For breakfast, we had dim sum at Mei Sum Dim Sum, another restaurant we recommended besides Fook Lam for dim sum. Here, it was more order style instead of a lady wheeling the dim sum cart around. Our favorite dish at Mei Sum has to be the beef balls that we were amazed on our first trip and ever since then, whenever we made it back to Oahu, we must have. Our breakfast cost $62.71.
After breakfast, we drove to the Dole Plantation. It was my first time and Jason’s second time there. Jason said must try their pineapple ice cream.
I know it sounded cheesy but we took the train tour to go around its plantation. When traveling with my mom, our options of what to do are quite limited to her physical ability so no hiking (Diamond Head).
The train tour was relaxing and somewhat informative.
After that, we had pineapple ice cream, it was a good relief to the heat and tasted great so worth the $$.
However, I do not recommend the “Garden” so please don’t waste money on visiting the garden……it’s so small, literally, one loop and not much special to see!
Logan tree….I want some logan!
That was literally it, we finished in less than 5 minutes so not worth the money, rather, go buy another cup of pineapple ice cream instead!
After the Dole Plantation, we headed to Thai Lao for lunch as it’s the closest Thai restaurant near Pearl Harbor where I reserved the ticket to visit USS Arizona Memorial at 2:45 PM. You can make the reservation for free online and it’s limited to certain number of visitors per time slot at the National Park Services website.
Thai food in Hawaii is not as good as in Boston.
I ordered Pad Kee Mao (Drunkin Noodle) and it doesn’t taste anything like the Pad Kee Mao in Boston, I was so disappointed.
The mediocre lunch cost $74.3.
After lunch, we headed to Pearl Harbor and we were early. Note that bag/purse that are bigger than certain size is not allowed unless it’s see-through so we left our purses in the trunk of the car and just carry our phones and wallet. There are lockers available but you have to pay. I was prepared for this so I had the wristlet wallet to store the cash.
We were early and we were able to get on an earlier boat tour since they have space. Prior to the short boat trip to the USS Arizona Memorial, we were shown a documentary about the sad event.
After the Pearl Harbor, we went to the Walmart nearby to buy the macadamia nuts and my favorite brand of dried mango – 7D. We got a full suitcase worth of nuts and dried mango LOL, they are the best souvenir from Hawaii and cheapest at Walmart of all the places we checked the prices!
We headed back to Waikiki so my mom can relax at Waikiki beach in the afternoon. For dinner we learned our lesson to get out of the tourist traps at Waikiki, we headed out to Gen Korean BBQ. It is an all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ restaurant, it looked very fancy inside the Ala Moana Center which made it easier for parking.
It is order style instead of buffet style; you can only order up to a certain number of dishes at once (I forgot exactly) but you can do it unlimited times. This is to ensure you don’t waste food. Their service is impeccable, we never have to wait long for a waiter/waitress to take our order as well as changing the grill disk. We love their potato salad side dish, it was creamy and refreshingly delicious. We ordered so many times! We tried so many different types of marinated beef and pork meat that we lost track what is what as they were quite good.
To finish off the meal, we ordered dessert (separate charge) – the macaroon ice creams in mango and matcha flavors.
This was the most expensive meal in this trip at $130 tips included but worth the money on the quality of the food and service. If you like Korean BBQ, we recommend this place!
