One day after a full day of Kailua beach fun and showers at the hotel, we drove to Home Depot. Noboru wanted something for the hanging baskets on the porch.
A patio watering kit. He has been wanting this and he bought 2 of them that way if anything ever happens, he at least has spare parts and a whole other kit. I meanwhile returned the favor he did for me at Target and everywhere else. So, I took a cart and cruised the boys around the store and let Noboru shop in peace and he appreciated that a ton! When he was finished he happily came looking for us in the store. Nobody felt rushed or nagged. And neither did I when I shopped at Target or the outlets or Sephora either. That is one of our strong points, we do respect each others time to shop and we help each other big time to make sure the other can shop without stress.
Noboru loves Zippy's. a restaurant chain in Oahu. They serve a lot of American dishes as well as a lot of Asian dishes. They're also famous for their chili and their pies. : )
Noboru had some noodles. I asked him if this was ramen but he said sorta.... the dish he was eating was more Chinese, he had the wontanmin (sp?) He loves this dish. The kids each had a grilled cheese and fries and free chocolate pudding for dessert. And I had the Korean fried chicken, oh man that is my favorite dish from Zippy's. Noboru and I shared a slice of strawberry and cream/custard pie. Oh my goodness was it so yumm! : )
A morning stroll in the International market place. And look at that crazy tree! : ) Aren't the trees in Hawaii so cool looking? I love those trees! : )
Every evening we strolled and walked, I was looking for a suitcase. I told Noboru no matter what I wasn't going to leave Hawaii without a new hibiscus suitcase. See, I had owned 2 previously, 1 enormous one that was sky blue. This sky blue color was a mistake because it got dirty immediately. : ( I noted to myself from years ago never to buy a light colored suitcase again. And I have a navy blue tiny hisbiscus carry-on one. Anyway I wanted a set for a long long time. That was actually the reason we went to the swap meet that past Wednesday. But I didn't see a color I liked. : ( I had fallen in love with one particular color and style but couldn't find 1 place that sold the whole set. Meaning lots of places sold the medium one and not the large one or vice versa. Sigh. Anyway, one day while walking, we happened to find this place in the International Marketplace, we walked in and low and behold they had the whole set. Noboru fought with her on the price, he's a good wheeler dealer just like my MIL is too. He got her down twice of what she originally wanted, meaning he told her what suitcases we wanted, she said $120, he scoffed and told her, "I know how much they really cost surely you can do better then that" So while they went at it with the cost my face was bright red, then she gave a second price and he pushing buttons on his calculator function on his keitei and shaking his head no at her.... gave her a number and said no taxes though and she relented. And he bought me, my 3 piece set for $75 bucks the whole thing and no taxes he said. And she said deal. Not bad since she origianlly wanted $120.00 for the 3. Good hubby good hubby. : )
There's B holding my suitcase, the other 2 were inside of this big one. I love this pattern so much.
You see all the hibiscus bags and purses, makeup bags and the likes. The tee shirts that are such a bargain! The necklaces and Hawaiian bracelets. Ukelele's. They will make a deal. We bought 3 kids tee shirts for 9 bucks for all 3. I mean the deals there were just amazing. It's hard not to be sucked in by the International Marketplace. I mean we know it's a tourist trap, but the deals are so good and the stuff is so cute. : )
Yup every kind of necklace and bracelet and earring you can think of. *happy sigh*
One day we went for a stroll before heading off to the Dole Pineapple Plantation and the North Shore.
I do love my family. : )
We went to the Waikiki food court. Here's what they have. There's food courts all over Waikiki and restaurants and shrimp trucks, steak trucks, etc and affordable places to eat everywhere. And the choices are limitless. The trouble we had was trying to decide what to eat, too many choices, not that we were complaining at all, mind you. : ) : )
I had a personal pan pizza and usually that's it for me. But since I was on vacation and probably not able to see Church's fried chicken for a very long time after this, I had to force myself to have a chicken breast, it came free with a biscuit but I gave the biscuit to B and he split it with Noah, it was a honey biscuit. That sure was one heck of a good fried chicken breast and a good pepperoni pizza. I did walk and swim tons daily though, but foodwise it's pretty obvious my diet went totally out the window while we were on vacation. And you know what...that's okay. I would have been more sad if I woulda put limits and restraints all on myself and skipped dessert every night and never tasted the chicken etc etc. I didn't see the need to deprive myself on vacation. Besides I figured I could exercise my butt off when I got back to Japan. Which I have @_@. : ( Ha ha ha : )
Noah had his own personal pan pizza and breadsticks combo.
B got the Italian sub from Subway. Pepperoni and salami sandwich on Italian bread with provolone. And a sack of chips.
And Noboru got what made him happy as well, he picked a Japanese obento and a Hawaiian onigiri, a Spam one! Ha ha ha! His fave! : ) Noah likes the Spam ones too. @_@.
This is where the magic happens! I'm sure by now every one's heard of Dole pineapple. We just arrived at Dole. I have pics on this blog of our visit the last time. I believe Noboru is holding Noah in a backpack carrier. So, it was pretty neat to watch both kids actually enjoy Dole this time, especially now that Noah's a bit older now.
Yup, this place is the real deal! The real McCoy! : )
After shopping buying Dole omiyage for friends. And having some very cool charms and a bracelet made at Dole, we all got in line for some Dole soft serve ice-cream. It's so good.
Waiting in line.
Branden enjoying his pineapple soft serve. Note the bracelet on his wrist that says Branden on it. And the lady also made a little warrior symbol next to his name. It's a really cool bracelet. We also got key chains that we will hang on each of the boys school backpacks, they also say their own names on them too. They had these at Dole.
Noah finally got to enjoy his own pineapple soft serve. Last time he was too small to get his own so, he just got a few licks of everyone's. Ha ha ha. Now he's finally old enough to get his own.
And I had a soft serve waffle cone. But with taking all the pics of the boys mine was melting like a wild cat! Ha ha ha. : ) The four of us enjoyed our ice-creams immensely.
I am glad the boys know how real pineapples grow. Sometimes with travelling, kids learn so much cool stuff. They also got to see all the different types/varities and colors of pineapples that grow.
This one was a real long and reddish type of pineapple.
These are the typical kind we all know and love. The kind that Spongebob lives in of course, ha ha ha. And note that lovely rainbow in the sky in the background of this pic. Hubby carrying our omiyage/gifts for friends back in Japan.
These were like mini pineapples, lol. For real, seriously. : )
Noah looking at a pic of Jim Dole. The guy who started it all. : )
After leaving Dole, we were on our way to the North Shore. See this pic? It's rows and rows of coffee. Also note the red red dirt/earth.
And we made it to North Shore, what a nice drive it was.
Aoiki's shave ice what a long line!
And Matsumoto's. This place is famous famous. Lots of pics of stars inside. Tons of Japanese stars on the wall. Also American stars along the wall too, Like Tom Hanks for example. We just had pineapple soft serve but what the heck....we had to have a shave ice as well. I mean how could we miss out on Matsumoto's famous shave ice, lol. The line was sorta long but, we were on vacation and no place we HAD to be, we had nothing but time. So we sat in line and enjoyed ourselves. We had the kids share a shave ice and hubby and I shared one as well.
And we finally made our way back to Waikiki that day. We dropped off the car and our stuff at the hotel and Noboru suggested us watching the sunset. A little cheesy maybe, and a little romantic too, but since we were there to enjoy ourselves and enjoy our vacation, I said why the heck not! So, we 4 walked down to Waikiki and watched the sunset. I took this pic of the 3 of them. Some really nice American lady offered to take a pic of the 4 of us. And then since she was alone, I offered to take her pic too. Which I did.
I took this pic of my family in front of this statue. I take a pic of my family in front of this same statue every time we go to Hawaii though. It's fun to see how much they grow and change from the last visit. : ) And then sure enough a random Japanese family this time, asked if we wanted them to take our picture, all 4 of us and in return we would take their picture. It was a fair deal, so we got a great pic of the 4 of us in front of this statue. I think that will also be a nomination of our new years cards being sent out for January. I usually put on about 3-4 pics on our cards. Anyway I like this pic because the statue alone, you know this pic was taken in Hawaii. : )
Our last meal. Everyone got to choose what they each wanted to eat for our last dinner in Honolulu. I can make chicken at home, and Mc D's is available in Guam. The one thing that I can't possibly duplicate or eat anyplace else was the shrimp. So that was my choice for my last meal/dinner. Hubby agreed and chose the same spicy shrimp too. And yup, no furikake/rice sprinkles this time, ha ha ha. The boys decided KFC. So we got them 8 chicken strips, a large mashed potato and gravy and corn. We entered the elevator with yummy food smells one last time for supper. We also laughed and said this is how we started off our trip with the same spicy garlic shrimp and this is how we ultimately would spend our last night too. How did 10 days go by so fast??!! On the bright side we had a fabulous vacation and a really wonderful time!
Our last night watching TV and kicking back enjoying TV. I also caught up on the Real World Cancun. Watched a lot of David Letterman. Just had a real good time.
Noah zonked out first and B lay beside him soon and slept too.
The day we left. Our flight didn't leave until 4pm. So we still had a whole other day. We had a wake up call at 6:30am. Were at Waikiki beach having one last frolick in the ocean before we took our last showers. We swam until 8:30am. B body boarded until 8:30am. Noah meanwhile floated in the innertube until 8:30am. And I floated next to Noah talking to Noboru about how amazing our trip was, while we all kept an eye on B. We showered off any salt or sand bits at the beach.
This is for taking the sand off your feet, yup really. And we headed semi wet inside Mc D's. But everyone was pretty much either wet or wearing a swim suit in McD's too, so it's okay. : ) It's right in front of the beach.
Snapped this pic as we were walking our breakfast combos back to the hotel. We all ate breakfast quickly and then we all hit the showers. Noah and I and Noboru and B. We had packed the night before, so we were pretty much ready.
All our luggage as we waiting for the Valet guy to get our car, one last time at the hotel. And yes I keep big green ribbons on all our black luggage so we can always tell our luggage from the other luggage at the airport when it's mixed up with everyone elses. Ha ha ha. : )
After dropping off the car and now been driven to the airport by the rental car shuttle. We did by the way stop off at Target one last time, I wanted to get one last thing I changed my mind about. And at Long's drugstore to get some snacks for the airplane. But we did get to the airport about 3 hours early. We got our boarding passes/seats and went into the International part of the terminal and hung out.
This was a day flight, so the kids pretty much stayed awake the entire flight. However, they each had their own DS games. And the mini DVD player, and snacks so they pretty much entertained themselves. The airplane was pretty much empty on the way back as well. So this time we chose 2 middle rows of seats. 4 seat and 4 seats, 8 seats total. That way everyone could stretch out. No tired legs at all. I know for the most part airplane meals pretty much get a bad rap. But, I sorta don't mind the meals too much. I've seen worse. : ) All white meat chicken teriyaki with rice and veggies. I dislike cooked carrots so I didn't eat my carrots. Shrimp cocktail. A salad with nice big crunchy croutons and a mini Italian dressing. A dinner roll with mini butter, mini cocktail sauce and a brownie.
For breakfast which considering Japan time, this was more like dinner. Since we arrived in Japan around 7:30pm, July 31st. You had a choice of soba noodles or sandwich. The sandwich was on a croissant with turkey and swiss cheese and cripsy lettuce, a mini mustard, a fruit cup, the boys and I love fruit so we were pretty happy. And a tiny minute maid OJ. Again not the best meal ever perhaps, but definitely not bad at all. In all honesty I really enjoy my airplane meals. After landing around 7:30pm and getting our luggage and clearing customs, walking to the car shuttle place to pick up our car which by then it was way after 8:00pm for sures. Kids were sorta hungry hubby said he was starving, I was however not hungry at all. They wanted to go and eat ramen, so with luggage filled in our Mazda MPV, we headed to the ramen shop in Narita. They ate, I ate tiny bits... good thing I ordered a mini one. By now it was closer to 9pm, we got home around 9:30pm July 31st. Unloaded the car, took showers and immediately went to bed. Woke up and it was August 1st already. : ) Anyway that's a glimpse of our vacation in Honolulu at least. : )
One day after a full day of Kailua beach fun and showers at the hotel, we drove to Home Depot. Noboru wanted something for the hanging baskets on the porch.
A patio watering kit. He has been wanting this and he bought 2 of them that way if anything ever happens, he at least has spare parts and a whole other kit. I meanwhile returned the favor he did for me at Target and everywhere else. So, I took a cart and cruised the boys around the store and let Noboru shop in peace and he appreciated that a ton! When he was finished he happily came looking for us in the store. Nobody felt rushed or nagged. And neither did I when I shopped at Target or the outlets or Sephora either. That is one of our strong points, we do respect each others time to shop and we help each other big time to make sure the other can shop without stress.
Noboru loves Zippy's. a restaurant chain in Oahu. They serve a lot of American dishes as well as a lot of Asian dishes. They're also famous for their chili and their pies. : )
Noboru had some noodles. I asked him if this was ramen but he said sorta.... the dish he was eating was more Chinese, he had the wontanmin (sp?) He loves this dish. The kids each had a grilled cheese and fries and free chocolate pudding for dessert. And I had the Korean fried chicken, oh man that is my favorite dish from Zippy's. Noboru and I shared a slice of strawberry and cream/custard pie. Oh my goodness was it so yumm! : )
A morning stroll in the International market place. And look at that crazy tree! : ) Aren't the trees in Hawaii so cool looking? I love those trees! : )
Every evening we strolled and walked, I was looking for a suitcase. I told Noboru no matter what I wasn't going to leave Hawaii without a new hibiscus suitcase. See, I had owned 2 previously, 1 enormous one that was sky blue. This sky blue color was a mistake because it got dirty immediately. : ( I noted to myself from years ago never to buy a light colored suitcase again. And I have a navy blue tiny hisbiscus carry-on one. Anyway I wanted a set for a long long time. That was actually the reason we went to the swap meet that past Wednesday. But I didn't see a color I liked. : ( I had fallen in love with one particular color and style but couldn't find 1 place that sold the whole set. Meaning lots of places sold the medium one and not the large one or vice versa. Sigh. Anyway, one day while walking, we happened to find this place in the International Marketplace, we walked in and low and behold they had the whole set. Noboru fought with her on the price, he's a good wheeler dealer just like my MIL is too. He got her down twice of what she originally wanted, meaning he told her what suitcases we wanted, she said $120, he scoffed and told her, "I know how much they really cost surely you can do better then that" So while they went at it with the cost my face was bright red, then she gave a second price and he pushing buttons on his calculator function on his keitei and shaking his head no at her.... gave her a number and said no taxes though and she relented. And he bought me, my 3 piece set for $75 bucks the whole thing and no taxes he said. And she said deal. Not bad since she origianlly wanted $120.00 for the 3. Good hubby good hubby. : )
There's B holding my suitcase, the other 2 were inside of this big one. I love this pattern so much.
You see all the hibiscus bags and purses, makeup bags and the likes. The tee shirts that are such a bargain! The necklaces and Hawaiian bracelets. Ukelele's. They will make a deal. We bought 3 kids tee shirts for 9 bucks for all 3. I mean the deals there were just amazing. It's hard not to be sucked in by the International Marketplace. I mean we know it's a tourist trap, but the deals are so good and the stuff is so cute. : )
Yup every kind of necklace and bracelet and earring you can think of. *happy sigh*
One day we went for a stroll before heading off to the Dole Pineapple Plantation and the North Shore.
I do love my family. : )
I had a personal pan pizza and usually that's it for me. But since I was on vacation and probably not able to see Church's fried chicken for a very long time after this, I had to force myself to have a chicken breast, it came free with a biscuit but I gave the biscuit to B and he split it with Noah, it was a honey biscuit. That sure was one heck of a good fried chicken breast and a good pepperoni pizza. I did walk and swim tons daily though, but foodwise it's pretty obvious my diet went totally out the window while we were on vacation. And you know what...that's okay. I would have been more sad if I woulda put limits and restraints all on myself and skipped dessert every night and never tasted the chicken etc etc. I didn't see the need to deprive myself on vacation. Besides I figured I could exercise my butt off when I got back to Japan. Which I have @_@. : ( Ha ha ha : )
This is where the magic happens! I'm sure by now every one's heard of Dole pineapple. We just arrived at Dole. I have pics on this blog of our visit the last time. I believe Noboru is holding Noah in a backpack carrier. So, it was pretty neat to watch both kids actually enjoy Dole this time, especially now that Noah's a bit older now.
Yup, this place is the real deal! The real McCoy! : )
After shopping buying Dole omiyage for friends. And having some very cool charms and a bracelet made at Dole, we all got in line for some Dole soft serve ice-cream. It's so good.
Waiting in line.
And I had a soft serve waffle cone. But with taking all the pics of the boys mine was melting like a wild cat! Ha ha ha. : ) The four of us enjoyed our ice-creams immensely.
This one was a real long and reddish type of pineapple.
These are the typical kind we all know and love. The kind that Spongebob lives in of course, ha ha ha. And note that lovely rainbow in the sky in the background of this pic. Hubby carrying our omiyage/gifts for friends back in Japan.
These were like mini pineapples, lol. For real, seriously. : )
Noah looking at a pic of Jim Dole. The guy who started it all. : )
After leaving Dole, we were on our way to the North Shore. See this pic? It's rows and rows of coffee. Also note the red red dirt/earth.
And we made it to North Shore, what a nice drive it was.
Aoiki's shave ice what a long line!
And Matsumoto's. This place is famous famous. Lots of pics of stars inside. Tons of Japanese stars on the wall. Also American stars along the wall too, Like Tom Hanks for example. We just had pineapple soft serve but what the heck....we had to have a shave ice as well. I mean how could we miss out on Matsumoto's famous shave ice, lol. The line was sorta long but, we were on vacation and no place we HAD to be, we had nothing but time. So we sat in line and enjoyed ourselves. We had the kids share a shave ice and hubby and I shared one as well.
And we finally made our way back to Waikiki that day. We dropped off the car and our stuff at the hotel and Noboru suggested us watching the sunset. A little cheesy maybe, and a little romantic too, but since we were there to enjoy ourselves and enjoy our vacation, I said why the heck not! So, we 4 walked down to Waikiki and watched the sunset. I took this pic of the 3 of them. Some really nice American lady offered to take a pic of the 4 of us. And then since she was alone, I offered to take her pic too. Which I did.
I took this pic of my family in front of this statue. I take a pic of my family in front of this same statue every time we go to Hawaii though. It's fun to see how much they grow and change from the last visit. : ) And then sure enough a random Japanese family this time, asked if we wanted them to take our picture, all 4 of us and in return we would take their picture. It was a fair deal, so we got a great pic of the 4 of us in front of this statue. I think that will also be a nomination of our new years cards being sent out for January. I usually put on about 3-4 pics on our cards. Anyway I like this pic because the statue alone, you know this pic was taken in Hawaii. : )
Our last meal. Everyone got to choose what they each wanted to eat for our last dinner in Honolulu. I can make chicken at home, and Mc D's is available in Guam. The one thing that I can't possibly duplicate or eat anyplace else was the shrimp. So that was my choice for my last meal/dinner. Hubby agreed and chose the same spicy shrimp too. And yup, no furikake/rice sprinkles this time, ha ha ha. The boys decided KFC. So we got them 8 chicken strips, a large mashed potato and gravy and corn. We entered the elevator with yummy food smells one last time for supper. We also laughed and said this is how we started off our trip with the same spicy garlic shrimp and this is how we ultimately would spend our last night too. How did 10 days go by so fast??!! On the bright side we had a fabulous vacation and a really wonderful time!
The day we left. Our flight didn't leave until 4pm. So we still had a whole other day. We had a wake up call at 6:30am. Were at Waikiki beach having one last frolick in the ocean before we took our last showers. We swam until 8:30am. B body boarded until 8:30am. Noah meanwhile floated in the innertube until 8:30am. And I floated next to Noah talking to Noboru about how amazing our trip was, while we all kept an eye on B. We showered off any salt or sand bits at the beach.
This is for taking the sand off your feet, yup really. And we headed semi wet inside Mc D's. But everyone was pretty much either wet or wearing a swim suit in McD's too, so it's okay. : ) It's right in front of the beach.
Snapped this pic as we were walking our breakfast combos back to the hotel. We all ate breakfast quickly and then we all hit the showers. Noah and I and Noboru and B. We had packed the night before, so we were pretty much ready.
After dropping off the car and now been driven to the airport by the rental car shuttle. We did by the way stop off at Target one last time, I wanted to get one last thing I changed my mind about. And at Long's drugstore to get some snacks for the airplane. But we did get to the airport about 3 hours early. We got our boarding passes/seats and went into the International part of the terminal and hung out.
This was a day flight, so the kids pretty much stayed awake the entire flight. However, they each had their own DS games. And the mini DVD player, and snacks so they pretty much entertained themselves. The airplane was pretty much empty on the way back as well. So this time we chose 2 middle rows of seats. 4 seat and 4 seats, 8 seats total. That way everyone could stretch out. No tired legs at all. I know for the most part airplane meals pretty much get a bad rap. But, I sorta don't mind the meals too much. I've seen worse. : ) All white meat chicken teriyaki with rice and veggies. I dislike cooked carrots so I didn't eat my carrots. Shrimp cocktail. A salad with nice big crunchy croutons and a mini Italian dressing. A dinner roll with mini butter, mini cocktail sauce and a brownie.
For breakfast which considering Japan time, this was more like dinner. Since we arrived in Japan around 7:30pm, July 31st. You had a choice of soba noodles or sandwich. The sandwich was on a croissant with turkey and swiss cheese and cripsy lettuce, a mini mustard, a fruit cup, the boys and I love fruit so we were pretty happy. And a tiny minute maid OJ. Again not the best meal ever perhaps, but definitely not bad at all. In all honesty I really enjoy my airplane meals. After landing around 7:30pm and getting our luggage and clearing customs, walking to the car shuttle place to pick up our car which by then it was way after 8:00pm for sures. Kids were sorta hungry hubby said he was starving, I was however not hungry at all. They wanted to go and eat ramen, so with luggage filled in our Mazda MPV, we headed to the ramen shop in Narita. They ate, I ate tiny bits... good thing I ordered a mini one. By now it was closer to 9pm, we got home around 9:30pm July 31st. Unloaded the car, took showers and immediately went to bed. Woke up and it was August 1st already. : ) Anyway that's a glimpse of our vacation in Honolulu at least. : )
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