With the baby starting to grow older, we wanted to continue to take her out to travel the world. So we went to Hawaii again, but this time with our couple friend Albert and Jenny. I have never travelled with them, actually we have never travelled with any other of our couple friends since we got married.
They were very low key and were very flexible to working around our schedule. Actually, they didn’t even have any input on our schedule. Since we have a kid, our schedule planning for trips are very relaxed, especially in hawaii. We also built in 1 day where both families could do whatever they want.
The most important thing we wanted to do on this trip was finding ways to hang out with them, so we ended up booking a place on Airbnb which was near in the Scandia Towers Condominiums near Honolulu Zoo. Being close to the beach and other activities was important. I didn’t want to have to rely on a car, because putting a baby into and out of a car is a little bit of a hassle.
One of the nice thing to come from the pandemic is how all the box stores similar to target have curbside pickup. This makes planning for the baby easy, because I just put in the order for all the items that we would get at target the night before, and pick it up when we arrived in hawaii.
Our first stop was this “str’eats of hawaii” food truck that we were suppose to go to after we left the airport. However, we could not figure out where it was when we were in the area. We eventually settled on a place nearby, but their food plate tasted average. It was average because it didn’t feel like they marinated anything ahead of time, felt more like they threw the sauces on as they cooked it.
The first night we were in waikiki, we ended up going to the international market to watch their free O Na Lani Sunset Stories Hula Show. It was a very lite version of a luau show. They had 3 dancers, 1 male and 2 females rotating between the 1 hour show. The baby really enjoyed watching the dancers with all their hand motions (I think it is because it is the same movements she can make). For me, I actually enjoyed the part of how well and strong they have to be able to maintain dancing for an hour show.
We then ended up at the marketplace buying dinner and groceries to last us for the next few mornings and midday snacks. The high carbs and high protein ratio no very little greens and fiber from eating all the food plates would lead us to eat salad for a random meal once a day.
The first real day we had on oahu had us driving up to the north shore and waimea falls area.
It is a very easy hike with a stroller, It is a botanical garden that has a different bunch of areas that have specific flowers from other islands/regions of the tropics. Then at the end of the trail is the waimea falls which flows into a lake. They have lifejackets that they make you wear before you go swimming in the lake up to the falls. The water is much cooler than the beach water , so around 70 degrees. It was very refreshing just laying in the water after the hike carrying a backpack full of stuff for the baby.
Here are some more pictures from the hike,
I always found tropical flowers very interesting, I think it is all the bright colors and how big they can grow. 🙂 After our hike we went to eat at a da bald guy because Jenny had watched his food truck on netflix. We tried the food and it was delicious, and we met this older asian couple that had driven all the way out to north shore to try his ribs, but it ran out just when we arrived. (we ordered the last one). They also told us to go get matsumoto shave ice, and they were going to go there after. It was cute when we saw them later in line for shaved ice.
We tried all the “tropical flavor” which consisted of likolei, mango, and guava. I realized that i don’t really care too much about shaved ice, but it does feel nice to eat it when the weather is really humid and hot. Naomi really liked likolei flavored.
We got back home and tried the food trucks that were outside our apartment. I did get confused with what i ordered, because I started to eat from alberts order. I forgot I had ordered beef instead of chicken. It was pretty funny, because albert came out and was confused as to why his box was open. The good thing was that I had only taken 1 stripe of chicken, so it was not much.
What made me happy was that Naomi actually slept well with us the first 2 nights. She would lay down with us in the dark and actually sleep. Unlike at home, she actually slept facing the same directions as us.
