Monday, January 1, 2007
Aloha!! Yes, our first week of 2007 was spent in Hawaii!!! Sunny island.. set in the sea. Heehee, yes i know that refers to singapore, but it's the same I guess? Let me recap for you.. from Los Angeles airport, we flew over here! We saw lots of aloha once we stepped off the Honolulu airport. We've reached the island of Oahu!!
If you've watched the jap drama, Queen's Classroom before, you'll know that aloha means more than Hi! Other than hello and good bye, aloha also means affection, love, compassion, and mercy.
We took a bus from the airport to the hotel in Waikiki. Their bus company is called... thebus. Haha so creative ah. It kinda reminded me of s'pore buses.. Just that their buzzers are not located on the poles. Instead, there's this horizontal cable hanging along the middle of the windows, and you just tug on it real hard to let the bus driver know. The LED screen showing the locations of the stops were really useful, and we managed to reach our hotel safely. OK, we had our GPS's help, but yes, what's important is that we reached safely right.
After putting down our stuff, we took our laptop down to the lobby to do some research for the trip. Yes, very last minute lah. Planning for a multi island trip is seriously a pain. Even had to ask the receptionist, was it Enrique or Miguel.. to help us print our some tickets. He was really helpful though.. Nice of him.
After putting down our stuff, we took our laptop down to the lobby to do some research for the trip. Yes, very last minute lah. Planning for a multi island trip is seriously a pain. Even had to ask the receptionist, was it Enrique or Miguel.. to help us print our some tickets. He was really helpful though.. Nice of him.
Tuesday, January 2, 2007
Our view in Continental Surf hotel had an erm, Ocean View! Hee.. I think it's pretty good really. We ventured towards Waikiki beach in the morning.
Clear waters of the famous Waikiki beach. We shared a huge salad and had some coffee at some random hotel lobby, and walked around the hotels on Waikiki beach. Our first mission was to buy our Honolulu Powerpass from Planet Hollywood which gave us entrance to several attractions.
The nice policeman actually waited behind me while I took this photo! Haha so paiseh..
This stupid intl market place has this huge indian banyan tree in the middle. Me and pb walked in to check it out the next night, and the next moment I felt something wet on my neck.. Guess what it was.. some stupid bird decided to relieve itself on me. I hate birds! GRRR. I hate this place too.
After getting our Powerpass from planet hollywood, we were told that we had a $20 voucher to use each day at planet hollywood! We promptly bought 2 ukeleles. They were quite ugly though. And on top of that, when I reached home I realised that they can't really be tuned cos the pin is too loose and the string can't be tightened, as in the pin will turn back even if you tighten it. So much for buying an instrument from everywhere I go. Sigh. Well, at least they were 'free'. We received instructions on how to get to our next destination.. and we hopped on to TheBus. I thought the tickets were damn retro!!
Sea Life Park
It took us about, 1h 40 minutes to reach the place. Public transport is supposed to be pretty efficient here, I guess it's compared to other parts of the US. I guess I'm also damn spoiled and used to driving around, even for short distances. heh heh.
The Sea Life Park is pretty self explanatory I guess. I thought some parts of it looked familiar, and guess what, it really was used to film 50 first dates! Cool! It was smaller than I expected though..
Sea Life Park
It took us about, 1h 40 minutes to reach the place. Public transport is supposed to be pretty efficient here, I guess it's compared to other parts of the US. I guess I'm also damn spoiled and used to driving around, even for short distances. heh heh.
The Sea Life Park is pretty self explanatory I guess. I thought some parts of it looked familiar, and guess what, it really was used to film 50 first dates! Cool! It was smaller than I expected though..
Stingrays, otters, penguins and very endangered hawaiian sea turtles..you'd get charged if you caught one of these.
We caught some dolphin show.. I really worry that the dolphins will mis-aim and jump into the glass and hit their nose or something.. The pool is pretty small! But no of course, they are way too agile for something stupid like that.
The highlight of the day, would be our Dolphin Encounter! Paid huge amounts of money for this 'once in a lifetime' experience. It was superb! Got to play with a dolphin, touch her belly, back, teeth and cheat it to kiss us! Hehee. The irritating thing was the very expensive photos, videos and even photo frames at the end of the 'once in a lifetime' experience.. We simply had to buy them lah.. the stupid photo frames were like, cheaper if you buy 2, and they said 'Dolphin Discovery, Hawaii'.. What to do! Stupid us got cheated of probably more money than the experience itself. But it was really fun!
The water was damn salty, and I also saw the dolphin poo right in front of me.. It was all crumbly and looked like very light brown mud. Yes it was pretty gross and we tried to like, run away but what to do we're in the same water as it! But the dolphins were really friendly.. this dolphin had a kid who was a lot more playful and would swim in between pb and me! I want a pet dolphin!!
The highlight of the day, would be our Dolphin Encounter! Paid huge amounts of money for this 'once in a lifetime' experience. It was superb! Got to play with a dolphin, touch her belly, back, teeth and cheat it to kiss us! Hehee. The irritating thing was the very expensive photos, videos and even photo frames at the end of the 'once in a lifetime' experience.. We simply had to buy them lah.. the stupid photo frames were like, cheaper if you buy 2, and they said 'Dolphin Discovery, Hawaii'.. What to do! Stupid us got cheated of probably more money than the experience itself. But it was really fun!
The water was damn salty, and I also saw the dolphin poo right in front of me.. It was all crumbly and looked like very light brown mud. Yes it was pretty gross and we tried to like, run away but what to do we're in the same water as it! But the dolphins were really friendly.. this dolphin had a kid who was a lot more playful and would swim in between pb and me! I want a pet dolphin!!
pb looks really cute and happy here =)
After being cheated of lots of money at the souvenir shop [i also bought a blue beach bag, very hawaiian! haha] we left the little park. We were famished but the cafes at the park were already closed.. boo. Lazy to wait for thebus again, we saw a Waikiki Trolley which we were allowed to take with the Powerpass. We hopped on and set right at the end where it was not sheltered. It would take us right back to Waikiki.
We realised later, after reading the powerpass booklet carefully, that we actually needed to get a one-day ticket in order to sit the trolley. Oops. Luckily the conductor didn't check! They had a little narration, and even stopped by the Diamond Head crater for a second to let us have a look. It was freaking cold and windy there and luckily pb had an extra polo tee to lend me or if not I would have shivered to death.
We realised later, after reading the powerpass booklet carefully, that we actually needed to get a one-day ticket in order to sit the trolley. Oops. Luckily the conductor didn't check! They had a little narration, and even stopped by the Diamond Head crater for a second to let us have a look. It was freaking cold and windy there and luckily pb had an extra polo tee to lend me or if not I would have shivered to death.
Sitting at the back of the trolley. I think we both look crappy here, but I like this photo! very natural! The wind was blowing like crazy though.
They had Beard Papa here!! Woohoo! This is my green tea cream puff. =) One thing interesting about Hawaii is that there are many many Japanese there! Such that there are also many signs in Japanese, and Japanese shops. In the first place, the Japanese do take up a large % of the Hawaiian population.
Back in Waikiki, we were superbly hungry, but I wanted to look for some good Asian food. We stumbled upon a Japanese ramen cafe! Thing is, everyone assumed we were Japanese! Haha quite funny. Best thing is even the Japanese waitress in the cafe thought we were Jap and gave us a Jap menu! Heehee. Too bad I couldn't 混过去. The waitress found out after seeing our stupid confused faces.
You know you're in a pretty authentic Jap restaurant when you hear lots of slurping sounds! Haha, there were many Japanese and they were happily slurping their ramen away. I had lot sof fun slurping it too, hope it wasn't too loud.
Back in Waikiki, we were superbly hungry, but I wanted to look for some good Asian food. We stumbled upon a Japanese ramen cafe! Thing is, everyone assumed we were Japanese! Haha quite funny. Best thing is even the Japanese waitress in the cafe thought we were Jap and gave us a Jap menu! Heehee. Too bad I couldn't 混过去. The waitress found out after seeing our stupid confused faces.
You know you're in a pretty authentic Jap restaurant when you hear lots of slurping sounds! Haha, there were many Japanese and they were happily slurping their ramen away. I had lot sof fun slurping it too, hope it wasn't too loud.
My spicy ramen, and pb's chashu ramen! Perfect way to end our first day in Oahu.
edit: I realised that I used way too many exclamation marks in this post and it's really irritating to read. Will try to use less of them next time. Hurhur.
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