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Ono Kine Grindz At The Honolulu Farmers' Market

5/12/2022

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ONO KINE GRINDZ AT THE HONOLULU FARMERS' MARKET

...Continued from previous post:
On Wednesday evening we went to the Honolulu Farmers' Market on Ward Street in downtown Honolulu,

...where one could procure both fresh local produce,

....and fresh-cooked, interesting ono kine grindz,

...which is Hawaiian slang for delicious food.

Romaine and Stanley tried plates of spicy duck noodles and nachos,

...while Tom and I split a couple of soooo tasty roast beef sliders with hot, crispy seasoned fries.

Ono kine grindz, we all agreed.

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The Kulu Kulu Honolulu Double Cream Puff

5/9/2022

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and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
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THE KULU KULU HONOLULU DOUBLE CREAM PUFF

...Continued from previous post:
On our last trip to Honolulu in 2019 I discovered the Royal Hawaiian Center food court in downtown Waikiki.

What most interested me at the time about this food court was a little bakery called Kulu Kulu Honolulu that displayed the most charming little pastries.

Though I didn't manage to snag myself one of those pastries during that trip, I swore that if I ever returned to Honolulu I would.
And on this trip I did. Multiple times.
It was during our second week in Honolulu that Tom and I got into the custom, when there was time, of walking in the afternoon or evening from the Hale Koa into downtown Waikiki,

...where we re-discovered the food court at the Royal Hawaiian Center,

...and the Kulu Kulu Honolulu bakery,

...where we made the acquaintance of the Double Cream Puff.

How do I begin to describe the gustatory wonder of this confection?

The puff pastry was light and tender, and the cream...ah, the cream! It was sweet and rich and at the same time light and silky. It made your taste buds sit up and take notice. It was the stuff of dreams.
Which was what kept us going back to the Kulu Kulu Honolulu.

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The Waimea Botanical Gardens, Seven Brothers, And Shark's Cove

5/6/2022

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Books By Patti Liszkay
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"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
Available on Amazon.

THE WAIMEA BOTANICAL GARDENS, SEVEN BROTHERS, AND SHARK'S COVE

...Continued from yesterday:
On Tuesday, April 12, we drove to the north end of the O'ahu to the Waimea Valley to visit the Waimea Botanical Gardens.

The Visitors' Center,

...opened up to a trail that meandered through beautiful and lush tropical flora and fauna.

There were also facsimiles of village life as it would have been centuries ago on this part of the island.

The 3.5 mile trail - which seemed a fraction of the 1.6 mile Manoa Falls Trail we'd walked the day before (see previous post, https://www.ailantha.com/blog/the-manoa-falls-trail) - ended at Waimea Falls, where, unlike at Manoa Falls, swimming was permitted in the pool at the base of the falls.

As Waimea was only a couple of miles from Shark's Cove, the good snorkeling spot Tom and I had visited the previous week (see www.ailantha.com/blog/sharks-cove-oahu), we decided to go there after we finished seeing the botanical gardens.
But first we wanted to seek out some lunch. This tuned out to be more of a challenge than we'd anticipated, as this was a rather rural area with little commercial activity.
However after driving around for a bit we caught sight set back off the road of a little cluster of eateries around a picnic area.

We opted for a promising-looking burger place called Seven Brothers

I ordered an intriguing-sounding menu offering: A giant onion ring over half an avocado, mushrooms and melted Swiss cheese with house dressing.

It was really good, and the French-fired potato slices were out-of-this world. The only problem was that I couldn't open my mouth wide enough to accommodate this mélange of a sandwich, so I had to go back to the counter and ask for some silverware. But that was a good problem.
After our delicious lunch we headed for Shark's Cove where the swimmers did some great snorkeling,

...while I snapped some great shots.

In the late afternoon we headed back through the Waimea Valley to Honolulu,

...and the Hale Koa,

...where we opted for dinner at Happy's,

...topped off by a nice walk around the grounds.

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The Manoa Falls Trail

5/4/2022

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Books By Patti Liszkay
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"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
Available on Amazon.

THE MANOA FALLS TRAIL

...Continued from yesterday:

On Monday, April 11, Romaine, Stanley, Tom and I drove half an hour north of Honolulu to hike the Manoa Falls Trail located in the tropical rainforested mountains of Koolau.

All the Hawaii hiking websites described the Manoa Falls Trail as an easy, kid-friendly, hike offering spectacularly beautiful views. Really more of a walk than a hike, they said, and only 1.6 miles round trip. You can do it in flip-flops they said.
Turned out the websites were lying through their teeth about the flip-flops and also about this being an easy hike for kids, unless they were referring to little mountain goats. It certainly wasn't an easy hike for human adults. At least not this human adult. All right, this old human adult.
However I had an inkling that this might be the case, as I recalled the time during Tom's and my 2015 trip to Kauai when we attempted to hike the Alaka'i Swamp trail, which the Hawaii guidebooks rated as "moderate."
  About 250 feet into the trail I, a veteran hiker of the 450-mile Spanish Camino de Santiago de Compostela, threw in the towel when faced with the steepest, most slippery and treacherous patch of rock I’d ever run into. (See https://www.ailantha.com/blog/two-hikers-in-search-of-a-trail).

Hence I knew that a description of a Hawaiian mountain trail as "easy" might not necessarily be all that easy. So just to be on the safe side we eschewed flip-flops for hiking boots and Tom and I even brought along our hiking sticks.

At the trail's entrance there was, among the information, safety warnings and interesting geographic and nature facts, this admonition:

I did the chant for the protection of the goddess. As it turned out, I would need it.
But not at first. At the beginning the trail was fairly smooth. if somewhat muddy, and we were not far along before learning one thing that the websites were altogether truthful about: the views were indeed spectacularly beautiful.

Apparently Manoa Falls was a filming location for "Jurassic Park" and also for the movie "Catching Fire." One definitely felt if as one could be in Jurassic Park.

Then we came to the T-Rex.
I'm not sure how far along the .8 mile trail we'd gone - maybe a quarter of the way, maybe a third - when the smooth, muddy path became a stony, muddy path,

...then morphed into a slippery upward slope of muddy monster rocks.

It was difficult. And, though it appeared that my mate and I were probably the oldest hikers on the trail, we certainly weren't the only ones who found themselves stopping to try and negotiate a path over and around the rocks. And we, at least, had hiking sticks to help us along.
I felt sorry for all the people - most of them, in fact, probably due to the garden path they'd been led down by the websites - who were inadequately shod for the slick, rocky climb.

However, those of us who made it to the top of the mountain were rewarded with the sight of Manoa Falls.

Upon reaching the top some of us queued up for our turn for a photo op.

We saw a couple of people ignore the warning signs and jump the guard wall to climb down to the bottom of the falls,

On our way back from the falls - this time a treacherous downhill trek - we crossed paths with a breathless young woman wearing a sundress and cute but muddy sandals dragging her way up the trail.
"Oh," she huffed, gesturing towards our walking sticks. "Are there any more of those sticks at the top?"
I was truly sorry to have to tell her that there weren't.

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E Komo Mai With Shave Ice And Halekulani Hula

4/29/2022

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Books By Patti Liszkay
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"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
Available on Amazon.

E KOMO MAI WITH SHAVE ICE AND HALEKULANI HULA

...Continued from yesterday:

Stanley and Romaine,

...arrived in Honolulu after a five-and-a-half-hour plane trip from Portland, Oregon still feeling like they were on Oregon time, that is, feeling three hours later than Honolulu time.
Still, they say the best way to acclimate your biorhythms to a time-zone change is to step off the plane and jump right into doing the local things according to the local time.
So when dinner time - Honolulu time - rolled around Tom and I brought Romaine and Stanley to the Bibas Grill, which opened into the courtyard of the Hale Koa,

...from where we had a nice view of Gus, the strange but wonderful tree in the middle of the courtyard.

After dinner we decided that a nice e komo mai - welcome - to Hawaii would be a shave ice from the Island Vintage Shave Ice stand in front of the Royal Hawaiian Center in downtown Waikiki,

...where people line up to snag a heavenly confection of powdered ice flavored with multiple fruit syrups over a mound of ice cream and garnished with tropical fruits.

The previous week my daughter Theresa and I were regular patrons of the Vintage Shave Ice stand, where our favorite was the heavenly Lilikoi.

And so, as the sun was setting over Waikiki Beach,

..Tom, Romaine, Stanley and I walked along the beach,

...to downtown Waikiki, which was busy with usual Saturday night crowd,

...to the Island Vintage Shave Ice stand.

...where the line was long,

...but worth it for a Heavenly Lilikoi,

...which we ate in the Royal Hawaiian Center park, which is was also crowded with folks enjoying their shave ices and the beautiful Honolulu night.

The following evening, Sunday evening, I was hoping we might have dinner at the Halekulani, a hotel a couple of blocks down the beach from the Hale Koa,

...where in the evenings at the beachside restaurant/bar called House Without A Key there were traditional Hawaiian musicians and a hula dancer.

However, as we arrived at dinner time without a reservation, the friendly hostess sympathetically informed us that we'd have an hour wait for a beachside table from where we could see the hula dancing. She suggested we try coming back in an hour.
We thanked her and said that we would try that.
In the meantime we now needed to find a place for dinner. As it turned out, there was a Denny's across the street from the Halekulani, so we went there for dinner,

...where we found the food to be quite good.

After dinner we returned to the Halekulani where the friendly hostess remembered us and found us a table at the beachside area.

...from where we could see the musicians and dancer.

The singing was beautiful and the hula graceful and mesmerizing.

Tom and I ordered slices of coconut cake. Out of this world delicious!

We stayed until the musicians left at 8 pm. Then we headed back to our hale,

...the Halekoa.

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A Tale Of Two Alohas

4/28/2022

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A TALE OF TWO ALOHAS

...Continued from yesterday:
On Friday, the last day before our children and grandchildren all left the Hale Koa and flew back to the different places and time zones they'd travelled from, we gathered in the courtyard,

...beneath the massive, fascinating topical tree known by the Hale Koa community as "Gus,"

...for a family picture.

Then most of the group went down to the beach for a final day of sand, sea,

....and snorkeling, which, they tell me, is actually pretty good in the calm reef waters off Waikiki.

One of our little wahinis even tried some surfing.

Tom and I decided to walk into downtown Waikiki by way of the beach.

...then down Kalakaua Avenue, past the high-fashion stores,

...and the ABC stores,

...to the Royal Hawaiian Center, a shopping mall and cultural center,

...with a pretty public square,

...that leads to the grounds of the famous Royal Hawaiian hotel, one of he most luxurious and oldest hotels in Waikiki.

We continued up the avenue, past the International Market Place, another high-end-ish shopping center,

...to the Moana Surfrider,

...another of Waikiki's classic luxury hotels.

...where we took a stroll around the lobby.

We decided to walk back to the Hale Koa via streets that ran perpendicular and parallel to Kalakaua Ave.

On a street called Royal Hawaiian Avenue we passed a Korean Bibimbop restaurant called Topped that looked kind of interesting,

...should we ever be so lucky as to return to the island.
However, that night we returned to our new favorite dinner spot, the food court of the Ala Moana mall,

...where some of our group discovered a crèperie that took desserts to new level:

Strawberry and banananShortcake Crèpe

Nutella and Almond Shortcake Crèpe.

And though these crèpes received high reviews, somehow I was more in the mood that night for Häagen-Dazs.

The following morning, Saturday morning, we shared our last wonderful Hale Koa breakfast together,

Soon after we met up in the lobby,

...to say "Aloha" before we left for the airport,

...or to just get a hug from Mom.

But for Tom and I, this was not our final "Aloha" of the day; for we were staying at the Hale Koa for another week, and later that afternoon we would be saying "Aloha" - which means both good-bye and hello - for our second time of the day to my sister Romaine and her friend Stanley, who came to Honolulu to spend our second week with us.

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Hawaiian Culture By Day, Honolulu Salsa By Night

4/26/2022

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and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
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HAWAIIAN CULTURE BY DAY, HONOLULU SALSA BY NIGHT

...Continued from yesterday:
On Thursday we went to the Bishop Museum, Hawaii's largest museum of the culture and natural history of Hawaii and the Pacific Islands.

That evening while the adults (minus the grandparents) went into Waikiki for a grown-up's dinner at a place called the Yard House,

...the children and grandparents stayed behind and had a nice dinner together at Happy's.

After the grown-up dinner some of the grown-ups went out for salsa dancing, which is apparently quite popular in Honolulu.

...while the children and the grandparents went down for a walk along the beach.

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Beautiful Lanikai Beach

4/25/2022

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Books By Patti Liszkay
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"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
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BEAUTIFUL LANIKAI BEACH

...Continued from yesterday:
On Wednesday we all rose at oh-dark-thirty and at 5:50 am we met in the lobby of the Hale Koa,

…which was already a busy place.

Our destination at that hour was Lanikai Beach located on the east coast of the island, about a forty-five minute drive from Honolulu,

…and purported to be not only one of the most beautiful beaches in all the Hawaiian islands, but also a most excellent snorkeling site.
Though we arrived at the town of Kailua, where Lanakai Beach is located, at around 6:45 am, finding a parking spot was nonetheless a bit tricky as the beach runs along the margin of a residential neighborhood and there are no public parking lots. We managed to find parking spots for our two vehicles a few blocks from the beach, so we walked through the beautiful but parked-up neighborhood,

...my grand daughters picking up fallen plumeria blossoms from the ground along the way,

We came to the pathway between some houses that led to the beach,

...where the sea came right up to the back yards of some of the houses.

Lanakai Beach has no life guards or rest rooms or facilities whatsoever. it's just beach.

Not far from shore the sea was full of coral reefs, which were visible through the clear water.

...and which made for wonderful snorkeling.

As for me, I preferred to leave the snorkeling to the others while I stayed in the shallow water closer to shore or walked along the beach snapping pictures.

I asked one of my daughters how the snorkeling was. "It was like swimming in an aquarium," she replied.
Along with the great snorkeling, the sand was also light and fluffy and excellent for sculpting, as attested to by my daughter, who made this sand shark.

Just before we left Lanakai Beach a rainbow appeared above the mountain.

And so we were gifted with a rainbow in the Rainbow State.

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Fifth Avenue With Palm Trees And ABC Stores

4/23/2022

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Books By Patti Liszkay
Available On Amazon

"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
Available on Amazon.

FIFTH AVENUE WITH PALM TREES AND ABC STORES

...Continued from yesterday:
The following day, Tuesday, was our grand daughter's birthday,

...and so after breakfast we had a little celebration in her family's hotel room, which was not in fact a room but a suite with two spacious double bedrooms,

...a living room with a sofa bed,

...a kitchen.

...and a nice view of Honolulu.

It was not by plan that that family was placed in The Castle, which was what my grand daughters called these quarters. I - who made all the Hale Koa reservations - had reserved for my daughter and her family the same standard-style room as I had reserved for the rest of us.

But as it turned out, they were accidentally assigned a single room which in no way could comfortably accommodate four people. And so the hotel rectified the mistake by giving them this unoccupied suite. This was definitely some good hotel karma.
Anyway, it was a good venue for the birthday party, which consisted of the birthday girl opening her presents,

...then entertaining us with jokes from one of her presents.

Her sister, the un-birthday girl also received a gift.

Later most of our group went off for an afternoon of banana-boating, a water sport in which the participants are seated on a long, banana-esque floatie attached by rope to a motor boat which whisks it and its passengers around in the ocean.

Theresa and I, however, stayed behind and walked into downtown Waikiki,

...to Kalakaua Avenue,

...which one might mistake for Fifth Avenue,

...if not for all the palm trees,

...the mountains off in the distance on one side,

...and the beach on the other.

However, among the boutiques of the haute couturiers could be found the ABC Stores.

The ABC Store is a Honolulu-based convenience chain that sells sundries, souvenirs, Hawaiian clothes, snacks, necessities,

...lunch,

...dinner,

...and just about anything else one might find oneself in need of.
One can scarcely walk a block without coming upon an ABC store, nor does one have to wonder where the closest ABC store is; wherever one is in Honolulu, one is not far from an ABC store, one need only keep walking in any direction.

It's said that ABC stands for "All Blocks Covered." That's accurate.

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Shark's Cove, O'ahu

4/21/2022

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Books By Patti Liszkay
Available On Amazon

"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
Available on Amazon.

SHARK'S COVE, O'AHU

...Continued from yesterday:
On Monday morning after breakfasting on sublime breakfast burritos from Kono's in Waikiki (see yesterday's post),

...we headed to the north end of the island to Shark's Cove, a tide pool beach that's a prime spot for sea critter-watching among the shallows,

...and taking in the panoramic views.

I waded into the tide pool but stayed closed to the shore and by just looking down into the crystal clear water I was able to see among the rocks a number of striking tropical fish, including some striped varieties and a bright blue and yellow one that looked something like this:

The others in our group who swam out into the deeper water to do some snorkeling near the reef that surrounds the tide pool were treated to the sight of more wonderful sea creatures, among them interesting and unusual fish, schools of colorful fish, sea turtles and sea urchins. One of my daughters spent some time watching an octopus playing among the rocks.
As for me, being neither a strong swimmer nor a great water aficionado in general, after a having a look at the fish and a brief swim I was happy to recover my land legs,