While in Honolulu, we stayed at the New Otani Kaimana Beach Hotel. Located close to Diamond Head on the south end of Waikiki, the New Otani is situated across from Kapiolani Park. It is a good value for many reasons. Its biggest selling point for me, was the view.
Sunrise from our balcony.
This position is ideal because the hotel is quiet, set apart from the touristy, shopping mall busyness of Waikiki. Plus, you look back at the entire beach and skyline and take it all in. If you were staying in Waikiki proper, you wouldn’t have so broad a perspective. Here are some of the pictures I shot during our two nights at the hotel.
Kapiolani Park with Diamond Head in the background.
Graceful palm trees backlit by the setting sun.
Other visitors stop to capture a picture of the sunset.
A trio of pictures from our balcony at different times of the day:
Just after sunset, I spotted the moon above the palm trees.
Near the end of our trip to Los Angeles last month, while driving down the Pacific Coast Highway to visit Janet for tea, we stopped for brunch at the Starling Diner. Located on East Third Street in Long Beach, the look and feel of the Starling Diner is that of an old-time neighborhood institution. The food is comforting, the service friendly, and the fellow diners are, well, neighborly.
Starling Diner is all this despite having been around for less than five years. It is no surprise then to learn that owner Joan Samson made a very conscious effort to create a space that had that neighborhood institution feel. From their website:
In times past, neighborhoods were Communities where everyone casually knew each other and the gathering places were icons such as the front porch, the corner store and the neighborhood diner. It has always been our personal mission to create gathering spots that provide a sense of place along side the highest quality food and drinks. We live in and love Long Beach. We just made a place where we would like to meet our friends and connect.
My cousins had first brought me here in 2009 and I was eager to share the cute restaurant and tasty dining experience with Tawn. He wasn’t disappointed.
This pale green cruiser parked outside seems to exemplify the Starling Diner. Located amidst houses on a quiet street, this is the type of place you would hop on your bicycle and ride three blocks to meet some friends for breakfast at.
The tables are crowded with little tin tubs of all the condiments you might need. Interestingly, they serve water in these biodegradable corn-based plastic cups in order to save the environment. As I pointed out to the server (in a friendly, non-complaining sort of way), they would do more to save the environment to serve their cream, jellies, sugars, etc. in bulk containers rather than individual sachets and packages.
The fact that our server took that suggestion with a thoughtful smile and remained friendly and welcoming is a good example of the type of consistent service I’ve enjoyed during both my visits.
The highlight of the menu is the San Francisco stuffed French toast. Unlike most French toast, this is broiled not fried, and is made from baguette, not square loaf bread.
It does not disappoint! The result is something that is light and crispy rather than heavy and soggy like most French toast. This is a recipe I would like to learn to recreate at home.
Tawn had the crab cakes sandwich, which had these wonderful, large lump crab meat and tons of fresh greens. This was really tasty, too.
All in all, the only disappointment at the Starling Diner was that there were just the two of us and, as such, we were only able to try two items on the menu. Mark this on the list of places to come back to on a future visit!
For our vacation with my sister, brother-in-law, and nieces, we opted to rent a three-bedroom house in Hermosa Beach, just two blocks from the Pacific Ocean. Not only did this work out quite reasonably financially – roughly $400 a night – but it gave us a lot more room than a hotel would have, plus the ability to easily cook our own food and do our own laundry.
Tawn leads a junior yoga class, which was surprisingly effective at helping the girls calm down, focus, and not get into squabbles with each other. Maybe we should sign them up for daily classes?
Actually, we didn’t rent one house, but two. The initial house was booked for our final three nights but the property manager had another similar house just three blocks away, so we moved into that one. I have to really credit this lady, she was super friendly and very helpful. If you are ever looking to rent a vacation home in Los Angeles, I’d be happy to recommend either of her two properties. (This is the first house, a 3br/3 ba and this is the second house, a 3 br/1ba.)
We did a little less cooking at home than I had anticipated, but we did eat at least breakfast at home each day, allowing for some cost savings. As soon as we moved in I made a big (2 pound) batch of pizza dough and kept it in the refrigerator for use in a couple of meals. Who doesn’t like pizza? Here’s the girls shape their own pizzas.
And there’s the finished but not-yet-cooked product, ready to go into the oven. Their dough ended up kind of triangle shaped, huh?
And of course there was room for everybody to pitch in with cleaning up and loading the dishwasher.
Once you do that, we can bundle up (it was chilly by the beach in the evenings) and head to Pinkberry for some dessert.
The second house we were in had TVs in each room, something I wouldn’t approve of at home but certainly fine for a vacation home. That provided everyone with the opportunity to lounge in bed in the morning and watch cartoons. As you can tell from this picture, we had already gone to Disneyland and everybody (including Tawn) had their stuffed animal.
A view of Tawn walking along the Strand, the 22-mile class 1 paved pedestrian/skater/bicycle path that stretches along pretty much all of Los Angeles County’s western coast from Pacific Palisades to Torrance. This grey overcast was a fixture of our vacation, at least when we were near the beach.
As I mentioned in my previous entry, I’m fortunate that I have a very good working relationship with my boss and colleagues and enjoy my job and the company at which I work. Because of the twists of circumstance surrounding my move to Thailand more than five years ago, my current manager was my subordinate’s subordinate before I moved. For my trip to Los Angeles, she and another of my colleagues traveled out to meet me for two and a half days of meetings. One evening we dined at an Italian restaurant in Hermosa Beach called Buona Vita.
Buona Vita is on Pier Avenue, the main thoroughfare in Hermosa Beach. I first went here back in 1995-6, when I lived in LA for my second time. A colleague, who was of Italian heritage, loved going here because the food reminded her of her grandmother’s cooking.
There are actually two dining rooms, located about four doors apart. One is the trattoria, pictured above, and the other is the pizzeria. My recollection, though, is that you can order the same menu items at both restaurants.
We started by sharing the Insalate di Pollo e Formaggio di Capra, mixed greens served with chicken, tomatoes, sundried tomatoes, basil, and goat cheese. I remember this salad from my visits more than a decade ago and it is every bit as good today. In fact, with a little bread, two people could share this salad and have a perfectly healthy meal.
Our main courses looked a little more “American Italian”. I had Polenta Bolognese – grilled polenta (a cornmeal cake) with meat sauce and melted mozzarella.
My manager enjoyed Lasagna Di Carne – a meat lasagna with Bolognese sauce and ricotta and mozzarella cheeses. Both these dishes were very good but even before digging in we cut the portions, placing about two-thirds in a two-go box and eating only a third. Portion sizes were too large.
My colleague had Spaghettini Alla Checca – thin spaghetti noodles, fresh tomatoes, sundried tomatoes, dressed in basil and olive oil. Portion size was more reasonable and it was overall lighter in composition.
For dessert we tried two things. The first was the tiramisu. This seems very different at each restaurant. I like that this version was less gloppy. The espresso and liquer mixture was much lighter and the dessert didn’t taste boozy.
I had the cheesecake which was fine but uninspiring. The whipped topping doesn’t taste like cream. I might be wrong, but it tasted more like whipped “topping” rather than whipped cream.
And here is my colleague and my manager. All in all, the meal was very enjoyable and food and service were good. The pasta dishes are a bit heavy and portion size is large, but the salad was certainly a hit.
Since we missed our flight out of Lihue, we also missed the opportunity to have dinner with Michael. But he sent a few suggestions of places we could catch a decent bite later in the evening. The suggestion we took was Mac 24/7, a restaurant featuring modern American cooking, located in the Hilton Waikiki Beach Hotel, a few short blocks away from our less ritzy hotel.
After five days of eating mostly local fare, it was nice to order a cosmo and tuck into somewhat more conventional American food.
The interior was pretty much a modern take on the classic American diner, ESPN playing on the flat screen TVs and just a few customers scattered throughout the place. Service was friendly and the kitchen had our food to us in about fifteen minutes.
Well, despite the more conventional menu, Tawn didn’t order too far off what we had enjoyed the past few days. More seared ahi tuna served with kim chi fried rice.
I decided to go traditional and get a pork chop and mashed potatoes, which were very tasty.
We returned to the Aqua Waikiki Wave, which describes itself as a boutique hotel but which is nothing more than a standard tourist grade hotel. In fact, Waikiki seems to be positively bursting with these three-star (or less) hotels. The place was clean and looked like it had seen a remodel within the past few years, but it was still a pretty standard accommodation.
One thing I’ll give them credit for, though: the hotel is located right on the main boulevard where there is a lot of action well into the night, including a nightclub just outside the hotel’s entrance. In the room was a pack of foam earplugs with a tactfully phrased note explaining that the hotel is located in “an energetic and vibrant neighborhood” and suggesting that “if you are a light sleeper, you may wish to make use of these complimentary earplugs” and helpfully explaining that more are available by calling room service. These were the best earplugs I’ve ever used and they really did muffle the noise from outside.
Above, me horsing around on Waikiki Beach at sunrise. We were up early and walked the block from the hotel to the beach, which had a surprising number of people who were also out to see the sunrise, catch the surf, or secure a primo lounge chair in front of their hotel.
Here’s a short video of the beach during sunrise.
We then stopped for coffee at the branch of Honolulu Coffee located on the ground floor of the Westin Hotel. It was a beautiful morning and we enjoyed a pot of French Press coffee before stopping to buy some boxes of chocolate covered macadamia nuts to bring back to Thailand. Ignore, for a moment, the fact that macadamias are grown in Thailand. It’s what people expect you to bring back from Hawaii, right?
While we had missed the opportunity to dine with Michael the night before, we had thankfully also been pencilled in for breakfast. Braving the commute into town from the west end of the island, Michael then drove us through the tunnel to the east side of the island so we could visit a popular breakfast place called Boots & Kimo’s in Kailua.
Boots & Kimo’s is a kind of random place located in a small strip mall and decorated like a sporting goods store. For whatever reason, it has gained notoriety with Japanese tourists and it seemed like a large portion of the diners were Japanese families. As Michael explained it, it has kind of reached the point where locals don’t come as often because it is too crowded with tourists. I felt a little guilty about contributing to the problem.
We had to wait about a half-hour to be seated, but once inside the service was quick and our food showed up in no time. Tawn enjoyed the eggs benedict, which were done just like the textbook shows. You can tell they poach the eggs in molds, though, and not free-form.
Here we are with our food. That blue Hawaiian shirt got a lot of mileage this trip, didn’t it?
Michael and I ordered the same thing: beef short ribs which they hang above the grill in the kitchen so it picks up the smoky flavor as other orders are being prepared. Then, when your order is placed the necessary ribs are cut off and finished on the flame. These were really tasty with a nice beefy flavor.
The thing Boots & Kimo’s is known for, though, are their macadamia nut cream pancakes. Per Michael’s suggestion, we ordered a stack to share. Good call because while they are really yummy, eating an entire order by yourself would be overwhelming. We discussed how they manage to get so much macadamia nut flavor into the cream sauce. The thing with macadamias is, they don’t give off a lot of flavor once cooked, so the process of extracting the flavor into the sauce must be done with some sort of “low and slow” steeping of the nuts in the cream. Anyhow, they were a really tasty end to our trip!
Finally, before heading out the door, we got a picture of the three of us. Why it didn’t occur to me to have Michael take off his sunglasses, I don’t know. Perhaps it is best he remains somewhat anonymous so as to lend to the air of mystery that surrounds this long-absent Xangan. We’ll see if my subtle needling will be enough to get him to write again.
A gracious host, Michael drove us to the airport, dropping us off just the right amount of time before our flight back to Guam and Hong Kong. Just enough ahead of time so we wouldn’t miss this flight!
On our second to last day on Kauai, we drove from Poipu, where we were staying on the south shore, to the north shore of the island. While the entire island is very tropical and green, there is a notable difference between the south and north sides. The north side is the windward side and you can tell that the level of precipitation is much higher. There is one main highway that runs around the island and it took about an hour and a half to go from Poipu to Princeville.
The view from my aunt and uncle’s rental condo in Poipu, looking inland towards the mountains.
Our first major stop was Kilauea, a small plantation town that is home to this lighthouse situated on a dramatic bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. One item on our itinerary that we were not able to fit in was a stop to the Kauai Kunana Dairy, a small family-run goat farm and micro-dairy in Kilauea that makes fine goat cheeses. They offer tours but only on Thursday. A future visit will have to include a stop there.
My parents in front of the lighthouse. I remember visiting here in the 80s as a family.
We continued our drive through Princeville, then stopped at a scenic overlook before descending into Hanalei Valley. This is the view of the taro fields in Hanalei Valley. Such pretty shades of green.
As we descended into the valley, we were able to get closer to the fields themselves. Hanalei is a small beach town of surfer dudes and the hippie vibe has not faded. The reasons for the reference to the town of Hanalei in the song “Puff the Magic Dragon” are easy to understand.
While in Hanalei we stopped at a small shopping center that featured shops selling local crafts and souvenirs. This one had this pretty cat napping amongst the towels. He looked too comfortable to disturb.
We worked our way along the highway, making a few stops here and there, until we came to a point that overlooks Wainiha Beach Park (pictured above) and Wainiha Bay (below). You have to park at a cut-out on the road, being careful to give plenty of room to passing cars. Then there is an easy climb just a few feet down a hillside to the lava rocks, which give a great view and put you just above the reach of the waves.
Looking back at the beach in Wainiha Bay. Tranquil, isn’t it?
Tawn takes a picture as waves crash with Wainiha Beach Park in the background.
We continued all the way to the end of the road at Haena State Park. Since we weren’t planning on doing any hiking on the Kalalau Trail along the Na’Pali Coast (and couldn’t find any parking in any case), we backtracked to Makua (Tunnels) Beach, a wide stretch of sand where we managed to run into my newlywedded cousin and her family.
At Makua Beach, I saw this man lying in the sun, Christ-like in pose, beard, and dress, looking like a sun-chasing hippie that might be fried in more ways than one. Birds pecked around him and I can only assume that the lifeguards were aware of him and knew him to be alive.
Tawn practices writing his name in the sand.
And then sees his identity washed away by the waves.
The noth shore is very beautiful and while none of the four of us (me, Tawn, and my parents) are sun-worshipers, it was hard not to appreciate the beauty of the beaches.
Here’s a video I made that combines clips I shot from the north shore as well as other scenic sights on the island. Not only is the footage beautiful, but the music, a contemporary Hawaiian song titled “Manauleo” by Keali’i Reichel, Uluwehi Guerrero, and Kekuhi Kanahele is well worth a listen.
Three nights away from Krungthep was just what we (and our guests!) needed. We stayed at the Andaman Opera Suite located on Mai Khao Beach on the far north end of Phuket island. A year ago October we stayed at this three-unit condo which we knew as the Black Pearl. It turns out that each of the units, which are owned by a trio of couples, has a different name. The Black Pearl is one of the downstairs units and the Andaman Opera Suite is the the upstairs unit.
Since the Black Pearl was unavailable, its owners suggested we call the agent that handles the Andaman Opera Suite. It turned out to be a great move and was plenty of room for five adults, although the master bedroom suite (in which the three guests stayed) has only a sheer curtain between the bedroom and the shower portion of the bathroom, so this required a little coordination.
Here are photos from the website. I figured they are so much nicer than anything I could shoot, so why duplicate efforts?
The kitchen turned out to be rather well-stocked, enough to prepare a couple of meals at home.
Mixed grill – dry brined pork chops and a variety of German sausages.
Brownies! I cheated and used a mix. Seemed silly to buy cocoa powder just for one batch.
For our third evening, we stopped at the local market and picked up some fresh seafood, herbs, and vegetables to make a nice dinner.
Before and after: a snapper-like fish stuffed with lemongrass, dill, and galangal root, with kaffir lime leaves and a butter-soy-lime sauce. Wrapped in foil and baked 25 minutes.
Chicken biryani from one of the vendors at the market. Tasty!
Tawn’s own contribution: tom yum goong soup, a spicy chili-tamarand shrimp soup with coconut milk and herbs. Tawn held back on the chili to spare the guests.
Before we chow down for dinner on our final night: me, Tawn, Jack, Craig, and Matt.
For the first time ever, I’ve had to select a rating for my blog entry tougher than “A – All Ages Allowed”. Shocking? Yes. But you’ll see why in a moment…
There are those who, whatever their religious persuasion or lack thereof, hold a general belief in the concept of karmic retribution. Whether expressed as “what goes around, comes around” or simply an understanding that those who send negative energy out into the world eventually find themselves on the receiving end of that same energy, I wish to submit the following bit of evidence for your consideration.
My friends Otto and Han were in town from Singapore last weekend and they shared this story and the accompanying pictures with me, from a vacation they recently took to Taiwan. Many thanks to them for letting me share the pictures with you!
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PARENTS: PROTECT YOUR CHILDREN’S TENDER SENSIBILITIES AND LET THEM READ NO FURTHER!
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The setting is a beach on the outskirts of Taipei. The weather is warm, the tide is out, and families and people of all ages are catching some sun and playing on the sand bars.
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Unfortunately, though, one man – perhaps a bit of a naturist – decided to bare all. But it wasn’t a nude beach and, to the best of my understanding, the Taiwanese aren’t the type who embrace (if you’ll excuse the pun) those who take a clothing-optional approach to beachwear.
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It turns out that the man was a bit more than a naturist. More of an exhibitionist, really, or what you might more commonly call a pervert. He bothered a few groups of beachgoers, not just showing his itty bits but enlarging himself, too, if you catch my drift. This pair of ladies tried to shoo him away and then quickly gathered their things to leave the area.
(This is probably about the right time to assure you that Otto and Han were merely bystanders on the beach who happened to observe this and captured it with their zoom lens. Neither of them is the man pictured above!)
Now, I can imagine you are wondering where the evidence of karmic retribution is. Well, see the dog in the picture above?
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After the man bothered those two ladies, the dog ran to where the man had left his clothes sitting on a piece of driftwood. And then peed on them.
Now, whether you think that God set his wrath upon the man in the form of dog urine, or whether you think that the nature of good and evil finally found its level, I submit that this is clear and incontrovertible evidence of karmic retribution.
What say you?
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And in case you are curious…
here is a picture of me, Tawn, Kar Wai, Han, and Otto after dinner here in Bangkok. Many thanks again to Otto and Han, for without them, this story would never have been told for your edification.
By profession, I am a trainer. I have a wide range of background experience but people development (and managing people development) is where my heart and skill lies. When Tawn’s boss found this out, I was invited to join part of their team for a weekend training session in Hua Hin. Their industry is Public Relations, their training was about creating client value, and they needed someone to play the role of a prospective client for some of the training exercises.
Glowing lanterns (in a vaguely northern Thai style) in the early evening.
Hua Hin is a popular beach resort about a three-hour drive southwest of Krungthep (Bangkok). It is the home of His Majesty the King’s beach palace and so is a much cleaner and more desirable place than, say, Pattaya. In the past few years Hua Hin has also become much too popular and is now overgrown with high end hotels and fancy resorts. In other words, it has gone upscale and lost the inexpensiveness and carefree charm that made it a fun getaway spot for locals. Still, it retains its good weather, nice ambience, lovely beach, and tasty seafood. So who was I to refuse an all expenses paid two night trip to a beach resort there?
Beach, pool area, and the restored 90-year old teak house, right.
I’ll write more about the food in the coming days, but let me share some pictures of the resort. The resort, called Baan Talay Dao (“Home of the Sea and Stars”) centers around an authentic 90-year old teak wood house in which the training was held. It is a smaller resort, family owned and operated, and has probably been in operation for years and years. With the sprucing up of the rest of Hua Hin, it looks like they made a lot of effort sometime in the past few years to freshen up the resort’s facade and it now has a “boutique” look and feel.
Private villas – note the grotto with the Virgin Mary in it, which you don’t see all that often here in Thailand!
The property includes a combination of town-house style two-story buildings along with individual villas closer to the beach. The buildings are well-maintained and the landscaping is very lush. Inside the rooms, though, you can see the age of the facility. Not because things aren’t well maintained – they are – but simply because of the amenities offered and the roughness of the construction. I’ve seen this a lot in these boutique resorts in Thailand and that is why the price is $50-150 less a night than, say, the Intercontinental, the Sheraton, or the Marriott.
The townhouse section of the resort faces a reflecting fish pond and some beautiful trees.
There is a full-service restaurant downstairs from the teak house and you can either sit in the shade underneath or out in the open air overlooking the beach. Their breakfast buffet is pretty impressive for a small resort and the dinner I ate the first night – a curried seafood dish called hor mok talay – was one of the best things I’ve eaten this month.
Hua Hin is on the western side of the Gulf of Thailand hidden against a ridge of mountains on the narrow isthmus that is shared between Thailand and Myanmar. The benefit of this ridge of mountains is that the frightening storm clouds that blow over them tend not to drop their rain on Hua Hin, instead continuing up the Gulf and gathering more force before dropping their rain closer to Krungthep. This made for some very pleasant (and pleasantly breezy) late afternoons and early evenings as I enjoyed the relatively cool temperatures and watched the clouds, excpecting them to let fat drops of rain fall on me in response. Thankfully, this didn’t happen.
The path to the beach.
The two days of training were pleasant. I had met most of Tawn’s colleagues on several occassions before (he wasn’t at the training, though) and so it was a pleasure to spend more time with them. Not only did I learn a lot about the PR industry, which was fascinating, but I discovered that as a group they are the biggest foodies (sea-foodies, to be precise) I’ve met in Thailand, which is why I’ll write about the food in a later entry.
Jason was busy tanning, Kahlua on the Rocks in hand, and Tawn was napping after his yoga, so Stuart, Piyawat and I decided to go for a stroll on the beach. The condo we rented is on Mai Khao Beach. “Mai Khao” means “white trees”, a reference to the strands of birch trees located in this area. North of the airport by less than a kilometer in a straight line, this section of the island has little development in comparison to the busier cities on the south and west sides.
Our guard dogs, Sing and Yuri, ran under the fence to join us. I was initially concerned that they would run away and get lost but they were very well behaved, never straying too far and always racing back when we called.
Here’s a two-minute video highlighting the stroll:
It took about ten minutes to walk the kilometer or so south towards the airport. The runway ends just next to the beach and you can get quite a view of departing airplanes. Being an aviation enthusiast, I had to stop and watch a few THAI Airways Boeing 777s depart.
The airport is unique because it is located in an isthmus-like stretch of the north end of the island, wedged between two hills. You can see the control tower (white) on the hill to the left of the runway. The back entrance to the airport is by the narrow road that runs to the left of the taxiway. I can’t exaggerate how close this road is to the taxiway. When the jumbo jets taxi by, you feel like you need to duck lest their wingtips slice off the roof of your car. The terminal and ramp area are parallel to the beach at the far end of the picture.
Also at the end of the runway is a small creek which runs into the sea. It is fed by runoff from the airport grounds. Here we have a father and son fishing for dinner in this creek. I can only imagine what sort of petroleum residue there is in that water.
We encountered another fisherman on the way back. This man was fishing in the sea and landed an interesting fish as we walked up. It was long with a needlelike nose and small teeth. The color was translucent green on top and he was wriggling around like crazy.
Sunday afternoon there was no rush to leave as our flight wasn’t until after 7 pm. We all piled into the car and drove ten minutes up the road to the Sala Resort, one of the high-end resorts located on the north end of the island. I think I’ve figured out the best was to enjoy resorts: just go visit them and have a drink. You get all the attentive service and ambience without having to pay the exorbitant nightly rates.
The design of the resort is, I understand, by the same person who designed Alila Cha-Am. (See this entry from September 2008 about our stay at that beautiful resort on the Gulf of Thailand.) This means that it is largely modern in design, although Sala has more contemporary touches such as this vaguely Chinoiserie style screen at the entrance. Notice that some of the octagons rotate. Neat touch.
Guest registration, which looks more like an open-air bar.
The path from registration towards the beach. Notice the “white trees” – birches. All the guest rooms are individual pavilions (that’s where the name “sala” comes from, “pavilion” in Thai) hidden behind walls and gates on both sides of this path.
Heading through a wall of mist on our way to the spa to check our their offerings and prices.
Tawn chilling out in the lounge outside the spa. There’s just a little bit of water circulating amongst the stones and another quiet waterfall trickling down the black wall in the back.
The pool area near the beach. Surrounded on two sides by outdoor dining patios, we positioned ourselves on the large white sofa at the far end of the pool for some drinks and snacks. I didn’t realize it at first, but there is actually a seating area on top of the roof with reflecting pools, benches and tables.
Here’s the view of the pools taken from the top of the roof, directly above the white sofa at the far end of the previous picture. The wide lawn was very different from most beach resorts and with the pine trees, it reminded me more of a mountain retreat rather than a beach side resort.
Kobfa and Tawn in one of the many love seat swings on the property.
Okay, that’s it for Phuket for this trip. Hope you enjoyed!
christao408 