[Narita/Honolulu] 2019 Birthday trip to Hawaii

After a one year hiatus, I have finally managed to publish about my Narita/Hawaii travel experience!

To plan for this trip, we asked for a bit of info/tips from our close friend Meryl! She suggested that we could stay a night in Narita before proceeding to Hawaii. Baby took her advice and did just so! We purchased our two separate return air tickets from Delta Airlines which had a stop at Narita Airport in Japan. It was my birthday gift, so I didn’t really check the price for airfare, as it was paid for by my lovely hubby!

After 7 hours of flight, we touched down at Narita Airport, Tokyo, at around local time 2pm in the afternoon. We took the free airport shuttle bus to Hotel MyStays Premier Narita for a night stay.

The shuttle bus took like less than 10 minutes to reach our hotel. The room was decent, clean and well equipped

We took their complimentary bus service to the nearest Aeon Mall for dinner, and also to pick up breakfast for the next day. We needed to adjust our shopping habit this time round, in order not to miss the last shuttle service which was at 845pm. 

The next morning, after a simple breakfast, we proceeded to explore the town of Narita! Our flight heading to Honolulu, Hawaii was being scheduled at night, which means we had a whole day in Narita. 

  

We had street food, before having our lunch. We settled at a simple eatery place that serves yummy Soba. 

Time to leave Narita for the next leg of our journey! We took the free shuttle back to the airport. Upon being seated on the airplane, we were given some pre-meal snacks to munch! During the US bound flight, we were well taken care of by the flight attendants, and we were given the dinner menu for us to make our selection.

Our flight journey to Honolulu, Hawaii was about 6-7 hours, and on our entire flight, we watched some in-flight movies which I missed out on, as they were being screened in theaters previously. I was so happy to see that we were reaching our destination soon! We were served a sandwich and orange juice as our pre-arrival breakfast! 

 

Aloha Honolulu, Hawaii! We arrived in the morning, and the weather was sunny, a total difference in contrast from Japan. Prior to our trip, we had arranged to book our car rental online! The car rental company had a great policy for guests, whereby they arranged to pick us up at the airport to their office for collection of the car. Amazingly, we were also given a free upgrade to a Jeep instead of the car we had booked with no extra surcharge! We were all set for our trip.

Due to our Airbnb's check-in timing being after 3pm, we decided to visit a shopping mall first nearby. The Ala Moana Centre was great, as it had a great selection of shops and restaurants. For our first meal in Hawaii, we had Poke Bowls for lunch! We also tried out a local delicacy called 'Musubi', which is actually Spam sushi! This can only be found in Hawaii and was a sinful but great snack! It's a Hawaiian staple!

Our Airbnb location was splendid, as we stayed in the heart of Waikiki. We reached our Airbnb (Marina Surf Wakiki) in the afternoon and this lovely cosy place was my 'home' for the next 6 days in Hawaii. I now prefer to stay at Airbnbs whenever it comes to a long vacation/stay, as we can buy our own groceries from nearby supermarkets to cook our own meals whenever we deem fit! The neighbourhood seemed safe and the Wi-Fi was pretty stable too.

Apart from being a good location, another plus point was that the famous Waikiki Beach was within walking distance from our apartment! It was pretty convenient for us as we could avoid driving our car as parking in Hawaii city centre is expensive!

We witnessed a beautiful sunset at Waikiki Beach! For our dinner, we ate at a chain restaurant which may be familiar to some people. 'Eggs n Things' caught our attention, and we decided to have Loco Moco and Pancakes for our dinner!

Loco Moco is THE ultimate Hawaiian comfort food, as it consists of a dish of white rice, hamburger patty, a fried egg, and plenty of brown gravy! It sounds simple, but it is amazingly delicious, as well as probably being cholesterol heavy. However, one must definitely try this Hawaiian dish when one is in Hawaii!

This concluded my travel experience for the first day in Honolulu, Hawaii! The next post, I will share more on my happenings in Honolulu, O’ahu!