Day 2 -- Oahu, Hawaii

07/20/2014 Sunday

Today, we plan to go hiking at Diamond Head State Monument. It's a fairly easy hike but since there aren't much shade around, so it gets pretty hot during the day.

Maddie is well prepared for the sun :-)

We decided to go there early before it gets too hot. 

After paying a small admission fee, we started our hike.

After ~2 hours, we finished hiking Diamond Head and is now on our way to the Honolulu Zoo.

It was a pretty hot day and we are quite surprised that we still get to see many active animals as usually on hot days, animals tend to go under the shade and sleep.

We also passed by a garden and saw more animals afterwards.

Then, we stopped by the children's playground.

After the zoo, we were hungry and decided to stop by one of the restaurants in Waikiki so that we can go to the beach afterwards. We went to Wolfgang Puck Express and the food was decent. The best part of the restaurant was that their AC was on full blast, so it felt really comfortable in there.

The kids eagerly watching how their food is made.

After lunch, we went to Waikiki beach.

We shopped around the stores in Waikiki before walking back to our hotel. We changed into our swimsuits and spent the rest of the afternoon in the pools and beach in our resort.

Alan Wong's Honolulu Restaurant -- Oahu, Hawaii

07/19/2014 Saturday

We made a reservation for Alan Wong's Honolulu restaurant about 1 month ago as I have heard that the restaurant is very busy and needs to make reservation in advance.

While at the airport, I was reading a magazine, it featured Alan Wong's Honolulu restaurant as the #1 restaurant in Oahu, Hawaii. It makes me more excited to go try the food after reading it.

When we reached the restaurant, we were told to take the elevator to the 3rd floor as that is where the restaurant is. We were welcomed by our host and brought to the outside covered patio to sit. Sadly, there was no ocean view but mainly industrial buildings and mountains.

Our server came shortly after we sat to introduce their drinks and specials. We were given an ipad to look at the pictures and select our drinks. 

We ordered their Prix Fixe dinner menu which had 5 different dishes and 1 dessert.

They didn't have any kids menu so we ordered the Korean short rib for the kids.

My favorite dish was actually the lobster and dessert. 

Day 1 -- Oahu, Hawaii

07/19/2014 Saturday

Today, we are flying to Oahu, Hawaii with Hawaiian Airlines. The flight time is less than 5 hours and it's the kids' first time to Hawaii. We will be staying at Oahu for 1 week.

Hawaiian Airlines is the only domestic airlines that still offers complimentary meal on flight. The food was pretty good especially the chocolate macadamia nuts.

We reached there just after noon and our shuttle was already waiting for us. Took us about less than 30 minutes to reach our hotel, Hilton Hawaiian Village.

Although it was before our check in time, we were lucky that our room was ready, so we could go to our room right after we got our room cards. 

The hotel has a resort fee like most other hotels and it included many things. One of the things was that we could rent DVDs.

We rent several DVDs during our stay so that we can watch at night while the kids were asleep. We try to spend all our day time outside exploring the island.

We had an ocean view room and it had a large balcony. The view was spectacular. The ocean had different shades of blue, which was so gorgeous.

After resting a little in the room, we decided to explore the hotel since it's a very large resort. There are a small area of stores inside the resort and the hotel has multiple pools.

As you  can see from the pictures above, the weather was nice with beautiful blue sky.

We bought some spam musubi from the ABC stores for the kids to try. If you have been to Hawaii, you need to try their spam musubi. If you didn't try it, then you can't really say that you have been to Hawaii. That's how much significance the spam musubi is to Hawaii.

What is spam musubi? It is grilled spam on top of a block of rice which is wrapped together with dried seaweed. This is the most basic spam.

The one that we have, had some eggs in between. They are many different varieties of spam musubi, but the basic ingredients is grilled spam, rice and dried seaweed. The other varieties have other extra ingredients added like eggs, avocado, bacon, etc.

Spam became a popular food in Hawaii after World War II as it was a main dish for the troops. The local Japanese in Hawaii then use spam to create spam musubi, like how they have sushi (seafood on top of block of rice) in Japanese cuisine.

You can buy spam musubi in most convenience stores in Hawaii such as ABC and 7 eleven stores. There are so many ABC stores in Waikiki and I feel like every few steps we take, there is an ABC store. One of the best spam musubi can be bought at Musubi Cafe Iyasume.

We didn't want to eat too much as we have made an early reservation at Alan Wong's Honolulu restaurant. According to some food reviewers, Alan Wong is one of the top restaurants in Oahu, Hawaii. So, we wanted to try it on our visit this time. Since we didn't rent a car, we had to take a cab there. 

I have another post on Alan Wong's Honolulu restaurant.