We hopped on a short flight back to Oahu and picked up our rental car. Our friend has a 2 bed-2 bath condo near Waikiki and generously offered to let us stay. Parking is a huge pain in the butt in the area but she had graciously parked her car on the street right outside her place and when we arrived we swapped spots (she has covered parking in her complex).
After dropping off our stuff, we walked over to Ala Moana Center to grab some dinner. Within Ala Moana there is the Makai Market Food Court in Foodland Farms. where you can get customizable poke bowls/plates. After grabbing some food and drinks, we walked across the street to Ala Moana Regional Park and watched some fireworks while we ate.
In the morning, KP and I found some breakfast in the building next door to where she lives at Da’ Hi Brew. It was raining a fair amount again so for the morning we decided to check out the Honolulu Museum of Art (HoMA).
Lunch at Paia Fish Market, located in the International Market Place, consisted of some fresh fish. I had mine in a sandwich along with some fries, while D had hers as fish tacos. I had read about this place that had some homemade ice cream and sorbets and we went on a walking adventure after lunch to Henry’s Place.
We then just chilled back at KP’s place until dinner. We had a lovely dinner at Merriman’s Honolulu. During our honeymoon on Maui, D and I had gone to Monkeypod on the recommendation from friends and it turns out that Merriman’s and Monkeypod are part of the same restaurant group. Of course I had to have a mai tai. We shared the Bag O Biscuits and the daily special salad. KP had the pork shank, I had to the macadamia encrusted fish and D had the mushroom ravioli. We then finished off by sharing the chocolate purse.
We walked to a local breakfast spot the next day at Sunny’s Local Grind. I of course had to get the loco moco and it was delicious. Our friend suggested we drive out to the southeast end of the island to try to do some whale watching. On the way we passed by Diamond Head. Unfortunately there weren’t a ton of whales to see and the area we were in was swamped with flying insects and then it started to rain. We ended up continuing around the island to Kailua and stopped at Maui Mike’s Fire-Roasted chicken for lunch. This place actually turned out to be pretty tasty as well. Prior to lunch we had also checked out the Kailua Honey Tasting Room & Store (our friend had been looking for some lilikoi honey).
To get back to Honolulu we drove through the foresty part on the H3 and then we were planning to stay at an AirBnB in the Manoa Valley area. When I booked, they had stated some construction was going on but when we arrived it was a lot worse than that. The entire building was a construction site and the person who we found there was working on the place and had no idea about reservations. She was texting with the owners (apparently there had been a recent change in ownership and they were trying to make the place habitable again). The person there thankfully said that we should just leave and cancel.
