Waikiki eats 1 – Kimo Bean

Or: Must. Have. Coffee. (And breakfast :))

On Saturday morning, as we were heading to the KCC Farmers Market, Beedoo took us on a side trip on the way to the bus stop, heading past the Hilton Hawaiian Village to see where the Starbucks was located at.

Our intention was to get coffee there in the morning because it is something that is necessary to get the day off and running, even though at home I am not a big coffee drinker. As it turns out, we never actually got coffee there once, because of what happened on Sunday morning.

Since we had hired a car overnight, I had to return it (as the place was closed at night and they had no night drop box available) on Sunday morning. Before I left the condo, I mentioned to Beedoo that there was a coffee place that I had seen called Kimo Bean across the street while we were getting the car at Discovery Bay Center.

I took their orders and headed out, driving through Waikiki, ultimately finding my way back to the parking ramp for Discovery Bay. I then returned the car, and walked over to Kimo Bean.

The order that was placed was for three coffees, all hot: Caramel Mocha Cappuccino (which was made in the style of a latte), Kahala (vanilla) latte and, for me, Koko (Coconut) Mocha Latte.

The coffees that we got were simply awesome – as the more experienced coffee drinkers in Beedoo and her other half both said, Sam had made the coffees all at the perfect drinking temperature, meaning that it is not so hot that it burns your tongue, and it hasn’t cooled off too much either.

I will also add here that their iced offerings (either plain iced coffee or a Frappucino-style freeze) were awesome as well, because they just do the same thing as with the hot coffees and either stick it in the blender for the freeze or add ice for the iced varieties.

Since the coffee was so perfect, the decision was made to continue going there for coffees every morning (except for Tuesday and Saturday since we were out of the condo too early for our fixes), and then we made the discovery during our trips there that they also did breakfast, thanks to a sign that proclaimed to try their delicious breakfast sandwich.

On Wednesday, we decided to give the breakfast a go. Their options include some pastries, but they also had some awesome sandwiches available. Both times that we did have breakfast there, all three of us ordered the same things each time –

I had the Breakfast wrap, which is a tortilla filled with a fried egg (a proper egg, as you could see the white and the yolk), cheese and mango salsa, and added bacon to the combination.

Beedoo had the same thing, substituting turkey for the bacon –

Meanwhile, her other half opted for the breakfast croissant, which is simply a croissant with egg, cheese, and your choice of meat. He chose ham for his sandwich both times –

On your trip to Waikiki, you certainly can visit some of the different coffee shops out there, but make sure that you do make a stop at the Kimo Bean in Discovery Bay Center. They have other locations around the area, but only the Discovery Bay location has Sam, the world’s awesomest barista who has the knack of making the coffee at the right temperature 🙂

I also want to give a shout out to Jennifer, who was there with Sam most times we were in there, helping out on the till and with making the coffees and breakfasts.

One last pro tip – check your receipt. They have free wifi, and the password is on the receipt 😉

Finding the right shoes

Matching Adidas Climacool shoes, in multiple colors!

When I went to Hawaii, I had planned to buy maybe one pair of sandals and, if a good deal was to be had, a pair of Skechers, since I like their gym shoes.

However, that turned out to not be the plan, mostly because I found out something strange about me:

I was wearing shoes that were too big

For the longest time, I just would go to the store and buy a pair of size 13 shoes, as those had the best fit. Or so I thought.

However, after a full day of walking at Ward Warehouse in my size 13 Filas (rebadged as Kirkland Signature from Costco), my feet were in severe pain.

I will note here that we did stop at the Famous Footwear in Ward and I declined a pair of Dr. Scholl’s brand sandals as I thought they were too expensive at around $40, and I continued to walk the rest of the day in my Costco shoes.

After a full day of walking, my feet were in so much pain that while we were walking to the pool at the Ilikai, I was literally saying “ouch” out loud every time that my feet touched the ground. The fact that the hotel did not sign the directions to the pool very well did not help matters much.

Even though it was three days later, what happened next was nothing if not revolutionary for me and my feet.

After experiencing snorkeling (walking to and from Magic Island in the sandals that I brought with me, which are now in a landfill somewhere on Oahu), we went to Ala Moana. While Beedoo was visiting Kipling and some other stores, her other half and I were tasked with visiting some shoe stores like the Walking Company, Skechers, and Island Sole, with the goal of getting some shoes for me that would work better, along with new sandals. Her other half also needed some new sandals as the ones that he had bought at Famous Footwear did not work out for him.

I visited Walking Company and determined that they didn’t have anything that looked good to me, plus the prices were too high to me. Then we went to Skechers and I found one of their pairs of shoes with a memory foam sole, but didn’t buy a pair because they did not have a size 13 available.

Ultimately, I wound up at Island Sole and buying a pair of Cobian sandals. The strange thing that I found with was that with the Cobians, the size 12 fitted better on me than the 13s. Also, I had not really looked at the pricetag on those shoes (it was not visible really), just deciding to buy them no matter the cost; I loved that they were comfortable and waterproof. It turns out that it was about the same as the Dr. Scholl’s that I had rejected due to cost.

I then changed shoes while we were waiting outside of Longs Drugs (another story to be told, one that is resulting in me not shopping at CVS anytime soon), and went back to the condo and did the rest of the day in the new Cobians.

Wednesday came along, and after an interesting day that involved driving out to the end of the Farrington Highway (which was an interesting experience, not only because of the scenery), we ended our day at Waikele Premium Outlets.

While there, we visited two shoe stores before I decided to get anything. However, at the first stop, which was Skechers (again), I sat down with the foot measuring tool and I wish I had a picture of what showed up.

The 4 pair of shoes that I bought on O’ahu, all size 12

My foot fit into the space for a 10-10.5 size foot. Not a 13. What a shock it was!

So at Skechers, I didn’t like the range of shoes they had since they were too colorless and I wanted to get a pair of shoes that had color in them. The same thing applied at Famous Footwear. I did buy some socks at Famous Footwear – 12 pair of ankle socks for $15. The shoes were alright, but the cheapskate part of me said – only buy from one place, and only buy after looking at all of the options.

So, that’s how I wound up at Adidas. Where they had a deal of buy two get one free for the whole store. At first, I tried the 13s again since I was still convinced that, despite what I had discovered at Skechers, 13 was the correct size and not 12. Then I tried the 12s and I could immediately feel a world of difference. My arches had support, my blisters on the right heel didn’t hurt and my feet felt tons better.

Ultimately, I wound up spending over $100 on the three pair shoes just at Adidas, with the realization that it’s worth it to treat myself to new shoes that should last quite some time, mostly because of another rule of shoe wearing that I was taught by Beedoo:

Wear different shoes for different occasions

As a person who is cheap, I always said that you only need a few pairs of shoes – one or two pair of sneakers (one of which is in good nick, the other not so much for slopping around), dress shoes, and flip flops/sandals.

Of course this leads to other problems – on the first couple of days I was in Australia I was wearing a pair of shoes that were well past their use by date. Because of that and all the walking that we did (keeping in line I was 200lb heavier at the time), I wound up with some nasty blisters on my feet.

After getting the shoes and switching them daily, I note two things:

• They don’t wear as quickly as if you wear them every day
• My feet don’t hurt like they used to

The moral of the story is to have your feet measured and make sure you buy the shoes that are right for your foot size, and not what you think you should wear because it’s easy to get on or whatever the case may be. 🙂

One other shoe-related note – while we were at Ward Warehouse, we went by the Brookstone store, and spotted an interesting product – Hickies – which are replacements for your shoelaces. I have to say that they do work well…I got a set of white ones, but they have many different colors available 🙂

MapFrappe – Oahu vs. Chicago

Making TheBus easier for you

TheBus – winner of America’s Best Transit System, 1994/95 & 2000/01, the only one to be honored twice by APTA

We have covered TheBus on the blog before – Riding TheBus On Oahu – however, there was something that we had missed about TheBus. They have their own app that will allow you to see what busses are going to be arriving to your location in the next few minutes, look up routes, and figure out what bus goes where.

As their trailer for the Android version says, there’s only one name for the O’ahu bus app – DaBus, and, yes, it is available for both iPhone and Android.

• DaBus on Android
• DaBus on iPhone

How it works is really simple; when you open the app, you’re brought to the search page, where you can either search for a specific bus stop (or stop number, which is on the small yellow sign under the bus stop sign), or you can do what is easiest with a smart phone – search for the stops nearest you.

When you search by location, you’re brought to this screen that shows the nearby stops to you (just a note, you may have to hit the refresh button in the top right in order for your location to show up, sometimes it doesn’t get the location right at first, putting you at 0,0, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean).

When your location is found, you will get a blue pin marking you, and a red pin marking the nearest stop/s to you:

In this case, the only stop that registered was number 4349, Kalakaua & Uluniu.

Tapping on the blue arrow will give you a list of the upcoming arrivals at that particular stop, and also allow you to add that particular stop to your favorite list, which is nice so that you don’t have to keep looking up that particular stop number or look for the sign with it on:

In this case, the next bus to arrive is the #22 TheBeachBus, heading for Hanauma, and is scheduled to arrive at my stop in about 7 minutes. What’s neat, and not something I realized until watching the how-to videos on the app, is that when you tap on the alarm, you can set an alarm to go off 5, 10, and/or 15 minutes prior to the scheduled arrival of the bus at your location

Another neat feature is looking up where a bus is or where it is going if you know the route number, i.e. the two that I have listed here are the 8, which goes exclusively between Ala Moana and the beaches and hotels at Waikiki, and the 2, which goes to a number of different locations around Honolulu, including the Kapiolani Community College – where the KCC farmer’s market is held on Saturdays.

When you select a route, there is another icon that shows up which will tell you exactly which stops are serviced by a particular route, and you can even preview the route that the bus will take.

One last thing to note is the Favorites page – on here, you can store your favorite stops, or ones that you use frequently. I only saved two of them, and one of them I never really used, as I had marked the eastbound stop at Ala Moana Blvd & Ala Moana Center as a favorite and not eastbound stop on the north side of the mall as my favorite.

This tool was something that was indispensable to us while on O’ahu, and it is something that is highly recommended. Just remember that if you are from out of the USA, this does require internet access to use, and if you do not have a US cellphone provider, or ready access to wifi, costs may be incurred by your phone provider, and those can be very dear.

Related articles

• Riding TheBus On Oahu (beedoo747.wordpress.com)
• City set to deploy 18 new buses (staradvertiser.com)

This begins the next step of my journey

When I walked the Magic Island path on November 14th, 2011, I have to confess something:

I didn’t know how much I weighed.

Now, a statement like that wouldn’t seem to be a huge thing, as if you asked 100 people their weight, most wouldn’t be able to give you an exact figure. Now, consider this:

I had no idea what my actual weight was.

If you go back to those 100 people and asked them what they thought their weight was, 95-99 of them would be able to tell you within, I would say, 10lb or 5kg depending on what part of the world you’re in. I, on the other hand, would have been way off, and not by a small amount.

Now, as I depart this morning for Hawaii, I can say this:

I’ve lost (at least) 180 pounds in 2 years

At that time, the best guess that we have as far as a weight at that time is something well above 500 pounds. Which really makes what I did in 2011 that much more amazing. I flew myself all the way over to the other side of the world, using a single seat (though it was a very difficult fit into the single seat), travelling around a new country to see tons of sights, and then flying back home

Looking back, that trip was just beginning a journey that is being capped off (for the moment) with a return trip to a place where I missed out on so much last time.

My original plan (which I hadn’t really planned out too well, as I well hadn’t planned it) was to travel by bus to Pearl Harbor, and visit there. After that, I was then going to head to Ala Moana mall and meet up with beedoo and her travelling party, where we would enjoy a going away dinner at Bubba Gump Shrimp.

Due to my poor planning of the day in Hawaii, when I arrived, I was frantically trying to figure out how to store my bags; if I’m remembering correctly, beedoo may have mentioned to me the Aloha Airport Delivery and Storage people, but I didn’t store any of their contact information. Not only that, I was worried about having to pay overage fees for the baggage while I travelling back to the mainland.

Among that was spending time in a restroom where, while changing clothes for the day, I worked out what the baggage fees were and also reorganized the bags to ensure that I was closer to the weight limit. When I went to contact the people from the baggage place, I didn’t get through right away, which put me in a bit of a fit, and made me worried that they didn’t exist.

Ultimately, however, they did answer and picked up my bags, even allowing me to pay for the storage when I picked it up since there were no ATMs at the airport, and the only US currency I had on me were a few $1 notes I hadn’t changed plus some assorted coins. They provide a great service and it is something that is indispensable since the Honolulu Airport doesn’t have any on-site storage facilities.

Unfortunately, this had frustrated me already, but my next course of action was to go to the post office and ship out the box of stuff that I was bringing home. Unlike many other airports, Honolulu does not have a post office inside the airport. However, I found out that the post office was not that far away:

Instead of retelling the story, I will insert a portion of an email I sent to beedoo while sitting at the interisland terminal while walking to theBus to go to Ala Moana. The spelling is as it was on the email:

…I was off to the post office. Or so I thought. I get I where I can finally see the post office and realize that I have to go across a busy street mud block and there is a fence. So I start walking towards what look like police officers on bikes, which is what they were.

However as I get to the curb, it’s not a straight up and down curb, it’s angled, so then I wind up losing my balance and falling. Not into grass or anything but a rock garden and thankfully I don’t thinking anything was hirt myself especially. The cops saw this and asked if I was ok and u am, maybe done scratches cut nothing major

So, after that, it was off to Ala Moana shopping center and then to home.

Before I went to Australia, I started to do something that was, initially, to allow me to get used to the concept of being more active – for bushwalking (which sadly we did not do very much of), doing different tours, and just general moving around. That was to go to the gym.

I started out with a guest pass at a gym in the town I work in (which, incidentally, has a location in a town close to beedoo, which helped in choosing the gym, as we were thinking that we’d possibly go to the gym while I was there), and that guest pass, based on my work timeline, allowed me to go to the gym after work.

In the two years and 4 months since, I’ve been to the gym well, nearly every night after work. In fact, the times that I have not gone to the gym after work are very few – maybe under 50 or so, and most of them actually coming this last summer due to a new post work activity that I have discovered – swimming, which I finally learnt to do this summer on Tuesdays and Thursdays after work for 6 weeks.

Anyway, I started off doing just some light work (i.e. treadmill for around 30 minutes at a very low speed, like 2 mph/3km/h), then moving along to more heavy duty stuff like the elliptical; at first about 5 minutes, but then going up to 15, then 20, then 25 minutes. Incidentally, I’m now up to a full hour nightly on the elliptical.

As a matter of fact, I had already started to lose quite a bit of weight before going to Australia; if you look at the difference in my passport picture (taken in July) and pictures taken while in Australia, there was already a difference in my face. Again, not having any earthly idea of what my actual weight was, I have no way of quantifying how much I had lost up until that time.

The reality is that I weighed, even after losing some weight, probably over 500 pounds

However, the weight really did not start to come off until March of 2012 when, realizing that it was time to finally make a change, I bought a gift card from Costco for the “weekends off” Nutrisystem plan to give that plan a go. Ever since then, I have kept up the Nutrisystem plan, but going with the full orders, as that is really a much better value for your money than the weekends off plan, especially when I am able to get the plan for quite literally half off (thanks to the awesomeness of Costco, where not only do I save, I manage to get 3% cash back through my membership)

It was shortly after that when I was, only about 4 years after buying a high-capacity scale, able to finally get a measurement of my weight. At that time, I weighed 203kg, or 446lb. I kept going with the plan, and the pounds kept coming off. Throughout 2012, I would check my weight, and it would go down little by little, progressing through the (in kgs) 180s, 170s and 160s, and then into the 150s, which is what I wound up the year in, with a weight in February of 2013 of 154.3kg, or about 340lb.

Among the things that I was able to do during this time was to basically buy some new clothes, but not only that, I was able to fit into clothes that I fit in while I was in school, or more than 10 years ago while I was on my way up. One of my proudest moments was when I was able to fit into my suit jacket. This is a piece of clothing that, the last time I had worn it, I was a senior in high school. Because of my weight, I was unable to wear my suit to my brother’s wedding and it really depressed me because it made me feel like an outcast since I was the only one who wasn’t wearing a suit, rather I was forced to wear a sweater.

For a while, my weight had levelled off at around 320 lb (145kg) for some time, but a few weeks ago, while I was still doing my meal plan, I started to increase the amount of exercise that I would do, ramping up to the full hour on the elliptical that I described above, and in doing so, burning right around 1,000 calories every night. In that time, I have been able to take off some more weight, bringing my most recent weigh in at the scale in the gym on 312 lb (141kg).

One last thing re the clothes: last Saturday night I drove from work to the destination XL store nearest to me (then I went to the gym afterward). The last time that I bought pants, I bought pants at a waist size of 56 and 58 from a general goods store (Blain’s Farm & Fleet, which is not to be confused with Mills Fleet Farm). The waist size that I bought on Saturday? 52. I almost bought the 50s but I did want to have something slightly more comfortable. As it is, on my previous clothes buying, I bought a 54/56 inch belt. After a few months I had to make a new hole on it because it was too loose. Sadly, those belts broke down due to the extra hole. So, I had to buy new ones and I got 50/52s 🙂

Overall, this had been a long journey and one that will never end as I have to keep exercising and watching my diet (though I have learnt that you can splurge occasionally as long as you watch what you have the rest of the day. That and that hummus is awesome), because I never want to be back where I was just over two years ago, when the only clothes I could buy was from the specialty section of the specialty big and tall store (think a waist size of nearly 70 inches; 66 or 68 was a tough time for me to get into back then).

I hope that my story inspires others to take it upon themselves and work to a better future for themselves. I have been able to do it without surgical intervention, which I have seen so many people turn to as a “quick fix” only to see it fail and they go back to the size they were previously.

Waikiki’s back there…

It’s just behind all of the trees and beach 🙂

You were in Hawaii for How Long?

That’s a question I get quite often when I say that the only time I’ve been to Hawaii was for 16 hours.

Earlier, I had mentioned that I was coming to the end of what would ultimately be a 46-hour day. Of course, it had to start somewhere west of the International Date Line, and it did. I started the day in Australia, then we all drove up to Sydney, hung out in the Qantas First Class Lounge at the airport (which was amazing, yet I don’t have any photos for some reason, and then hopped on Jetstar for an overnight flight to Honolulu.

Of course, going that way, you wind up gaining a day back, and because of the (relatively) close distance between Hawaii and Australia, you wind up gaining something on the order of 12 hours…almost quite literally – we left Sydney around 6pm, and arrived on Oahu at 6:45 AM (the photo above was taken, according to my computer, at 6:51 AM…or 3:51 AM the next morning Sydney Time)

Ultimately, the whole point of the exercise (other than experiencing business class on Jetstar, for which I paid a premium), was to transit myself back home, and to start Beedoo’s most recent trip over to Hawaii, which, ultimately was quite an adventure, and not really in a good way.

However, the whole point of going to Hawaii was to cap off what was an amazing vacation, which I have never documented…which I probably should do at some point in time…

The time is nigh…

He’s excited for me; it’s only 30 days before I depart! 🙂

Murals around Honolulu – Friends of the Library

I could also call this post a lesson in mediocre photoshopping skills, as you will see later. It is worth it, however, due to the situation of the photos that you will see.

One of the great things about the photos that were forwarded to us for publication is that they had location information on them, so that I could get an idea of where the murals were located at.

Thanks to that, I can tell you that these particular photos were all taken at 684 Pohukaina Street, which is home to the Friends of the Library of Hawai’i.

We start off with a duck who, as it would seem, has seen better days, but things are looking up for him or her.

We then move along to a roller door which has what appears to be some text on it, but it is hard to tell. Next up is a pinkish fellow who looks to be presenting us to the door. If you can identify him, that would be awesome 🙂

As we swing around the corner, we have what appears to possibly be Pele? Though I think this is probably not her since, well, it’s a he in the image, and Pele’s a she…

And we finish off with these two folks, sharing flowers, as a bug of some variety looks on from behind the low wall.

Now, this is where we get into my very mediocre photoshopping skills that I have. In fact, I don’t even use Photoshop. I used the Gimp to do this, mostly because I can’t justify the cost to purchase Photoshop 🙂

Ultimately, I realised that these three images were a continuation of each other, and made them into a panorama, which came out like this:

There are still a bunch more photos that we have received to be published. I am working on getting them readied to post (which should go quicker now that I have located where all the photos were taken), and there should be more coming 🙂

All of these photos are provided to use with thanks to the photographer, Sweetiedarling1 from Canberra

Murals around Honolulu – Animals

Here are some more of the awesome murals that can be found around Honolulu. This one is at the Cafe Duck Butt, at 901 Kawaiahao St

Another mural can be found outside of Fresh Cafe, 800 Queen Street –

 

There are a lot more photos, which are all published with the thanks of the photographer, Sweetiedarling1 from Canberra