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Old 07-07-2007, 02:00 AM
M2d M2d is offline
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Join Date: Sep 2002
Location: california
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Default Re: Hawai\'i Travel Thread

you going with friends or a girlfriend? if it's with (guy) friends, check out Za (club rock za) it's an almost legendary strip club just outside of waikiki.

for a more conventional to do list

Cultural:
Pearl Harbor/Arizona Memorial- if you're a US citizen, this is a must do.
Iolani Palace-a tour of the only royal palace on US soil lots of cool antiques and Hawaiian history in there if that's your thing
Bishop Museum-some pacific based natural history stuff and lots of pacific island cultural stuff

High end dining (you can look these up online, so I won't describe them here. they're all good stuff):
Alan Wong's
Chef Mavro
3660 On the Rise
Bali By the Sea
La Mer

Fun type dining
Sansei (as mentioned in other posts above, but the original is in Honolulu)
Side Street Inn
Upstairs at Ala Moana (ala moana is a big mall. there's a big restaurant area upstairs that's kind of a night scene place)
shokudo restaurant

good places to get a bite to eat (there's a bunch more than i'm listing, just do some searches and try little hole in the wall places)
rainbow drive inn
zippy's
wailana coffee house
kakaako kitchen
haile's hawaiian food

Beaches to hit
Sandy's (don't go in the water, but the eye candy is unbeatable)
Pray for Sex (if you have a 4 wheel drive)
North shore (even if it's not winter and the waves are flat, sunset, pipeline, chun's and the rest of them are great beaches in their own right)
waimea bay (it should be included in the north shore, but it's a great beach in its own right)
Kailua/Lanikai-nice local eye candy. many of the local chicks in bikini calenders are shot here
Bellows
hanauma bay-kind of overdone, and crowded with tourists, but you can see lots of fish while snorkling
waikiki/ala moana beach park-waiks is more touristy from the hilton hawaiian village to the wall (the zoo area). more local towards diamond head (san souci beach). ala moana draws a lot of local chicks who didn't happen to go to sandy's that day.
Yokohama bay is a great beach on the west side, but i'd caution against hitting up any west side beach (yokohama, makaha, nanakuli, etc) unless you feel like walking back to town, driving backwith busted windows or worse

Luaus-pick one if you must. i've heard good things about the polynesian cultural center (if you feel like forking your money over to the lds) and i've had a lot of friends who worked at germaines.

hikes:
diamond head-pretty easy hike up the crater walls. nice views at the tip
st louis heights drive-nice hike up above manoa and palolo valleys. not too difficult
aiea loop trail-another easyish hike. good mudsliding if it's been raining (you find a muddy hill and slide down it on your butt-way more fun than it sounds like in print)

anything else? ask away.
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