Hawaii - Oahu Day 4
Aloha...what a beautiful Saturday morning in Honolulu! Today was our souvenir shopping and North Shore day! We drove to Aloha Stadium for the Swap Meet (99-500 Salt Lake Boulevard, Aiea) which opens at 8 am but we took the wrong exit...thanks to our outdated GPS!!! We ended up driving this highway for 10 miles without any exit LOL oh well we took it as a scenic drive. We finally reached the stadium after the extra 20 miles drive, admission was $1 per person and the parking lot was pretty empty. Let the shopping begins!!
The Swap Meet have hundreds, if not more, vendors!!! So our strategy was to quickly browse around for ideas of the prices, from experiences, the first few vendors near the entrance were always the most expensive and prices drop as you go inner :) You can find almost everything that International Market Place have here and much cheaper! The sellers are friendly and they priced very reasonable so you don't even need to bargain much to get a deal (unlike Cancun)!!
Lots of sterling silver jewelry here....remember to check the "925" stamp on the back (that's how I check for sterling silver). A pair of earrings for example I bought in International Market Place for $15, here I can easily get it for $10!! However, things might looked the same but the quality might be different so look closely :)
Dried fruits and nuts stand. I bought few bags of dried pineapples, mangos, and papayas but I realized they are too sweet for me! I suggested to get the dried pineapples and mangos from ABC Stores although those are made in Philippines, not Hawaii.
Ladies' paradise lollll tons of flower clips!! It was really hard to pick up the ones I like since too many to choose from! $1 per flower (International Market Place sells the same price but less choices and ABC Stores sells for at least $4 each)!
At the end I got two dress wraps (Iris Impressions dress wrap) at $55 for two (I saw people selling $70+ each in Waikiki), 5 flower clips, 4 earrings, 1 pendant, and 3 bags of dried fruits! By the time we left the stadium, the parking lot was almost full so don't forget to arrive early, it was so much more comfortable to shop early before it gets really hot in the afternoon!
The sun started to get hot so don't forget to put on sunscreen while shopping! By 11 o'clock we were exhausted and then saw another whole sections of tents on the other side.....this place is huge!!!! We gave up and decided to leave for lunch after 3 hours of shopping!!!!
We drove to the North Shore, it was an hour ride. Right after we got off the highway in Haleiwa, we spotted Macky's Shrimp Truck (66-632 Kamehameha Hwy, Haleiwa)...exactly what we were looking for! At first we didn't have high hopes for shrimp truck since Mike's Shrimp Truck we had the other day wasn't impressing. Coming from Boston, we were picky regarding seafood but Macky's shrimps were totally delicious and fresh!
We ordered both the spicy shrimp plate and the garlic & butter shrimp plate! The spicy shrimps were delicious, not too spicy and the spiciness didn't cover the fresh taste of shrimp!
The garlic and butter shrimps were the best! We loved the fried garlic sauce on top of the rice, extra yummy! I could have a bowl a rice just with the garlic sauce!! Garlic & button & fresh shrimps = perfect combinations!!! Not to mentioned that their salad and pineapples were fresh too!
After our delicious fulfilling lunch, we drove to Matsumoto Shave Ice (66 Kamehameha Highway, Haleiwa) for shave ice of course!!!
There was a line of people at Matsumoto Grocery Store, that tells how good it is! Here's a picture of its famous store sign:
Too much flavors to choose from, we go with the Hawaiian for simplicity! Our cousins picked the Rainbow combo.
The lady making the famous shave ice!
Here are the famous Matsumoto Shave Ice!!!
The outside seats were all filled with people!! It was so good especially during a hot day!
Next, we drove to the Laniakea Beach to see the famous Hawaiian sea turtles. There was a small dirt area that you can park off the street and we walked across the street to the beach. It was a small beach so you can't miss it with a lot of people gathered around the turtle. There was one huge turtle lying there as tourists keep taking picture of it. There was also a volunteer to make sure people are keeping a distance away from the turtle to protect this precious sea creature!
Beautiful Laniakea Beach:
People were taking pictures of the turtle from various angles while we were having a picture together haha!
This turtle is huge!!
Hubby having his time taking pictures of the landscape...but cautious about the waves, it could get pretty big!
Next stop, we went to Waimea Bay, well known for its huge waves! The parking in Waimea Bay was full but was lucky that someone was leaving so we grabbed the spot.
I saw this tree with hanging shoes; almost like the shoes were ornaments!
Too bad it was cloudy and not the blue sky with white clouds :(
Look closely to the size of the people compared to the wave!!! The wave was like 15 feet high!
Even though it was not a perfect blue-sky beach day, we still had fun taking photos! We took advantage of the beautiful trees right near the beach :D
We were done with all the places we planned to visit in the North Shore so we headed back to Waikiki to spend some time on Waikiki Beach (we were so busy past few days that we never had a chance to hang out at Waikiki Beach)! On the way back we saw a huge bright rainbow!!! I guess the scattered shower wasn't bad after all!!
Waiting for sunset at Waikiki Beach........sigh this big black cloud covered the sun!
The sun in between the clouds...our first Waikiki sunset!
For dinner, we drove to Camellia Korean BBQ Buffet at 930 Mccully St, Ste 105. It was only $24.95 per person and this place was packed with people! Don't wear nice clothes because at the end, your clothes will smell like BBQ haha! They have all sorts of marinated ribs, steaks, chicken, and pork, shrimps, and varieties of Korean side dishes.
The baby ribs were our favorite! We grilled so much food and the waitress came ever 10-15 minutes to change our grill plate so our food won't get burned! We all thought we ate at least $24.95 worth of food each because Korean BBQ we have in Boston, one order of baby ribs already cost at least $25. The food quality were very good too, they marinated just about right...not salty at all! Another highly recommended restaurant if you like Korean BBQ!
We dropped off our cousins and headed back to the hotel to park our car. It was only 8 pm at night so we went down to the lively streets of Waikiki to burn off the food we ate!
More pictures of Waikiki at night:
The pool at the Sheraton Princess Kaiulani:
Across the street is the Moana Surfrider Hotel:
Always wanted to go to the swap meet. Thanks for taking me there.
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome. If you get a chance later on, go check it out yourself, it was overwhelming big!
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