Aruba Day 1

Aruba - one happy island!

June 5th, 2011 Day 1

After waited for half a year, we finally on vacation....this time we went to Aruba - "one happy island". I have been looking around to decide which Caribbean island to go but since it is June, we don't want to risk a chance of hurricane so Aruba is a great choice! 

Our non-stop flight to Aruba arrived at 2:06 pm and once we got out of the airport, there was a line for taxi. The line was pretty quick, there was someone who coordinated the taxi so everything went smoothly. Our taxi ride to the high rise hotel area was around $30 on Sunday and it was around 15-20 mins ride. We passed by the downtown area with many pastel colored houses! Our taxi driver pointed to us that the tallest building in front is the Westin. 

We stayed at the Westin hotel for 6 nights, the room was spacious and clean and all rooms have a balcony which was really nice. After we checked in and settled down in our room, I went straight to the balcony to have my first real view of Aruba.....the turquoise water was truly Caribbean paradise!

The view of Palm Beach and the RIU hotel next door from our balcony:

We started to get hungry already by 3:00 pm so we made a reservation with one of the hotel restaurants - Pago Pago at 5:30 pm. While we waited for dinner time, we walked out to the beach! The powdery white sand felt very smooth; this is how I imaged "beach" to be unlike the coarse sand we have up in Boston. 

Time passed by very quickly when we are enjoying the wonderful view of the Caribbean Sea! We went back to the hotel and enter in the restaurant -Pago Pago, it was fairly quiet since it was so early.  We were the only two in the restaurant...almost felt like we reserved the whole restaurant haha! 

Appetizers we ordered the fried soft-shell crab (crispy and tasty) and the  lobster bisque (it was very rich in favor and creamy, we really liked it):

Main courses we ordered the lobster tail and steak and coconut shrimp. The coconut shrimp was really nice even to see:

As we were having the delicious dinner, I started to feel "we are on vacation!" Pago Pago was a bit on the expensive side but for the food quality, it was reasonable.

After dinner, we took a nice walk to the near-by Paseo Herencia Mall. The temperature was comfortable at night and we enjoyed the water show in the mall.

On the way back to the hotel, the street was filled with tourists and lively music from restaurants. We felt very safe walking at night on the main street of the high-rise hotels. We went back to the hotel to have a good rest so we can enjoy our full day of activities tomorrow!