oahu 06
november 20, 2005
call me a creature of habit but i generally stay in a particular vicinity when in waikiki. after countless visits and many hits and misses, i pretty much know the environment that i feel comfortable in. those beachfront hotels and resorts are all nice and dandy but they do cost an arm and a leg. besides, i don't want to spend the next 5 years paying off my credit cards for a $500/night room - a room that i only really use to shower, sleep and change. in. this doesn't mean that i prefer to stay away from the beach either but everything has to be within walking distance with easy parking access, beach access, shopping access and dining access.
hotels that come with a lanai (balcony) is such an asset. you can hang beach towels and swimsuits out to dry there. you can bask in the sun without going to the beach or you can just peoplewatch from above or directly across into the other hotel rooms. the last one is my fave. :x i really should bring binoculars with me next time. i wonder if i will get arrested for doing so?
from my lanai, i was able to catch a glimpse of a sliver of the ocean. of course the towers of the hyatt regency hotel blocked my view. then again, they have privy to the view for shelling out hundreds per night. as much as i do love the ocean view, i also like the mountain views as well (as in the first pic above). somehow views like that reminds me of certain places in hong kong.
people always ask me for suggestions as to where to stay in waikiki. the options are literally....endless. so many of the hotel names are so similar but are classes apart. the locale is critical for me and the budget is too. i tend to stay in the middle-ish end portion of waikiki. my top two picks would be sheraton princess kaiulani and the ohana east (where i stayed this time). i haven't been back to the ohana east in a few years and was pleasantly surprised at the remodeling and upgrades to the rooms. big, clean and nice. in many ways, the rooms are MUCH nicer than the lower end rooms of the princess kaiulani. the ohana east is situated right behind the princess kaiulani and both have convenient parking structures (meaning: spaces, ins & outs onto the street, proximity to the hotel structure). the princess kaiulani of course is right on the main drag of waikiki but don't let that be a huge draw as the ohana east is only a few more years behind the hotel. one thing i do hate about the ohana east is their ultra fast elevators. it did a number in triggering my vertigo. ick. the rooms though were really clean, new and spacious. i asked for a king bed with a pull out queen day bed. but what you get is a large king with a roomy sofa (living room area) if you don't use the day bed.
i do suggest a lot of other hotels but they run up there in price and i would rather save that money for shopping/eating. there are plenty of other hotels in waikiki but don't be misled by their description (e.g. 2 blocks from the beach). some hotels are really two blocks but they are two LONG ASS blocks. and some are two short quick blocks. the hotels closer to the beginning of waikiki strip is really far walk from the beach while the ones toward the middle and end (near kapiolani park) is much closer even if both do state they are 2 blocks from the beach. if anyone needs suggestions, feel free to email me for questions. it's hard to list out all the choices here.
every trip to hawaii that i've been making for the past few years has included meeting up with certain friends, whom i've had the pleasure of meeting through this website. donna, maria and i had a hard time (as always) deciding on where to dine. although my visit isn't really reason for gorging, we make it so. ;) this time, we decided to head to an all you can eat japanese food place called shogun in the pacific beach hotel (where a couple nights earlier i was dining downstairs at the oceanarium restaurant).
maria's bento looks better than mine!
i've never been to shogun before but i hear that a lot of locals go there to eat. and if you go before 6:30pm, you get 25% off (sunset discount) the price per person. that is a cheap deal especially for a pake like me. donna had warned though, ahead of time that it's more of a quality over quantity type of place. that's fine by me because if the quality ain't there, what's the point?
it's all about the quality folks.
i have to say that there was a decent variety of food including a sushi station, tempura station, carving station and a hot & cold food station. the dessert station was a bit disappointing but i guess that's ok. the food was pretty good and TGILW (who for the first time has met my friends) said it was better than he expected. each night at shogun offers a different "specialty" - you have to refer to the pdf files on their website for more detail.
my bento - i try to eat salad wherever i go - keeps me regular. :p and i know
you're all wondering "where her crab legs?" well, i'm one of those
really lazy people who thinks eating crab takes took much work. sad eh?
after i got in line with donna, maria and her hubby grant, i noticed that aside from regular plates, they also had bento boxes for you to fill up. i made those 3 poor souls pose with their bento boxes prior to filling it up. the things i put people through for this website. *shakes head* of course we had a great time chatting for about 3 hours before calling it a night. i forgot to take a photo of derek, who was at the dinner with us. next time. as always, it was great to meet up with all of them. it's become a custom and something i always look forward to whenever i visit hawaii. until next time girls (which hopefully will be sooner than the gap between this last trip).
one of the best discussions during the dinner was on the localized way of saying certain chinese & korean dishes. everywhere i go, i read about these chinese dishes and have no idea what they are. wait...i do have some idea but needed confirmation. we all had a good laugh at pork hash, minute chicken cake noodle, look fun, half moon, jin dui etc. the one i forgot to ask though was "gau gee". help! and i'm sorry to say that meat jun is not on the korean menu here in LA.
every morning, the hotel delivers the star bulletin newspaper to my door. i make good use of it when i'm in the bathroom. :p so i was reading in the food section that the TARO PIE at mcdonald's is back for a limited time. i love how hawaii gets certain things on their menu that the mainland never gets. i remember having the kalbi burger about 10 years ago in oahu. anyway, there's this big ad splashed on one of the pages of the newspaper proclaiming that "you better get it before it's gone!" type of verbage.
now, i'm not a huge taro fan - which means i don't exactly go wild for poi - but TGILW is adamant though to try this new and unusual mcdonald's concoction so he drags me into his favorite mcdonald's on o'ahu - which he firmly believes makes the best filet o' fish - the one on the corner of kalakaua and lili'uokalani and orders one straight up. he couldn't even wait to take it back to the hotel room and insists in sitting down and eating it right there. to my surprise, it was just like the apple pie crust and the filling wasn't too sweet and the taro wasn't too mushy either. i somehow expected a poi-like center oozing forth from the crevice and down into the cracks of your fingers. but instead it had small chunks of soft taro in a light glaze. the pale lavender taro color was a nice touch to the look of the dish. :p
currently listening to: sandy lam, lover's tears
