I returned home with Mom this past Tuesday. It's good to be home, but it's so cold and rainy here! (I know, I was spoiled.) All joking aside, it's very good to be home with my family.
Mom flew to Hawaii to last Friday to spend the weekend there with us. Friday night in Waikiki was our first little adventure while she was there. On Saturday, the fun continued with a trip to Honolulu's Chinatown. Anna had arranged for us to meet a friend of hers there for lunch. We got there early, so we walked around a bit and looked at some of the markets. The markets in Chinatown have all kinds of fresh fruit and vegetables, as well as fish and meat. This was pretty authentic Asian groceries. They had everything from brightly colored tropical fish to pig heads available.
The streets were fun to walk around. There's lots of little stores, bakeries, and flower shops in addition to the markets.
The street signs are in English and Chinese.
A cat in front of a street-side bakery.
Nora got an easy ride in her mom's backpack carrier. The Asian people around us gave her lots of attention.
The shops sell all kinds of little trinkets. As you can see, there were various things around that indicated the presence of Asian religions. However, there were also signs for Christian churches in Chinatown.
Mack shows us how to wear a dragon mask.
Mmm... The only thing better than chicken noodle soup is some shark's fin in chicken soup!
This is the restaurant where we had Dim Sum. I had never heard of Dim Sum until Anna told me about. It would describe as a Chinese version of brunch. It's pretty different from your typical American Chinese restaurant. You pick all these different little dishes off a cart--they all cost about $2--and share them around the table. I should have taken pictures of some of the different things we got. Most of them I was not familiar with, but a lot of them tasted pretty good. Chopsticks were were the main utensils provided; if you didn't want to use chopsticks, you had to ask for a fork. We also got to drink tea in traditional Chinese teacups--no handles!
After Dim Sum, we headed up to the Manoa Falls trail. Manoa Falls is up a valley in a rain forest area.
Bird of Paradise flowers near the parking lot for the trail.
You can see how much it rains in that area by the amount of moss covering this sign.
The trail was not particularly challenging, but it was super muddy and in places the rain had caused the trail to erode. Those factors made us go slower.
Manoa Falls itself.
Mack and Sydney at the top of the trail.
Anna, Nora, Sydney, Mom, and Mack near the end of our very muddy trek.
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