Rex

After wasting two hours being held by immigration, I and my mother were finally allowed to leave the airport and freely roam US territory.

We immediately felt the pinch of spending dollars when we had to take the bus to our hotel. The fare was $9 per person for the 11-kilometer drive (That same amount will carry me more than 400 kilometers back in the Philippines!) A bold sign in the bus also said “Your bus fare does not include the driver’s tip.” I’m not sure what that meant but since our driver happened to be a Filipino so we gave him a $1 tip anyway. Haha!

For our 2-day visit we will be staying Ala Moana Hotel which is right next to Honolulu’s largest and most popular shopping destination, the Ala Moana Center. It is also dubbed as “the world’s largest open-air shopping mall.”

My body clock says it is still 5 AM but all other clocks in Honolulu insisted it’s already 11 AM, so despite the jet lag, we went out to window-shop.

Indeed all we did was window-shop. Just like in the Philippines, most of the shops in the mall sold clothes and other fashion items. These are stores that I have absolutely no interest in. The stores I actually visited sold toys, books, and electronics, and camera stores. Unfortunately, I saw that their merchandise were just about the same as those sold back home, only much more expensive. I guess globalization makes shopping in a foreign country a little less fun.

Then came lunch. We went to the food court to scout for something to eat. However, after scanning all the stalls, it seemed like the average meal would cost $7 to $9. That’s the equivalent of about ten meals at home! I knew we should really stop converting all the prices to peso or else we would end up buying nothing! Still we continued to scout the vast mall for a cheaper lunch. We ended up in Taco Bell where we purchased a taco, tortilla chips, and soda for about $3.50. We shared that little snack (I wouldn’t call it lunch).

It was time to briefly see the sights around Honolulu. The best way to get around the tourist spots is by trolley. They have tourist-friendly maps and the open-air set-up is excellent for seeing sights and taking photos. They have color-coded routes with pink for shopping spots, blue for sight-seeing, and red for historical sites. The downside is it’s more expensive with a $27 one-day pass and the trolleys can be rather crowded.

We got on a pink shopping trolley since it was the only line passing the Ala Moana Center. To save on expenses, we decided to just go one loop on the pink line and get off where we started. Interestingly, while riding the trolley around Honolulu’s shopping zones and beaches I saw that Asians were everywhere, possibly half of all the people I saw. Most of the other passing trolleys were also occupied by Japanese on chartered trips.

Later at night, we went to the home of my aunt’s friends who invited us over for dinner. I thought their house at Kapolei was just a 20-minute drive from the hotel but it took us over an hour on the expressway! The traffic was heavy but I entertained myself to the sea of red lights that was the swarm of cars ahead of us. At the back of my head I was thinking of just how much fossil fuel this little island consumes everyday.

They prepared a lot of food and I will give special mention to the steak and the seaweed.

Since the steak was beef and not pork, I made the most out of the free meal. I actually thought those thick slabs of red meat were very delicious. Believe it or not, it was my first time to eat steak.

They also served a certain seaweed I failed to identify. They said it was locally grown in Hawaii and they call it ocean veggies. I don’t know if it was the seasoning or the seaweed itself but eating it reversed my frustration over the lack of taste and plastic-like texture I encountered when I first ate seaweed in Tigbauan last July. I wish we had those available back home.

The night was cold at around 20 degrees Centigrade. We spent a while inside watching Wowowee at TFC and The Correspondents over GMA Pinoy TV. I miss my country already.

Tags: Hawaii, travel