Hawai'i 2009, part 2

On our first full day in Hawai'i, I was awakened at 3 am by the baby. It was his regular wake up time since really, it was 6 am in California. No biggie though, I was awake with him too. The hubs and the kiddo? still TKO.

But that didn't last too long though because 30 minutes after the baby and I were up, they were awakened by the drunks that were making their way out of Legend's Sport Pub that was located on the bottom floor of our hotel. We were on the fifth floor, but we heard them loud and clear since our balcony faced the street. heh. at least we were already awake.
So we lounged around then slowly got ready for the day as the kiddo watched his Little Einsteins on the Disney Channel. By 6:30 am, we were ready to head outta the hotel! Seriously, that doesn't happen when we're on our time zone!

I had read somewhere about the Farmers' Market that's held every Saturday at the parking lot of Kapiolani Community College and suggested to the hubs that we go there before the wedding rehearsal that morning. The hubs always up for anything, quickly agreed.

It was about a 10 minute drive from our hotel, but by the time we got there, the parking lot was full and there were throngs of both locals and tourists there already!

Man! they had some good...no GOOD stuff there! Here are the hubs favorite things that we picked up at the market - fresh abalone and fresh young coconut. Me? My favorite was a plate of salmon fried rice and a glass of fresh Ginger tea lemonade. Sounds kinda yuck - -oh, but that plate was the best thing I ate during the entire trip and the drink was seriously so refreshing. Soooooo good!

The market wasn't just all food though, there were pretty orchids and other native flowers like this one for sale:

And lots of fresh fruit! Too bad I forgot to take any pics of it.

As we stood underneath a shade eating our breakfast, I spied the future mother in law (FMIL) of my friend at one of the stalls. I went over to greet her and she told me she was on her way out to get ready for the rehearsal.
So we hastily finished up and started heading to Kailua towards the wedding site. I kept telling the hubs to hurry since the bride had told me we needed to be there by 9 am and by the time we left it was 8:30am (we were told Kailua was about 30 minutes from where we were staying) and as luck would have it, even with our GPS we got lost. No matter though, we still got to the place at 9 am. Yay!
Buuuut, as we rolled up to the country club, the hubs observed the empty parking lot. Hmmmm - -and as we pulled up to the front doors of the building, to our confusion, it was locked!

After talking to one of the caddies in a golf cart, we were told that the rehearsal was scheduled for 9:30am! Say what?!?

Yah, so what happened was that the bride told everyone to be there by 9am but really with people being on Hawaiian time, they'd get there at 9:30am. meh. guess we were on a different time, huh?
But it gave us some time to check out the awesome views. Isn't the backdrop for the wedding of the Ko'olau Mountains gorgeous?

After we got done with rehearsal, we took the scenic route back to the hotel and drove by Sandy beach and the Halona blowhole. The kiddo was tired from running all over the place and the baby was taking a nap, so no stops for pictures =(

We did stop and grabbed some lunch though. Ahi Poke, Tako (octopus) Poke and Kim Chee Cucumber and we still had a small plate of the salmon fried rice. The hubs was in heaven! We ended up taking a short nap and then the kiddo and I headed out to help the bride to be with some small minor wedding tasks and then take her to a nail appointment. Then it was back to the hotel to get ready for the rehearsal dinner at Hee Hing's. They had the best Chinese chicken salad!
By the time dinner was over, both kids were out for the night. Like, they fell asleep during dinner and we had to carry sleeping babies out of the restaurant! So plans to walk the 'strip' were canceled.

Instead, we drove around and ended up at Leonards for some yummy malasadas. I had the haupia and chocolate ones and the hubs tried the bavarian cream and mango ones. We both agreed that the bavarian cream and haupia were the best ones.

You'd think we'd be done for the night...but as we were driving back to the hotel, we spied a sign touting frozen yogurt! We did a quick u-turn and ended up at Tropic Rush on Kapahulu Avenue. As far as fro-yos go, I think I'll remain loyal to Pinkberry. Sorry Tropic Rush.

And so THAT was the end of our first full day in Oah'u.