SNAPSHOTS | HAWAII 2020 | DAY 1

Aloha from Hawaii!

This past February, I was very grateful to have traded in a week of Canadian winter for the sunny blue skies and water of Honolulu! It's been forever since my entire family vacationed together so I considered ourselves very lucky that we were able to coordinate time off to experience Hawaii for the first time.

The first leg of our trip included a short layover in Vancouver. After the gong show that was US customs, it was otherwise smooth sailing to Honolulu.

Because we booked tickets separately, my brother's flight arrived about an hour later than ours. We ended up just waiting at the airport for him since it didn't make sense to pay for transportation to the hotel twice. Little did we know that there isn't much to do or see at Honolulu's airport...

When we reconvened as a group, we took an Uber over to our hotel. We stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn, which was pretty much smack dab in the middle of Waikiki. I would say everything in Waikiki is within walking distance, but I found the location of our hotel to be particularly convenient. 

After dropping off our luggage and freshening up, we headed out in search of our first meal.

We ended up at Waikiki Yokocho, a Japanese food hall that mimics the restaurant and bar-filled alleys of Japan. The food hall is located in the basement of Waikiki Shopping Plaza and features twelve different restaurants and food stalls.

A food hall is basically a food court on steroids. The layout is pretty much an open rectangle, so you're able to walk around and peruse each restaurant's space and menu before making a decision. There are many tempting options, including sushi, ramen, tempura, kushikatsu, and yakiniku. As an added bonus, there's free arcade games for the little ones.

We ended up choosing Ramen Bario which seemed to be the most popular ramen spot out of the other four. This particular restaurant comes from Tokyo and is well-known for their super fatty and flavourful tonkotsu broth. 

I much prefer tsukemen to ramen, so it was no surprise that I went for their original tsukemen ($13.98). The broth was super cloudy, thanks to all the fat that got leached out from the pork bones. It's not overwhelmingly rich or creamy, since the flavour is balanced out with a tangy hit of vinegar, garlic, and spice. I found it a bit too salty for me though. The noodles, served separately from the broth, were probably my favourite part! They were thick, chewy, and firm. However, I wouldn't say they were the ideal type of noodle since it barely picked up any of the soup as it was dipped in. It was almost as if the soup was too thin, whereas a thicker consistency would work better for tsukemen purposes.

For dessert, we wandered over to Nana's Green Tea, also located within Waikiki Yokocho. Like Tsujiri, Nana's is another Japanese-based chain of tea houses, serving an array of matcha drinks, soft serve, and desserts.

We decided to keep it simple and stuck to their soft serve cones. My brother enjoyed his matcha-vanilla swirl ($4.90) while I went for the hojicha soft serve with warabimochi ($5.80). Hojicha is roasted green tea, and I actually prefer the nutty roasted flavour over traditional matcha.

The warabimochi was quite unique. It was my first time trying it, and unlike regular glutinous mochi, warabimochi is made from bracken starch. It's soft and jelly-like. It doesn't have much of a flavour besides the coating of kinako (soybean powder) and drizzle of kuromitsu (brown sugar syrup).

After dessert, we headed out to explore some of the souvenir shops. It's almost comical how many ABC stores you'll come across on the streets of Waikiki.

All stores pretty much sell the same things, so if you're looking to haggle, look no further than Duke's Marketplace. Tucked in a small alley, Duke's is a collection of carts filled to the brim with every tacky souvenir imaginable.  

Before calling it quits for the night, we also tried to stop by the McDonald's down the block for a taro or haupia (coconut) pie. Unfortunately, they only had apple on hand. They explained to us that taro and haupia pies were considered "seasonal." We had impeccably bad timing since I saw that they were selling them again once we were back in Edmonton. Guess it means I'll have to go back! 

- CT