called out in response. "Poop everywhere" she said. I meanwhile left my stall and when I left I was thankful they did not think it was me who did a poo in there. Talk about a relief. It was some disgusting mystery person. Who nearly killed us all. I also wondered who would have to clean that up? Ewww! When I walked out hubby was still in the deli section deciding something. Of course I had to tell my family the story right away. My husband looked at every lady in the Safeway whispering "do you think it was her?" lol. I don't know I'd say. And then we left and enjoyed our day at the beach. What a story though, eh? : )
This pic was taken the day we went to Ala Moana.
The day we went to Costco. Only bought the popcorn. I did use the restroom in there though, was sorta gun shy about going since I had that weird Safeway experience the day before but it was okay.
Andy's Kahuku Shrimp. This lady used to have a truck on the North Shore someplace. She also had Andy, her beautiful parrot. We used to eat there quite a bit when we lived in Hawaii. But she sold the truck she had at the North Shore, some other lady bought it and sells her own version of the shrimp. But the original Andy's owner owns her own little restaurant in the Waikiki area and we went there to get some spicy shrimp from her for dinner one night. Did we eat a ton of shrimp while on vacation or what. Ha ha ha. I know, I know. : )
This shrimp was so spicy, but it was really good! : )
What an amazing, amazing 10 days we had in Honolulu! We loved every day we had there! I have so much to tell you guys, so many fun stories to share. Including one horrific toilet story about the Safeway bathroom. @_@ So, I guess I better get started on these Honolulu posts, eh! Ha ha ha. I snapped this pic right after we cleared customs in Honolulu. The flight over was fantastic, it was a night flight so Noah slept the entire way to Hawaii. And Branden watched a DVD and then he slept the rest of the flight as well. I listened to music on my ipod off and on and also caught about 3 or 4 hours of sleep during our 8 hour flight. Flipped through a magazine and also, the in flight duty free catalog a few times just to look. And then they served breakfast and about 50 minutes later we landed. And I was waking the kids telling them we had landed. Our family of 4 had 2 rows of seats. The window seats that seat 3 in a row. We could have sat all together because the plane was pretty much dead/no passengers. But we wanted the boys to stretch out and also get a window each. So, Noboru sat with Noah and I sat with B. We later switched after Noah slept. Noah took the 2 seats to my right and stretched out the whole flight. Same for Noboru and B. B stretched on the 2 seats and also got the window.
This is what our hotels sink area looked like. We stayed at the same place we stayed at the last time. We stayed at the Waikiki Beachcomber. It's a very nice hotel. Before he passed, Don Ho used to play downstairs but now they have Jimmy Buffet downstairs. The song, Margaritaville, might come to mind to some of you. : ) : ) It's right on the main street, a perfect location. We had an escalator that lead from our hotel lobby right down to the main street and heart of Waikiki. Where all the action is basically. Ha ha ha. : )
The entire hotel is sparkling clean. The shower with palm tree shower curtain and the green tiles in the shower were bamboo-esque type tiles. It was a really nice comfortable place to stay and enjoy our vacation for sures.
Nice beds, with leis on the comforters. Sea shell and starfish art, we truly felt we were in Hawaii staying here.
They put us on this 5th floor at first, the hubby disliked this floor so much he went downstairs and had them move us to a higher floor right away. @_@. They moved us to the 11th floor. LOL But look at the rates in this pic, yes that is for 1 night of stay. We didn't pay that price though. We fortunately get an airline discount. I think for the airlines we could choose from about 5 really good hotels. We coulda chose the Sheraton and a few others that I forget now. But I prefer the Beachcomber, we've stayed here twice, well now 3 times so far and I really am comfortable staying here. And with our discount we paid around $80 bucks a night. So, for us it was a pretty good deal. Good deals always welcome, ha ha ha. : )
Flat screen TV and there's the boys getting comfy in the room we spent so many nights in. : )
You know the International Marketplace in Waikiki is sorta like this cool tourist trap, that sells cool souvenirs. Anyway we were so in the heart of it all, we could see the carts from our balcony.
We also could see the ocean and the pink hotel and if you look down below at the pool and hot tub that was our hotels pool and hot tub as well. But we never went to the pool. We spent all our time at the beach instead. : ) That is the main street and where all the tourists wanna walk around at night. We had a great view. We really did. Anyway that's where we stayed. : )
Tuesday morning after we checked into the hotel, we quickly changed clothes and we pulled out Branden's body board from our suitcase and we hit Waikiki Beach right away.
My son, he's grown up so much hasn't he? I couldn't be prouder, he's a real good egg this kid!
Some of these waves got pretty big and they can even sometimes knock a grown up down, if you lose your footing. But there B went, riding every wave he could.
And this pic was from the morning we left. We swam and boarded in Waikiki twice because 98% of our beach time and boarding was done up at Kailua Beach instead. Because we just like that beach better... the sand is more powdery and white, the beach is prettier and way less people. So, our 2 days in the water at Waikiki are shuffled into this post. And as far as walking and strolling around Waikiki, we did that *every* single night we were there and I got pics from that down below. I dug this surfer girl a lot. And I dug that my first born, was riding these waves with all sorts of surfers and boarders.
Body boarding was his number one thing on this trip.
In this pic, he had found this tiny piece of coral and he wanted to keep it and he was running back to where I was, so I'd hold onto it for him.
My boys! Branden and Noah! : )
This I think is now one of my favorite pictures, it's probably one of the pics, I'll use this year when I send out our New years cards, lol.
Man is he stretching out or what! : )
To watch them run along the beach like this. It just makes me so happy.
Hands in the water, breathing that fresh ocean air! He's probably pooped from all that boogie boarding. Time to grab some dinner! : )
The Blue Water Shrimp company. This is what we ate the first night we were in Hawaii. We've been here before and we were ready to eat! And eat we did! We got our food "to go" and headed back into our comfortable little hotel room, with sodas, tea, and lemonade and water we bought along the way. For dinner, for the most part we walked since everything was centrally located. We had the Cheesecake factory restaurant right across the street from us, I mean literally. Ha ha ha. Pizza Hut, Taco bell, Jack in the Box, Church's fried chicken, you name it. It was within 3 minutes or less walking distance from our hotel. We also had our SUV that we used to cruise all over with during the day time. But at night we felt so relaxed and going with the flow we just walked and strolled and walked and strolled like the rest of the tourists, ha ha ha.
We all had #1's. The garlic shrimp. Noboru and I had ours super spicy though. Yumm. Give me some fire! No, I'm just kidding, but I do like eating spicy food, the spicier the better. : )
The hubster all ordering for us. : ) Us and our garlic shrimp dinners rode the elevator back to the 11th floor and we called it a night (except for that shake run the hubby had us all run before we really called it a night). A nice shower and a soda with ice and I was ready to enjoy TV as long as I could keep my eyeballs open for. : )
This was my first dinner. I was a little surprised about the furikake on the rice, since they didn't do that the last time we ate there. But the next time I ordered from there I remembered to ask for mine minus the furikake. Boy was that shrimp hot!!!! I loved it though and even rolled my corn into the sauce and munched away.
Here's a pic from the first night after we had spicy garlic shrimp in the room. I was just about to get ready for my shower or send hubby in with the boys to get theirs. But Noboru said, let's go to Jack (in the box) and get a shake with whipped cream and a cherry on top, lol, seriously yup he said that. @_@ I'm full I said. He gave me that..."oh come on, we're on vacation looks" and I relented, next thing you know we were slipping into our shoes and made a scenic walk through the International Marketplace before getting our chocolate shakes and heading back into the hotel, showers, and then TV for me and bed and lalaland for everyone else. So this is a pic of our two sons and my sweet hubby at the International Market Place before we headed to make that shake run and call it a night. Our first night. : )
Next morning, hubby wanted blueberry pancakes. I agreed they sounded yumm. So, we figured since the kids would most likely get glunk and glop on their clothes why not muck up the ones from yesterday and then just switch to clean ones after breakfast and spills were made. Brilliant idea. So, pancake breakfast check. And an hour of looking for bargains at the Wednesday swap meet/flea market at the Aloha Stadium. It was only 2 bucks to get in for all of us. So cheap. What did we find? Not much, B got a hibiscus navy baseball cap but that's it. We left, they changed clothes in the car and we went and had 1 day of shopping, hubby wanted to get it over with first, that way we could enjoy the rest of our vacation. I agreed. Goodness I think I am too agreeable. :P
Waikele...that's the exit we want. Good thing we know where we are going. : )
There we go! Waikele premium outlets.
There's my 2 little guys, walking together. Branden's holding the Ralph Lauren bag and the Osh Kosh bag and they are heading into the Children's Place as I clicked the pic. See the window tags that says an additional 50% off. The deals were amazing. : )
Here's Noah watching kids TV while I had B trying on a pair of pants in Gymboree. The particular pants looked weird so we didn't get them. : (
They have trolley's for everything tourists might need. We drove so we didn't need it, but there is even a Waikele trolley available and that's pretty cool.
This is the street and condo we used to live at. We lived in Salt Lake/Moanalua. A nice little suburb. Um, our condo faced a really nice golf course, amazing view. In this pic you see 4 condos, ours was the 2nd one to the right. That is where we lived for a few years and where B lived his under 1 year old stages at, where he learned to roll and crawl was at this condo. We lived here rent free since we were actually sent there by the airline for additional training. About 8 other guys and there families were also sent and they lived in the same building so it was really cozy and fun living there.
This is the building right here. I believe we lived on the 9th floor. I forget but I think it was the 9th floor. It was a very nice condo. Really big, huge living room, big balcony/lanai, 2 big bedrooms. Nice swimming pool. A fun place to live.
This is the hospital Branden was born. He was born at the Kaiser in Moanalua. I loved my hospital stay there. My doctor was just so cool. She was Japanese American. Her name was doctor Inoue. I actually have a pic of a less then 1 month old B with doctor Inoue someplace. She was/is a wonderful doctor. : )
They didn't have Target last time we were in Hawaii. But since I'm from the mainland I grew up going to Target. A total Target girl, I am. So, we went.
As soon as I grabbed my red cart, I was on a natural high. LOL. Hubby said he'd give me an hour to shop in peace and he grabbed his own cart and took the boys. Oh bless that man. Shopping in peace. Bliss. : ) : ) I went through the ladies clothes, didn't see anything. I did get a sleep night shirt though in the jammie section. Just a black simple night shirt. Checked the boys section just found maybe 3 things or so, not much. Picked up some face scrub, 2 tubes of cinnamon toothpaste. Toothbrushes. Bikini underwear for me since they're cheap and cute and cotton. Then I hit the DVD area. I had a few print outs of the DVD's I had wanted. So picked those up. Met up with the hubby and we checked out.
Our silver SUV was in front of the white bigger SUV.
We were ready to head back to Waikiki. With whatever outlet shopping, Target shopping we did we were hungry, ready for supper and wanted to head back to the hotel. But we stopped at Bob's BBQ first. We used to eat here all the time when we lived here. It's cheap, fast, and the quanity is huge and it's so yummy too.
BBQ chicken and lots of rice.
Now we were in the safety of our hotel and riding the elevator with BBQ scents coming from some of our bags and the other bags just clothes and DVD's and toothpaste. Boring stuff but we were ready to call it a day. Of course not counting the night stroll.
After the boys got fully charged up courtesy of the BBQ meal they just ate. Jimmy Buffet, " "wasting away again in Margeritaville.....I blew out my flip flop, stepped on a pop top" Anyone remember that song? Ha ha ha. We were ready for our nightly walk and stroll.
So many street performers! See these guys playing the drums. They were playing sorta like an island jam. However......
Not more then 10 feet away this guy was sorta playing against the other guy, he was playing more different and more cool island type jams with his steel drum. Everyone wanting you to put a dollar or some change into their hat or box and stay and listen to their music or whatever it was that they were doing, more then the next performer next to them. So much talent it was hard to decide who we liked best though, but my own personal fave is the tin man.
Playing, walking and having fun as we cruised the strip. What is our purpose of walking up and down Waikiki? Absolutely nothing. Just hanging out, relaxing. Being social. Grab that last shake or last minute snack before we call it a night. Or to walk in hopes to run into the Yuka-sensei. Or just to chill out and listen to the music. Or to people watch. Take your pick, the reason varied from night to night why we went out there but we indeed walked up and down like everyone else every single night.
Balloon hat guy. This guy made balloons and bended and twisted them into make shift hats. Tourist kids wanted said hats.... so tourist parents ended up giving 1 dollar in this very smart and wise mans tip jar. Aha, he figured out, our kids are our weaknesses. That's a good way to get that coveted dollar! : ) : ) Good thing our kids didn't ask for a balloon hat! Phew! : )
Gold man. He's alright but not as cool as the original tin man/silver man. I have seen that tin man around since before we were preggers with B. He works hard on that street and I can say out of all the performers that come and go, I have only ever given him a tip. He's my favorite.
This young gal early 20's I'd say. Had her boom box and it played Hawaiian music meanwhile she danced and she was getting a bunch of tips.
And she was the last on the strip of the performers and wow, she was a fantastic singer! I actually video taped her singing on my camcorder for just like a minute or two. She really impressed me and she had a huge crowd surroundng her in awe, myself included!!!
Kings Village, they have the changing of the guard once a day around 6 or 7pm. It's a pretty cool thing to see. This was sorta on our nightly route as we walked a full lap every night. Ha ha ha.
Walking hand and hand. They sure did get a lot of exercise. : )
And yup this night we made a run for chocolate shakes with whipped cream and a cherry on top again. Happy sigh.: ) : ) And then we called it a night, showers, boys crashed to sleep and we watched TV.
One morning real early we went to Denny's. I had a veggie cheese omlette, hashbrowns and toast. We ate and then hit Kailua yet again. We didn't waste one single day while there, we did so much.
Another morning, we thought a nice picnic of deli stuff at Kailua sounded fab. So, we stopped off at Safeway real early one morning. Only read ahead if you're not easily grossed out. But it's a true story and I have to share it. While picking out our deli stuff, I suddenly had to go pee. A 30 minute drive to Kailua, so couldn't hold my pee that long and we weren't going to drive all the way back to the hotel, so I told hubby I'll be right back I'm going to go pee real quick at Safeway. I walked into the bathroom, keep in mind I was practically pee my pants type having to go pee. When I walked in the bathroom, first thing that hit me was this horrendous smell of shit! Oh good grief, I thought somebody before me, must have just let off a killer load, I thought. It stunk in there but I had to pee, so I just held my breath and peeked in all 3 toilets to see which one looked cleanest. Anyone else do that? LOL, I do that all the time. 3 toilets, toilet to the left, sorta clean and had toilet paper, toilet in the middle sorta clean and no toilet paper, toilet to the right. You wouldn't even believe it! Poop all over the toilet, toilet seat and floor! It was basically spewed every freaking place! Aha that's where the horrendous smell came from. I was so beyond grossed out. I couldn't just unsee what I saw. It stay imprinted on my mind. Poor me! Ha ha ha. I quickly went to the #1 toilet farthest left, holding my breath until I nearly turned blue! Okay here is where it sorta gets funny. I am wiping, I just took a quick pee. And 2 ladies walked in. They both gasped for air. Yup the strong smell of nasty shit hit them too. They saw my feet and they must have thought it was me at first. Now besides about to turn blue my face was also bright red. It wasn't me, I thought, as I was nearly passing out from lack of air and holding my breath. The lady went into the middle stall, because I saw feet on the next stall. And the 3rd lady must have walked into the killer toilet. Because all of a sudden, I could hear the last lady gagging from what she saw. I know what she saw! Because I had just seen it too. I felt her pain, lol! Still I was holding my breath or just breathing from my mouth by now. She waited for her friend to use her stall and she said, "Vera" or whatever he name was she called out. "You don't wanna know what's in the 3rd stall" What is it she called out in response. "Poop everywhere" she said. I meanwhile left my stall and when I left I was thankful they did not think it was me who did a poo in there. Talk about a relief. It was some disgusting mystery person. Who nearly killed us all. I also wondered who would have to clean that up? Ewww! When I walked out hubby was still in the deli section deciding something. Of course I had to tell my family the story right away. My husband looked at every lady in the Safeway whispering "do you think it was her?" lol. I don't know I'd say. And then we left and enjoyed our day at the beach. What a story though, eh? : )
This pic was taken the day we went to Ala Moana.
The day we went to Costco. Only bought the popcorn. I did use the restroom in there though, was sorta gun shy about going since I had that weird Safeway experience the day before but it was okay.
Andy's Kahuku Shrimp. This lady used to have a truck on the North Shore someplace. She also had Andy, her beautiful parrot. We used to eat there quite a bit when we lived in Hawaii. But she sold the truck she had at the North Shore, some other lady bought it and sells her own version of the shrimp. But the original Andy's owner owns her own little restaurant in the Waikiki area and we went there to get some spicy shrimp from her for dinner one night. Did we eat a ton of shrimp while on vacation or what. Ha ha ha. I know, I know. : )
This shrimp was so spicy, but it was really good! : )
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