Entry tags:

cats, life, mom, oahu, pets: garbonzo, photography, photos, ryan

photos from oahu!
Okay, so I'm finally posting my pictures from Oahu! I just finished editing and resizing them all, ahaha. There are a bunch, and they're all like, 200KB each so you're warned!

The first day we were there, we headed down to Chinatown! Ryan came with us. I love Chinatown. Some parts of it are ultra grungy, but there are a lot of more upscale parts of it too.


This neat? shop in Chinatown - Bad Sushi. I was expecting it to be a lot cooler, but it is actually very hippie and not that hardcore. It was full of a lot of like, Tibetan and Indian products, but they also had this super random display of ninja stars and ninja weapons. Most random store ever!




With a name like "Bad Sushi," I was expecting all of their products to be more like this!


And this!


This is what the girl working there looked like! She was pretty cool, but didn't want to take a picture by herself.





Now here's a more grungy part of Chinatown! It was a seafood store.

EVERYONE LOVES EATING FROGS!!


So many bananas!






Inside an enclosed marketplace. :>




I need to not be self-conscious, and let myself take more time snapping pictures. I always rush them. D:


Cruisin' through the more grungy part!


I thought this came out pretty good, actually.


This one too!


I always take a picture of this statue every time I pass by it.


The outside of the marketplace we always go to! And actually, this is more of a true color scheme than the rest. It was very sun-downy when we were there (late afternoon!)






I love those two of my mom! I thought they came out really nice.


Oahu has some sick graffiti! And I also took this while in the car, ahaha! Which we rented, by the way! It only cost us $150 for three days, so we decided to rent a car instead of using Ryan's and then having to chauffeur him back and forth between home and work.

Then after Chinatown, we went to the Ward Center, which is my absolute favorite place to go during the evenings! It's semi-lame now, though, because my favorite restaurant, Cattle Company, moved out. :(




GHAOIGHG THIS STORE. I REALLY wanted to take a ton of pictures inside of it, but it's not allowed! It's called Artbox, and it's a Korean stationary store, like Morning Glory (or Sanrio - most of you are familiar with Sanrio, right?), but SO MUCH BETTER. The quality and designs of their products are SO CUTE and modern and AMAZING!


I bought a bunch of stuff; I'll scan it in or something later to show you all how cool their products are!

Then, back home at my grandparent's house:

BANZO! Ryan's friend, Tara, recently moved in with Ryan and his roommate, Chris, and like, on her second day living there, she brought home a kitten. Kind of rude, actually, but I forgave her when I saw how cute Garbanzo (the kitten) is. He reminds me a lot of Cleo because he's so playful!


This is me refusing to use flash, ahaha~


I gave in.




I LOVE those little balls on his face. Those little white spots - his whisker pad-things. SO CUTE. He looks JUST like what Ryan would look like if he were a cat, so I think it's perfect.

And then my mom and I went to Ala Moana, which is the best mall in the world. Well, not really, but it is the best mall in Hawaii. It actually used to be the largest mall in the United States for a while. Neat!

And of course, one of our first stops was to Shirokiya - which is a traditional Japanese department store. I always love going in it; it makes me think so much of my childhood. I remember going in Shirokiya as a little kid and smelling this distinct, lovely, pastry smell that hits you as soon as you step in... sigh! There's no place like Shirokiya!


Cruising in the food supply section! Those are cheat-sushi making things. Ha!


They're sushi molds for the rice. :B I refused to buy any, because I want to get good at making sushi the correct way.








Don't mind these; this is just me flexin' my D50 skillzz



Then we moved into the food section where cooks are preparing bento lunches and stuff.

ghghahg TEMPURA ♥


This picture was taken without looking. I just let the D50 hang around my neck and sneaky-like snapped a photo and hoped it came out good. I wasn't sure if you're allowed to take pictures inside of Shirokiya, is why.


But I risked life and limb to get this one - MAKING TEMPURA!


Cute.

I didn't take any pictures of the electronics and manga section of Shirokiya - I was too busy looking at it, ahaha!


Ala Moana is full of all these upscale designer stores, because it's main demographic is rich tourists. There's like, Louis Vutton, and Chanel, and Prada, and I have never even stepped foot in any of those! But I did go in Le Sportsac to look at Tokidoki stuff - there wasn't much. Weird!


Ala Moana is an open mall! No roof! Well, it barely rains in Honolulu anyway.




These koi fish have been in there since I was a little kid.


I love the calico koi fish! I actually wouldn't mind going into the koi fish business, because you make a truckload of money! Like, good koi fish sell for thousands of dollars!


Fatties!

The next day, my mom and I drove to Kaneohe, which is my true hometown! To get there, you pass through the Ko'olau mountains, which are always beautiful and covered in mist. When it rains hard, there are also a ton of waterfalls, too! Out of all the things I miss about living in Oahu is probably seeing the Ko'olau mountains all the time.


Reminds me of Princess Mononoke. :B


Oh, and you have to pass through either the round tunnels or the square ones! The square ones are longer, and the round ones are shorter because there's two of them instead of just one long one. My brother and I always used to hold our breath going through them, because he said then you could make a wish. (Which is why, as a little kid, I liked going through the round tunnels more because it was easier to hold my breath, ahaha!)




And then you come out of the tunnel...


And I'm home!


I've been on this drive so many times as a little kid. It's special for me, haha!






Yeah, Hawaii pretty much rules.

My mom and I went to Windward Mall, which is the mall that I grew up with! It's really small compared to Ala Moana, but still bigger than the one here in Hilo! We were both pleasantly surprised to find that the old pet store, Ko'olau Pets (or something!) was still there! I used to go there all the time as a kid. And they even expanded! It's a huge store now, with so many animals!


They had SO many birds!




OKAY, WTF IS THIS ANIMAL. I SWEAR. IT'S THE WEIRDEST CREATURE EVER!


Back to the birds, lmfao.


PARAKEETS! Or, as Kris would say, BUDGIES! ♥


Inside a cheesy Japanese dollar store, haha!


So full of cheese!

Then we stopped at another pet store to buy a Furminator, which is a de-shedding tool, for our cats. :B And the store had BABY TORTOISES!



Sigh, those mountains! <3



Then we went on this wonderful drive around the island to come back to Kahala, where we went to Kahala mall! I love going to Kahala mall in the morning. I don't know why I have these places I like to go to at specific times, but I do. I just associate Kahala with morning or late night, and Ala Moana with day time, and Ward center with sundown!


This Sees shop has been outside Kahala since I can remember.


Outside Kahala mall! Kahala mall is really small, but it's nice and quiet and for some weird reason, trendy. A lot of older people go here, though.



My mom and I ate lunch at this awesome little bakery-restaurant outside of Kahala mall - Ginza Kimuraya! It was an awesome discovery.


I love bread. ;3;




I also happened to forget my wallet here - with like, $70 inside of it! AHAH! But we came back later that night in a panic, and they were still open! And they gave me my wallet. :D I love them. I'm also PISSED OFF that they're being kicked out. All of the tenants outside of Kahala mall are being kicked out because a Whole Foods market is being opened nearby, so Kahala wants new tenants that reflect more on Whole Foods and their whole organic spiel. It pisses me off, because these restaurants have been here for so long! Gay shit. It makes me not like Whole Foods, even though I am all for organic.


That night, we went to Waikiki! There were fireworks, but I didn't get to photography any in time.


Not having a tripod is very difficult.


Which makes me pretty proud of this picture!


Getting money for our night out on Waikiki!


It reminds me of My Lovely Sam-Soon.


The street performers are still there!


This guy was probably the best artist there was. A lot of them sucked, but this guy was REALLY good!


I tried to get a picture of the girl he was drawing. You can see part of her, anyway!


DAMN. I ALWAYS GET WEASLED INTO VOLUNTEERING. These guys are breakdancers, and I was taking pictures of the crazy guy with blue hair because he's SO CUTE and friendly and awesome and at dancing, so when he asked for volunteers and no one came up, he grabbed me. :( Then he made us dance! Ahaha! He was really cute, though.


The cute guy then asked for volunteers a second time for a dance off, and I don't know if it was set up, because the two guys he picked were both REALLY good at breakdancing. The cute guy had this to say about the guy in this photo: "Folks, what he's doing is REALLY hard to do in tight jeans! Dang!"


The guy in the black beanie was from France. :D Sexiest accent ever!


Banzo helping us pack.


And leaving. :( Oahu always looks like a little toy set. It's so weird. I don't really realize I am thousands of feet in the air. I feel very detached in an airplane.




SO happy we had a sunset flight.