Hawaii

Big Island Beaches

The famous Kohala Coast beaches here I come! We woke up early for our beach day but guess what, it was very cloudy out! I checked the weather forecast and it should be clear around 10 am, I was crossing my fingers! As hubby was getting ready, I found this website: http://www.kona123.com/beachmap.html it was super useful when planning which beaches to visit. It has detailed list of facilities of each beach and pictures to show how the beach looks like. I picked a few that I thought would be good for pictures!

We went to 808 Grindz Cafe finally for breakfast. I wished we tried this place earlier in our trip, its breakfast was AMAZING! 808 Grindz Cafe is located in the same shopping plaza as Phuket Monkey Thai Restaurant.

I figured why it named 808 when I looked at the menu, majority of the breakfast price is $8.08 hahaha! We walked in and saw this wall of painting signed by visitors.

You need to be patience though because it’s run by only one old man as waiter, he is serving around 10 tables, but totally worth it! We were there around 8:30 and there were 3 tables of people. Locals come here too that’s how good it is! We waited for a while to get our menu and he came to take our order. I ordered the Korean kalbi steak moco ($8.08) and hubby ordered the deluxe moco ($10). $10 is the most expensive of their plates!

My Korean kalbi steak moco, OMG, it was so good! I love their marinate sauce, the kalbi is very tender and cooked perfectly! Oh their portion as you can see here, enough to make it a lunch!

This is the best loco moco I ever had, I could literally eat this everyday for breakfast/lunch!

Hubby’s deluxe loco moco was gigantic, I thought mines was huge, look at his! It was double of mines. The steaks were marinated, tender, flavorful, cooked to medium rare, the homemade gravy was not too heavy just about right, and the eggs, it was perfect!

We both were very surprised by the quality of this little cafe. Note that it opens till 2 pm for both breakfast and lunch only same menu!!! Looking for cheap eats in the Big Island, come here!!!

Making payment in credit card…need some patience too, as this old guy needs to wait for the chef to use an ipad app for the credit card. We were very patient since we were filled with great food!

We walked out of the cafe and the sun started to sneak out, yay! First beach we drove to (a 30 minutes drive) was Anaeho`omalu Beach (aka A Bay). When I saw the picture of this beach at the website, I was attracted by the coconut trees! There is a big parking lot and not too far to walk to the entrance, parking is free.

The path leads to the beach is beautiful, the restroom and changing room located here:

I didn’t use the restroom there but I would guess it should be pretty clean! After the past the restroom building, there’s the beach.  Ahhh coconut trees!

We immediately set up the tripod for photos! You need a wide angle to capture the full coconut trees. I liked this huge tree trunk on the sand while tens of coconut trees on the back:

There weren’t much people in this beach which made it a lot easier for us to set up our camera and took some pictures! Of course whenever people walk by us, they would look at us haha!

The water color could be nicer if the sun was completely out!

This branch was pretty unique, reminded me of “hold on to it regardless of how hard it is never give up!”

On the back is a resort:

Time for the next beach – Hapuna Beach, it’s the largest beach on the Big Island! Parking is $5 but when we arrived no one at the collection gate! The parking lot is full but there’s a back unpaved lot. It was a long and steep walk down to the beach from the back parking lot.

Some unusual plant on the path walking down:

It is a very popular beach for the locals and the tourists! Locals doesn’t need to pay the $5 parking fee.

No spot for us set up the tripod and get good pictures so we decided to walk further down to see if it’ll be less crowded!

Weird looking branch!

Unfortunately, it was still crowded. We decided take some photos of the beach and leave.

It’s probably the best white sand beach of all the beaches we visited on the Big Island.

Hubby love to take picture of unusual patterned tree branches!

Hubby asked should we go back to Pu’uhonua o Honaunau, I said sure! The ticket is valid for 5 or 7 days so it’ll be free! Both of us agreed that it is our favorite place! It’s another 45 min-1 hour drive away…but still we got there earlier than our first time we visited. It gave us plenty of day light time to photograph! Coconut trees, I think I am obsess with coconut trees LOL!

We literally set up the tripod here and there and click click click! We had so much fun!

We didn’t visit the back section of the park on the first time due to limited time, I was surprised how many coconut trees are there!

I think I am going to miss this place!

After I don’t know how long we spent there, we walked back to the parking lot, love the clouds, I was thinking, will it be the day for the sunset that I have been waiting for?

On the way back to the hotel, we sort of remembering we have seen Da Poke Shack there, it turned out yes there’s a 2nd location at Captain Cook!

It was like 4:30 when we got there and the fridge was nearly empty. We asked and they said they could make them no problem!!! We ordered a pound of Shack Special (the sweet kind) and while we waited they freshly prepare for it, we took some pictures of the place:

Believe it or not, they sell Da Poke Shack T-shirts, and in both locations, we have seen people buying them, I guess they are famous! We made it back to the hotel before sunset. I had high hope this is it but nooooo the clouds moved in and covering the horizon! But at least I get some colors!

After the past few nights of Thai food, I was craving for some Korean food! There wasn’t much Korean restaurants on the Big Island, they just opened one called Chicken Holic! it was like a warehouse when we got there:

Next to it is a little Asian convenient store. Inside looks like this:

The restaurant is run by two young Koreans, I ordered the seafood soft tofu soup (aka Soon Dubu) the “soup” comes with Korean side dishes and rice! It was very authentic, better than the ones I had in Boston!

Hubby ordered the kalbi short ribs, they were delicious!

And we ordered 6 pieces of honey Korean fried chicken (I read in yelp that someone commented KFC = Korean Fried Chicken) it was absolutely true haha!

It was our first time having Korean fried chicken and it is 10x better than KFC!!! It’s so crunchy, the honey flavor was just about right, with some taste of garlic and sesame, the chicken meat is so tender and juicy hands down to Korean fried chicken than KFC! I wished they have this at home, I would try out all the flavors!!! They have super spicy, hot and spicy, original crunchy, garlic, and honey. it is $8.99 for 6 pieces but those pieces are huge! Our delicious meal was $35.38!!! We were debating if we should come back for New Year’s Eve dinner (tomorrow) here or TK Noodle House! Hard decision!!!

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