Waikiki, Ala Moana

The world famous Waikiki beach. This stretch of white sand beach probably one of the most expensive beach front property in the world.


The crowd and tourists


Surfers on waves at Waikiki beach


Surfboard row.


Waikiki skyline seen from the water

This world re-known beach is where the Duke Kahanamoku surfed back in the 1900's. We stopped to visit the famous beach a couple times.

Me and the Duke.


Diamond head, as seen from Ala Moana beach


Got one. Ala Moana beach. Ala Moana beach is a local beach, right next to Waikiki. While Waikiki is where tourists go to, Ala Moana is mostly visit by local people.


Happy!

Waimea Jumping Rock

Waimea beach is a beautiful place in the North Shore, with sandy beach, tall white clock tower and giant waves in the winter. It is where big wave surfers go to surf 25, 30 ft huge waves. But in the summer, it is usually flat but it is great for swimming, snorkeling, sun tanning and rock jumping. This is the famous jumping rock in the North Shore. Jumping off this rock is like jumping off the roof of your house. I took this picture of the rock, noticed a guy just jumped off the rock in the background. My daughter and I both jumped off this rock but she actually jumped three times and I jumped only one. When you are up there and looking down, it is very scary, your heart beats a little faster. But once you commit, there is no going back. The good thing is it is over so quick, you don't even have time to scare. Fun and exciting.





In the winter months, the waves are huge. Just give you an idea how big the waves really are, look at this video at the surfboard shack web site. At the end of the video, you will see the big wave covered the jumping rock and the rock is at least 20 feet tall.

http://www.surfboardshack.com/waimea.html
Courtesy of surfboardshack.com

Makaha Farmer Market

On the Saturday we were on the island, Makaha Resorts and Hotel held their first summer Farmer Market on their parking lot and it was fun. There were lot of local fruits, cooked meal, fresh sea fish, cakes, cookies and flower. The people were very nice and friendly. A farming co-op gave out a bunch of bento lunch boxes and I got some for us. A flower shop gave away their flowers to us before they leave and we ended up gave most of them away to another lady because we have no room in our car.


Orchids, just slightly out of focus



Local dishes





This is one of the farm co-op where they teach homeless people how to cook and sell stuff. We got a couple free bento lunch box from these nice people



Super sweet Sachocia fruit. I have not seen this fruit for 30 yrs since I left Vietnam



Mellow Hawaiian Sweet Sounds



Fresh raw fish from the ocean


Oh, here are a sample of some local tropical fruits near Makaha and on the island:

Hawaii Day 2

Second day on the island. We are heading to Hanauma bay for some snorkeling fun but first we need fuel for our stomaches. We stopped by at Waikiki to find some to eat. After got lost and my wife drove on the wrong side of the road once, we found a little Korean restaurant next to a QuickSilver surf shop. It was a fun little interesting Korean place. The lunch specials were pretty good. I had Korean barbecue ribs. We talked to the young Korean waitress and she actually came from Corona, CA. She got tired of big city life so moved to Hawaii to get away from it all. She showed my wife how to eat a special rice dish by mixing a red spicy tofu paste with the rice and it was delicious.

Now with a full stomach, we headed out to Hanauma bay, only found we missed the freeway entrance. Actually it was a good thing because we had to drive on city street and found the Time Asian/Japanese supermarket (http://www.timessupermarket.com/).



Let me tell you, if you are an Asian like me, when in Hawaii, go to Time supermarkets. They have 12 locations in Hawaii and you can buy a lot of different Bento boxes for lunch. They are delicious and priced very reasonable. Eat like the locals and save a ton of cash. We loaded up with food, chips, drinks and ready to get on the road again.

Hanauma bay is so beautiful. We been here before, several years ago but things changed. First of all, there is now a paid parking lot that wasn't there before (or at least we did not have to pay). The most interesting thing about this parking lot is it has a lot of lamp posts and all of them has both a little windmill and a solar cell panel on top. It is always windy and sunny here so I thought that was a great green idea. We had to attend a 10 minute bay orientation, what to touch and what not, before we can head down to the bay. Actually I think it was a great idea too because so many people from all over the world came here to see this beautiful place and if they don't try to education and conserve it, it won't be around for too long.

Here are a few pictures that we took at the bay:


People snorkeling. There are lot of bright colorful tropical fish, blue, red, purple, yellow. Ah, I remember, I saw a couple convict fish. Guess why they call them that?


Just a sample of Hawaii fish. Disclaimer: not mine, this particular pix is from the web, public domain.



In this picture, you can see the coral reef where all the colorful fish lives

View from the top

Me and my beautiful lady

It has been good...

Just real qwik, the waves have been good this week at Sano, 2-4 ft height, not too big, just the right size. A-frame, rolling. Many good surfers came out and play so it was fun to watch them. Wish I could surf like that. Some day. Great summer days, warm water, great swells, lot of fun. See ya out there.

Hawaii Day 1: Makaha

My family and I took a vacation in Hawaii at the end of June and we had a great time. The vacation was much needed and it left us with many memorable moments and memories.

We left the main land on June 19, flew out to Honolunu on Delta Airlines. The most interesting fact about the flight is they just installed an in-flight entertainment system. Every chair has a flat screen, installed on back of the head rest of the chair in front of you. You can watch news, TV, pay-per-view movies, sports or play games on demand. You supposed to pay for this service but unfortunate for them but lucky for us, the system was down and they had to reboot it a couple times. I think after while they gave up trying to fix it and let us watch everything for free. There were about 30 movies over all. Some just been released shortly in the theaters so we took full advantages of it. My kids watched Jumpers, Hana the young pop singers. My wife watched some chick flicks. I watched the Discovery channel. For the TV channels, it works until the airplane flew out of the LA metropolitan area and we lost all signals. This help us passed the boring long flight. We eat, watch TV, nap nap, go to the restroom, and come back redo the whole routine over for 5 hours.

Finally we landed around 10 pm at night. By the time we got the rental cars, drove to our hotel, Makaha Resort and Golf Club, which is quite far from the air port, and checked in, I think it was already passed midnight.

It was so dark at night so we had no idea how our hotel look like, until we woke up in the morning and the scenery was gorgeous. Take a looks at a couple pictures of Makaha Resort. The green mountain is the hotel's background.






This pictures was taken from the balcony of my room. I like it a lot because it look a lot like a postcard picture:




To be continued...

A Fun August TuesSummerDay

I know I have not been blogging for a while, been so busy, buddy. Well, I guess today I will write some thing. The weather has been extremely nice and comfort. The June gloom is finally over. Daily temperature is about 70s around the beach with clear blue sky, perfect weather for surfing, so that what I did today. Got to Sano around 7 pm. Lot of cars, lot of people for a Tuesday weekday. Don't people work at all? May be I am the only one that have to do so. Anyway, it's just so beautiful out here. yehh.

Out there on the waves you see black dots cover from one end of the beach to the other. Yes, that are surfers, waiting patiently for their perfect waves. On the sand, family and friends circled around the fire rings, kids playing. Lots of tents popped up along the beach, giving it many shades of blues, green, yellow, purples. So many RVs parked paralleled to the road, cars parked double, so crowded for a Tuesday afternoon... Yes, it looks just like a weekend Saturday. Amazing how summer transformed San Onofre beach. I love this place. Hope they don't build that stupid toll road. I need to write to my local congressman, Arnold and Bush...

I put on my spring suit, grabbed my board and jumped into the water. Wow, the water was so warmed, it was just like taking a bath. 70 degree, nice and toasty. The waves are also quite good today. 3, 4 feet tall, kinda soft but that's alright with me, I won't get beat up so bad. I paddled out, it was low tide so had to walked over a bunch of slippery pebbles. Almost lost my balance. Well, I got out to the line up and just wait for my waves. Had to wait for a few minutes but today we had quite a few fun sets, when they came. And when they came, they came in a set of 3 or 4, rolling in in A frame waves, then spread across the whole front, right in front of Old Mans. The waves pitched up, built up to 4 or 5 feet A frames. The top starts to tip over, the white cap bearded its top. Lovely. I caught a few of these. Some I was way inside so I just caught the white water, but they all was fun. One of the best wave I caught was some where between the line up and the beach. I paddled, saw the wave picked my board up, it started to slide down the slope. I pushed up, wait a bit and popped up on my feet. Let my board slid to the bottom of the wave then I leaned to the right, sticking my butt out to steer to the right. Glide for a while, step on the nose to nose ride for a bit, then I steered left, walked up and down the board a bit, pumped it a few times to generate speed. Oh, that was one of the longest ride I had at Sano. Fantastic. So much fun. I was going to go back in but after I ride that wave, I was so stoked that I ended up paddled back out again to catch a few more.

For a while the water was so calm and flat like a lake. I was just sitting on my board, watching the sun going down on the right. The sunset at Sano is not as beautiful at at Sunset beach, Hawaii but it sure still very romantic and inspiring. The sun going down over the horizon, a few specks of orange cloud partly covered the glowing orange disk. The water reflection, the small waves rolling in rymth, the tall cliff hanging in the background. Sometime a flock of sea birds flew by or a family of dolphins jumped over the water, 40, 50 yards from where you are. You feel so good, feel so much part of nature.



At that point, everything crazy going on during the day is gone, just you and nature, just you and the elements. It makes it worth the drive, worth the paddling. No wonder people is crazy about surfing. It's no longer a sport, it no longer an exercise. It is a lifestyle to a lot of people here (just check out how many RVs here today). Some people swears it borders religions. Whatever it is, I know I was hooked, I was stoked and I enjoy every minute of it.

Rolling, peeling beautiful waves of summer 08.

Sano, August 5th, 2008.