//saturday
//chinatown, downtown honolulu, pearl harbor, waipahu, waikele, waikiki, university of hawaii manoa adjacent.
lots of pictures again! yay! we squeezed a lot into this day.
BREAKFAST_more manapuaaaaa!!! at royal kitchen (chinatown).
handy dandy guide to the red food coloring dots on the buns to identify each.
i also really liked the chopstick wrappers.
we just got a few.
this was a bit much for the two of us.
2 curry chicken manapua (so good!)
2 portuguese sausage manapua (such good sausage!)
2 char siu manapua (really good char siu!)
1 mai tai su (meh. the flaky/dense dough was too much. and too many water chestnuts in the filling. there is also pork, shiitake mushrooms, turnip, tiny dried shrimp, and i'm not sure what else in there.)
2 half moons (translucent ricey skin used for har gow, filled with same stuff as mai tai su)
2 pork hash. better known to us mainlanders as siu mai.
but...we were gearing up for a 2-hour walk, after all.
WALKING TOUR_aia honolulu architectural walking tour (downtown honolulu).
so the bear read about this tour by the honolulu chapter of the aia (american institute of architects) in our westways magazine. yeah, the free one you get for being a member of AAA southern california. it's only $10 a person, we figured we'd get some history, and i was excited to maybe learn about the vernacular or evolution of architecture in hawaii since it was colonized by so many different groups. yay!
we met at the aia honolulu's offices. while waiting for everyone in the group to arrive, one of the chatty tour group participants took it upon himself to be mr. icebreaker. well, he just asked everyone where they were visiting from. it turns out all three other couples were from orange county. they all had some ties (grew up in, used to live in, etc.) the city we currently we live in (not in orange county). pure coincidence? nope. they all read about the tour in westways.
in fact, one guy works for AAA corporate. they all took pictures in front of the AIA's sign holding their copy of the article.
we kept our mouths shut but were poking each other. LOL.
oh, and all of the other couples were in their late 40s to their 60s. and half of the men had fanny packs on. no, we did not quite fit in.
so the tour. honestly, i got boooooored about halfway through. the bear loved it, though. let's just say the 70-year old architect who led the tour and i have very different approaches to and thoughts on architecture. if he knew which school i just finished, i bet he would have come after me with a pitchfork. boo! it's actually a very good tour for the layperson, and we did get a lot of good info about the history of hawaii.
and it was a good way to walk off 100 pounds of manapua.
the captions are what i heard and what i thought during the tour.
historic, blah blah blah. terra cotta blah blah blah.
ooh! a pretty drain. gorgeous metal.
street art! mr. humuhumunukunukuapuaa. how cute.
king kamehameha blah blah blah.
gold blah blah blah.
original statue lost at sea blah blah blah.
this king's dad's palace that this king didn't like.
so state blah offices housed here.
blah blah blah.
cemetery at the church for haoles = foreigners/outsiders.
you mean the white devils?
since kamehameha didn't like that first palace, he built another across the street.
heavy rustication there.
frilly victorian here.
holes in the stairs. so you can shoot your muskets through them while being protected.
yeah, not enough holes. *sniggle*
kamehameha's forces lost.
the haoles took over.
ooh, look at the drippy banyan tree.
too bad it's not a bridge like the banyans in india.
mmm. concrete.
state blah (legislature? courts?) housed here.
government very open blah blah to the people blah.
mmm. heavy. textured. concrete & stone.
mmm. concrete. love the thinness of the wood slats that made up the formwork.
ooh. retro & fun facade.
yup, by the end, i was pretty much absorbed in my own thoughts and not really listening.
bad walking tour tater. LOLOLOLOL.
MORE TOUR_world war II valor in the pacific memorial (pearl harbor).
now this was worth it. entry to the memorial park and to the USS arizona memorial is free. there are other memorials in the memorial that cost extra (submarine, and i forget what else).
we also paid $7.50 for the audio tour, which was actually quite good. jamie lee curtis' voice is perfect to narrate the somber experience.
tip: so the timed ferries to the uss arizona begin at 8 am. the memorial park opens at 7 am, when you can buy your tickets. first come, first time slots. apparently people line up before 7 am to get in. some of these people stand in line for an hour and get time slots for an hour or more later than that.
instead, be late like us. we got there midday. there was no line to get uss arizona tickets. our time slot was for maybe 30-45 minutes after we arrived--enough time to get through the first three or so stations on the audio tour.
anyway, it's a great memorial, we learned a lot, and it was a good way to remember our servicepeople.
tree of life sculpture (also repeated next to the USS arizona wall o' names.)
the ferry over to the uss arizona.
LUNCH_tanioka's seafoods & catering (waipahu).
got there too late. all the good stuff was gone. what we had was good but mostly cold/lukewarm.
shared: lumpia, fried rice, fried chicken, poke.
ate sitting in the car in the parking lot. that's just how we roll.
SHOP_waikele "premium" outlets (waipahu).
LAME. don't waste your time.
WALK_waikiki.
again.
DINNER_choi's kitchen (international market, waikiki).
overpriced, but hit the spot as i was craving asian food. it's pretty much hawaiianized korean.
bear: kimchee fried rice with spicy pork bulgogi. side of mandoo (gyoza/potstickers/dumplings).
me: fried noodles with shrimp.
DESSERT_bubbie's (near university of hawaii manoa).
needed their mochi ice cream again. needed.
tried:
lychee - good.
guava - really good.
lilikoi (passion fruit) - BEST!
pumpkin - really good, but hard to get in the mood when it's 80 and humid at night.
strawberry dark chocolate chip - good. loved the chocolate mochi skin.
yay for super-full days!
I don't think I've ever had manapua.
ReplyDeleteWeep for me.