Good morning and Merry Christmas from Oahu, Hawaii! Best Christmas gift? Watch the sunrise together from our beautiful ocean view balcony!
The sun slowly peeking out behind Diamond Head and coloring the ocean and the sky! I had my GoPro set up to capture a sunrise time lapse while hubby setting up the tripod for a picture of us to post on Facebook to wish everyone a Merry Christmas 🙂
The pool was empty so I grabbed hubby to go downstairs with me to take some pictures of the lovely infinity pool!
By the time we got down there, probably it took 2 minutes, people started to arrive having the same exact idea as me LOL! But I did managed to get few shots without people in my picture playing with different angles. The reflection from the infinity pool was amazing!
I love how the yellowish tower turned into radiant golden color by the sun ray!
We went back up to our hotel room again to enjoy the view without others on our way….except one visitor:
We got ready to go out by 8 am for an early dim sum breakfast at Mei Sum. I searched dim sum restaurants that are open early in the morning and Mei Sum was one of them, we decided to try it out (we went to Fook Lam last time). There was no parking lot near-by, only street parking, but since we got there very early, we had no issue getting a spot. You can’t miss it because it had something look like a “bus stop” in front with the restaurant name hanging:
I was surprised how clean and well lit the restaurant was compared to other Chinese dim sum restaurants I had been to! We ordered from a picture menu and the lady came to take our order, they didn’t have the ladies pushing the cart around perhaps it was only a few of us in the early morning!
Their dim sum was very delicious, once again proved that Honolulu has very good dim sum (even better than New York and 10 times better than Boston)! Hubby was surprised how good the beef balls were! My favorite was the spare ribs, very tasty! I lost count how many dishes we ordered and every single one was so good except for the egg tarts, it was just okay (Calgary has the best egg tarts so far)!
We were full and filled with energy to explore Oahu and it was only $34.52 for all the excellent food we had!
Itinerary for today: stop where ever we think is pretty, Waimanalo Beach, and maybe Kualoa Ranch since we missed that last time.
On the way to Waimanalo Beach, we passed by Pali Lookout so we decided to have a short stop there……we saw people parked outside so we did the same and walked to the entrance to find out that it is closed -.- People still walk in but we know it will be a long walk so we turned back and left. We stopped by another “scenic view point” but it was that scenic since the trees and grasses had out grown and covered the view!
We finally reached Waimanalo Beach, it was quite busy, perhaps that is how Hawaiian spent their Christmas – on a beach!
The wave was pretty strong (as usually in winter) so it had a red flag out.
It was a pretty big beach with powdery sand:
We took some pictures and continue with our next destination: Lanikai Beach – this is my favorite beach in Oahu, with pretty view of the two small islands near by. We thought Waimanalo Beach was busy, Lanikai Beach was way overcrowded that we couldn’t even find a spot to park! I remembered the last time we were here, we drove to the resident street and parked there with few access points to the beach. It was fully parked there too! And we saw a police came out of his car and all ready to give out parking ticket as Christmas gift! Luckily, we couldn’t find a spot haha!
As we left, I saw the color of the beach was so pretty, I wished I could stop for just a few photos! Anyways, we headed to Kualoa Ranch, on the way the “Jurassic Park” mountains were incredible!
Earlier in the morning, I called and they had a voice mail saying they’ll open at noon today. Guess what, it was closed!!! NO LUCK! Hubby pulled over so I could take some pictures of it, it would’ve been perfect weather and lighting condition!
We had much better weather this time than last time we visited Oahu! As we left Kualoa Ranch, we saw a park that looked pretty so we turned back – it was Kualoa Regional Park. Inside the park, it has the picturesque view of the “Jurassic Park” mountains!
We ended up having a lot of pictures there so I definitely recommend this park!
Also in the park, it has very nice cluster of coconut trees that make it a good background for photos!
There were quite a few tourists there too so we were patient to wait for our turn and be creative with our angles to get as much people out of our picture as possible. The park has a great view of the “Chinaman’s Hat” (island of Mokoli’i).
It was almost noon by the time we left there and we planned to head to the North Shore for the unforgettable shrimp truck! I called Giovanni’s few days before and they said they are close on Christmas Day. I called Macky’s and they said they are open before we head up there. And of course, we made stops on the way! A small no-name beach with the awesome mountain on the back! Hubby got some exercise to burn the dim sums we ate this morning and be ready for lunch!
I love this tree and the shades of blue was amazing!
We made it to Macky’s around 1 pm, we were so ready for shrimps, shrimps, and shrimps!
We both got garlic shrimp plate, I had the spicy shrimp plate last time, it was good but I tried to avoid spicy food due to my pimple 🙁 The garlic shrimp plate was sooo good, love the smell of the fried garlic and finished with the juicy and sweet Hawaiian pineapple! Perfect!
Each plate is $13 so total $26 for our yummy lunch. I really love food in Hawaii, so much choices, delicious, and inexpensive! An hour ride back to our hotel, in time to relax and enjoy the sunset view from our balcony!
The golden color from the sun as it set, it was priceless!
We made Christmas dinner reservation at Hakone at 7:30 for the Christmas buffet. I reserved a month in advanced and that was the only time slot available so book your holiday dinner early! Hakone is in the Hawaii Prince Hotel Waikiki and we thought it would be hard to find a parking spot nearby (I contacted the hotel and they said their lot would be full so advised us to park nearby). We decided to walk there, it was around a mile walk.
The Christmas buffet was held in their ballroom, very nice atmosphere for our Christmas dinner!
Food selection was good, ranging from sashimi, fried udon, tempura, other Japanese dishes and they even had lobster but hubby said they wasted them because they just boiled them and didn’t even have melted butter! It would be better if they did stir fried with ginger and scallion (Chinese style).
They had shabu shabu beef, I wish I have my own shabu shabu pot!!!
They had two sushi counters for custom made sushi but to wait in line for a bit. However, they didn’t have my favorite spicy tuna or salmon nor any cooked sushi rolls.
They have two tables of desert!!! You name it!
This is way too pretty to cut it!
It was our most expensive meal in our trip – $168 including tips for both of us. After the full dinner, it was actually a nice walk back to the hotel, it was warm with a little ocean breeze very comfortable! After we got back to our hotel, I had to pack up as we’ll be leaving Oahu to Big Island tomorrow! I am going to miss the food in Oahu!!!
