Nothing beats the first sighting of the islands from the plane window. Off in the distance, you can see the peaks of Mauna Kea & Mauna Loa as the B767 that I found myself in on the flight home flew on by.
In between all the heavy rain that hit the islands, particularly in the week before X-Mas, I did my best to enjoy the outdoors. During one of the first opportunities I had, Mari & I hiked to Manoa Falls. Thanks in part to the rain, we had a lovely view. And thanks to me wearing shorts, many mosquitos feasted on the exposed flesh of my legs.
We had some time after the hike and took advantage of it by strolling through the nearby Lyon Arboretum, where I snapped a pic of the flowers on this ohia lehua tree.
And I also grabbed a pic of this bridge & hala tree in the Great Lawn.
In the Young Memorial Garden, we saw this beautiful water lily. Good job camera.
After some post-dinner drinks at The Veranda, we posed for a picture with The Kahala's impressive, in-lobby Christmas Trees: Randahl, Brent, Me, Phil & Sara.
I'm a little surprised I haven't had this (fried spam musubi) elsewhere... I had an awesome lunch with Cat & Ryan at "Da Kitchen" in Moiliili.
And we split the Hawaiian plate. Chicken long rice, lomi lomi salmon, rice, lau lau and kalua pig. Ono kine grindz! I showed up to lunch hungry and even though we all shared, I left plenty full!
A view of this year's Honolulu City Lights display. As always, they had Mr & Mrs Claus chilling island-style beside the massive tree in front of Honolulu Hale (City Hall). Inside, they had a bunch of trees decorated by City workers as well as a Wreath competition.
Lunch at the Oahu Country Club with Grant and Kevin (the member). You can see our sliders (Grant & Kev opted for the kobe burger while I chose the slider mix plate - one beef, one salmon and one kalua pig), fries and country club ice teas. Fine dining! I'd like to note that apparently, my Arsenal jersey wasn't good enough for OCC so I had to borrow the pink Dior shirt that I'm wearing from Grant.
And then we worked a bit on our swings at the driving range. At the end of our session, we had a contest to hit the yardage markers. Grant nailed the 50 yd sign and I came through with an amazing shot to clip the top of the 100 yr sign. Victory! We also saw Alex Ching getting a bit of practice there too and I'd like to apologize to my former tennis doubles partner if
I definitely needed that practice at the driving range because the next day, I hit the links for a round on the Championship Course at the Hawaii Kai Golf Course. I'm proud to say I played with the same ball the whole round though Brent & I (and our generous handicap) couldn't top Randahl and Kasper. As a reward for their victory, Randahl & Kasper got lunch on Brent & I at the Kona Brewing Company in Koko Marina.
After seeing tons of commercials on TV for this, I had to try the haupia pie at McDonalds. The verdict? Pretty darn yummy though admittedly a poor substitute for a real haupia pie.
Friends since 6th grade: Brent, Anne & I. The only two people left in this world who call me by my old nickname: Wes. Unfortunately, we don't spend as much time together nowadays as I'd like, but I'm glad I got to hang out with you two for a little bit back in the islands.
Some more food pics. On Phil's "last day" in Hawaii, we met up for drinks and appetizers at Ryan's Grill in Ward Center. I put "last day" in quotes because Phil's return flight to NYC got cancelled due to the crazy snow storms slamming the East Coast and he ended up spending a few more days back home. Anyways, cheeseburger sliders, kalua pig quesadillas and some potstickers.
Phil, Me, Brent, Noelle & Stef after our food and drink session at Ryan's.
Afterwards, Brent & I still had time to kill before our respective commitments later that evening. We decided to eat dinner at Goma Tei Ramen in Ward Center where I finally got to try their highly acclaimed ramen (I chose the mixed veggie variety). Pretty darn good, though my favourite ramen place back home remains Tenkaippin.
I left Ward super full and (slowly) made my way over to the Tyrone Wells concert at The Venue. Pretty cool that he comes back here to do a show every year and that probably has a lot to do with his wife being from here originally. Great acoustic set (with a few nice duets) that I liked much more than when he usually plays with the rest of his band.
No trip home is complete without going on some sort of adventure with the USC gang. Cat, Melissa, Me, Ryan, Gigi, Kurt & Traci all headed over to Kailua to enjoy breakfast at Moke's (it definitely gives the traditional Kailua faves - Boots & Kimo and Cinnamon's - a run for their money). We were supposed to go to the North Shore after brekkie but the weather was lousy and we instead opted to watch Black Swan (the movie) at Kahala instead.
I ordered the corned beef hash, fried rice and scrambled eggs at Moke's. Yum.
After the movie, we headed on over to Menchie's in Ward for some frozen yoghurt.
The view, looking out to Hawaii Kai, from my 2nd Annual Koko Head Crater Hike. Finally some beautiful, sunny skies so that I can actually enjoy wandering around outside and get a much needed dose of Vitamin D.
And here I am with Sandy's & Makapu'u behind me. As I mentioned in the previous NY Resolution post, I did manage to climb to the top quicker than last year!
After the hike, I hurried on over and caught the very end of the Punahou Alumni Soccer game. Who knows when I'll get to see Deryck play soccer again but I enjoyed the last few minutes of this game where he played with a bunch of his old teammates against the current Punahou Boy's Varsity (the Varsity triumphed over the Alums this time). After the game, I enjoyed another benefit of being family of a former player and I partook in the potluck. I can't remember everything I had on my plate, but I can see pasta, fried rice, fried rice noodles, zippy's chili, chicken karaage, chicken katsu, kalua pig and a piece of starfruit. All washed down with a Hawaiian Sun Island Iced Tea!. Local food, I miss you so much!
After the potluck, I headed over to Ala Moana Beach Park to enjoy more of the great weather.
Grant in the foreground, Magic Island in the background. Funny story: Grant & I saw a guy walking around and talking to random girls on the beach. With our curiosity sufficiently piqued, we waited for him to finish making his way around our area and we asked two of the girls that he talked to what his deal was. According to them, his story was that his girlfriend had stood him up in favor of hanging out with her ex. Weird stuff, but despite his lack of success, I guess you gotta give the guy a bit of credit for having the gall to walk around and talk to so many women.
For the third year running (at least), I headed over to spend New Year's Eve with the Kosakis. The state government passed a law this year that takes effect in 2011 to ban most fireworks (on Oahu) so the folks all over the island sent out this year with a bang.
We strung together four or five strings of crackers together and lit them all at once. It made a lot of noise and gave off a lot of smoke. It also left a nice burn mark on the front lawn.
Lunch @ Mariposa in Ala Moana with Darren & Priscilla (who started their holiday very, very late). I chose the crab omelette with roast potatoes and fresh fruit. Yum, yum.
Later that night, I enjoyed dinner with my family at Le Bistro. Thanks to Deryck for putting up with the restaurant choice (though he made his displeasure very noticeable throughout dinner). I started off with a tasty French Onion Soup. Hard to go wrong with this cheesy classic.
My main course: sea bass with mushrooms & asparagus. Very, very good.
And Deryck & I split the apple tart w/vanilla ice cream for dessert. Sadly, this was the worst dish of the evening (though, my expectations were probably unreasonably high since I have very specific thoughts on what an apple tart should be like from my time in France).
Finally, I had to head back to Cali (and the "real" world). Here's the last photo of this entry of the sun setting over the Pacific from the B767 flying back to the Mainland. A nice bookend to another awesome trip home.
I'm extremely thankful for being able to spend all that time back home with family and friends. Too bad I only go back once a year... I hope you all enjoy the photos! Until next time.
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