Day Three

Today is indeed another exciting day for us. Beside our feet, "The Bus" has been our best friend to get around the places on the island. We're now more familiar with the bus routes and able to go anywhere we want to go. Today's plan was to go to Hanauma Bay for snorkeling. The bus that goes to the bay was fully packed with visitors this morning. Hanauma Bay is one of the popular attractions on the island of Oahu. It's absolutely beautiful to overlook the bay from the top of the hill. There's an orientation film in the beginning to inform all the visitors to protect the marine environment by not touching or feeding the fishes or stepping on the corals. After the short film, we walked down the hill to rent the snorkeling equipments and off to the water. With our snorkeling mask and fins, we could actually swim to the deep water but I was a little scared since I don't know how to swim! heehee =P Good thing Will helped me to conquer my fear and we swan to the deeper part where we couldn't touch the bottom. It was very fascinating to see different fishes under the sea. It's just amazing! We were so amazed to swim in the ocean and see those unique tropical fishes together. We enjoyed it so much that I think we will do it again when we go to Maui. After snorkeling, we took more photos and heading back to Waikiki area for lunch. I wanted to try a restaurant called "Ono's Restaurant" for some local Hawaiian foods. I found this place online before the trip and read some good reviews about it. When we got off the bus from Hanauma Bay, we needed to transfer to another bus to go to that restaurant. But we didn't see any bus going that way, so we walked, and walked, and walked. Finally, we got to the Ono's restaurant BUT it's CLOSED! Oh NO! Oh well, we will come back next time.

We then passed a ramen place filled with people. It seems like an authentic ramen place with a lot of Japanese. Will was very happy that we ended up eating ramen cuz' he's been wanting ramen since we got here! The place is called "Tenkaippin天下一品" which is owned by a Japanese show host. We saw a lot of photos and autographs on the wall and the TV show was on and the host was there in the store and eating ramen near us. The ramen was very good with very very very thick soup. We also had fried rice, fried chicken and gyoza. We felt so satisfied with delicious foods after the long walk.As we walked down the street, we went to Waiola Bakery and Shave Ice to have the famous shave ice. We couldn't really figure out how to order so we had the rainbow flavor with mochi balls. The shave ice was ok, didn't taste like what I wanted. We will try the famous one tomorrow when we get to North Shore.

Snorkeling and walking really require a lot of energy and by the time we got back to our hotel, we were exhausted! We took shower and took a long nap. When we woke up, it was time for dinner. Isn't it wonderful just to eat, play, sleep, and eat again?! We again took the bus to Ala Moana shopping center thinking to have something simple for dinner at the food court. Things didn't turn out the way we'd planned; the mall is closed early on Sundays.

We headed to Beachwalk, another busy street with shops and restaurants in Waikiki area. We passed by another ramen place, "Ramen Nakamura," and decided to try another bowl of hot ramen for dinner tonight since it was arleady late. We sat down and everyone in the restaurant is Japanese except us. It's another authentic Japanese style ramen house. The ramen was also very good, soup base wasn't as thick as the one we had for lunch but the flavor was heavier.

After we ate, we walked down the Beachwalk and had one yogurt at Red Mango for dessert. We're now back to the hotel to rest and we'll have more updates tomorrow. =) Mahalo!