HI!! We celebrated our 5-year anniversary on August 19th. And exactly 5 years ago today, we were enjoying the final few days of our awesome honeymoon. Here's a flashback to our honeymoon journal. Oh my goodness, how different and carefree things were back then. :) Enjoy!!
Sunday, 8/20/06
Dean:
So the day after the best day of our lives, we gathered the Sison & Buenaventura families together for family portraits at La Jolla Cove in La Jolla, CA. Each of the family members wore white clothing. Our first photo was a portrait of all the family members from both sides.
Then we took some photos with the respective parts of the Buenaventura & Sison Families. It was the perfect start forging a new family.
After we got home from taking the photos, we received a preview of our wedding photos from Erica's Godbrother Don. He created this beautiful photo montage of various pictures that he took of our night. We watched the dvd with a few of our family members and friends.
We then watched several videos of our wedding day and night courtesy of Sam "the man." It was great seeing everyone enjoying themselves and viewing ourselves from a third party. We're so glad that everyone had a great time!
Monday, 8/21/06
Dean:
The night/morning of our departure, we packed, chilled and split a California Burrito. We did not get any sleep because we were excited and also worried that we wouldn't wake up. We caught up with our sleep on the plane.
Erica:
We departed from San Diego and made our first stop at LAX Los Angeles Airport. After the brief stop, we were on our way on a 5.5 hour flight to Maui. First class is awesome!! There’s so much foot room that I couldn’t reach the seat in front of me even with my legs fully stretched out. We also got free mimosas, champagne, cocktails, drinks, and also breakfast and dessert. They served either cereal or a cheese omelette for breakfast. Dean and I looked at each other and said “cheese omelette please!!
And oh my gosh that breakfast was soooooo good! After we ate, food coma took over us and we slept for most of the remainder of the flight to Maui. I woke up to a dark cabin, someone had gone around and pulled all the window shades down. Apparently we weren’t the only one’s who’d knocked out after breakfast, haha.
Dean:
As we arrived in Waikiki, we checked into our hotel, the Outrigger Waikiki on the Beach:
and found our partial ocean view to be really pretty:
After we settled in, we made a quest to find authentic Hawaiian food. Instead we ended up eating at Cheesecake Factory. Yeah, we know this isn’t genuine Hawaiian food, but hey it is the only Cheesecake Factory in Hawaii. We ate some pasta and had leftovers. 2 hours later (6:00 PM Hawaii Time), we knocked out and did our best to catch up on sleep that we lost out on the night before.
Tuesday, 8/22/06
Dean:
Twelve hours later, we woke up and got ready to go to the Polynesian Cultural Center. We took a 1.5 hour bus trip to the Center where we found out where the tv show Lost and scenes from 50 First Dates and Jurassic Park were all filmed. At the Polynesian Cultural Center, we learned various facts of the Islands that make up Polynesia. We also ate at this awesome luau, where they honored all of the honeymooners at the Center by bringing them on stage and have all of us dance in front of all the visitors and staff.
We then walked around, took some pictures and watched the 7:30 show.
We got home at approximately 10:30 and knocked out in preparation for another exciting day in Waikiki.
Wednesday, 8/23/06
Erica:
We woke up this morning and made a run to the ABC store across the street to get some milk for the mini boxes of cereal we picked up from the breakfast buffet on Tuesday morning. We also picked up some bowls and utensils, a couple toiletry items, and one of those waterproof ID holder thingies. Then we came back to the room, sunscreened ourselves, and got ready for our water excursion.
We walked over to the hyatt regency pick up area at 7:45AM and got picked up by this really nice bus. After a few more stops to pick up other passengers, we were taken to the aloha tower, where our boat, the Starlet, awaited us.
So we walked to the boat, and after taking the souvenir picture, we boarded the boat. It was pretty big, 2 stories. They gave us ginger pills to settle our stomachs to minimize sea sickness, and got briefed on safety things, and restrooms, and the outline of the day, etc. We were taken half a mile off the coast of Waikiki and given fins, snorkeling mask and a choice of a life jacket, banana belt, or fun noodle, depending on our swimming ability. I of course got a life vest, and dean started out with a life vest, but ended up with a banana belt.
I was scared at first cause I haven’t been in the ocean since 2002 the last time we went to Hawaii, and I’ve also never gone swimming with a life vest, but I sucked it up and hopped in. not difficult at all. Just kinda scary when the waves of the water made the boat rise and head in my direction. But it was anchored, so there would be no scariness on this adventure.
They had a water trampoline, a couple innertubes, kayaks, a waterslide on the side of the boat, and a 10 foot diving platform to use. They also did a snorkeling tour that dean went on. I hung out on the boat and waited for lunch cause I was hungry, haha.
Lunch consisted of burgers, hot dogs, pasta salad, baked beans, and various drinks. Really good food. Dean came back from the snorkeling tour, and he got his food.
So we ate and dean got dizzy, so he went out into the water, and I watched him as he got into a kayak. I was bored and decided to go into the water again too. And just as I was getting onto the platform to get in, I see him headed in the kayak, straight for the side of the boat…it was pretty funny, the lifeguard had to instruct him to paddle backwards to move away from the boat.
I felt brave and headed out to the trampoline so I could sit on the side of it. And sat there I did. Pretty fun, watched a couple brothers trying to see how far they could get on the inflated log thingy…I think it was meant for log rolling??
Anyway, we got called back onto the boat so we could go, and we were given brownies (OMG soooo good). We bought our souvenir pic cause it was cute. Then we got back to the dock, and then got bussed back to our hotel. We fell asleep on the way back to the hotel and I think we missed our stop, or we got off the bus early, but whatever. We debated whether we wanted to go to the beach or go back, rinse off the ocean water, and walk around. Since we were already in the ocean, it was pretty much the same thing if we went to the beach, so we decided to go back to the room and prepare to take a walk to explore.
Dean:
We made our way to Niketown.
There was nothing special about it. Personally, the San Ysidro Nike Outlet is way better. Better selection and better prices. We then took a bus to the Ala Moana Shopping Mall and walked around the mall. We bought some hats at the local “Lids” and then we ate some dinner at Bubba Gump’s. We then tried to find the Walmart in town but after walking several blocks, we were unsuccessful in locating it. People lie and give bad directions! So we went back to the hotel and called it a day.
Thursday, 8/24/06
Erica:
This morning we got picked up to watch this presentation for a couple hours in exchange for a dinner cruise and parasailing. We got a free light breakfast (ham and cheese omelette in a croissant and fresh fruit). When we got out, we got the vouchers for our activities.
In the beginning of our short walk back to our hotel, we saw this stand selling spam musubis. We had munchies, so got a couple, and ate while we walked.
We stopped by the front desk and asked if there was any microwaves around cause we had A LOT of leftover food in the fridge that we wanted to eat for lunch. They said they’d send one up to the room. As we were walking towards the elevator, we saw a couple people sitting at a table coloring. It was a coloring contest, and we figured that while we waited for the microwave, we’d need something to keep us occupied (and didn’t you know? We’re really 5 years old). So we did some coloring. We were very proud of how our sheets turned out, haha.
We went back upstairs, myspaced it for a bit, and got ready to go to the beach.
We stopped by the abc store to get one of those fold up mats, and headed out to find a spot on the beach. It was pretty crowded, but we managed to find a front spot, and I decided I wanted to go into the water, but not without an inner tube. So dean went back to the abc store to get one, came back and inflated it, and into the water we went. It was pretty shallow where we were, and the water was full of bright colored inner tubes, rafts, and various other flotation devices, all with children and adults alike attached. The waves were insane, and after being freaked out for a bit cause I was scared that I wouldn’t float when a wave came along, I got used to it and had some fun riding the waves. My inner tube kept getting deflated cause I don’t think the hole was closed enough, so dean kept trying to blow it up again while we were in the water. One really big wave sent us flying back onto the shore, so we got out of the water so he could re-inflate it. Then we went back in for a bit more, and back up to the room where we’re currently chillin until we get picked up for the dinner cruise tonight. It’s buffet. Very exciting :)
ok we just got back. The dinner cruise was fun. We had a lively escort from Samoa named “Cousin Biggie” who kept us chanting “bus number 6! Bus number 6!!” and dancing and yelling. She told us that if we forgot her name, to just look at her. Here’s a pic of us with her:
Friday, 8/25/06
We began the morning with parasailing. We woke up at around 8am and got dressed. The parasailing company was called Extreme Parasailing and they sent a shuttle to pick us up at around 9:30am. As we arrived at the docking port of the parasailing boat, we didn’t know what to expect. Both of us have never participated in that activity and were a little nervous. We boarded the boat and met a father and son from northern California that agreed to take photos with our camera in exchange for us shooting some pics with their camera. We also had the crew manning the boat take some photos for us for $15. As we ascended above the Oahu harbor, we could see the clear water and all the hotels along the Waikiki shoreline. It felt great. We felt like feathers floating along the wind. The view was so awesome! We took pictures of our own with our waterproof camera from our aerial view. Hopefully they turned out well.
After our exciting adventure parasailing, we grabbed some lunch at this hamburger joint called Cheeseburger in Paradise. The restaurant was kind of like Islands. We ordered a basket of cheese fries, a black & blue burger and an “its all good” burger. The cheese fries was composed of melted jack cheddar cheese. The black & blue burger was a bacon and blue cheese combination burger. The “its all good” burger came with guacamole, bacon, swiss cheese, colbyjack cheese, lettuce and tomatoes. All of the food was awesome.
We then grabbed our inner tubes and jumped in the beautiful Waikiki ocean. We floated in our tubes for about 2 hours and enjoyed the sunshine. The waves were huge and the water was warm. Inner tubes are great!
We worked up an appetite from the swimming and floating. After doing some walking, we came across this mom & pop sushi fast food shop and picked up 4 spam hand rolls. We took the rolls back to the hotel ate 3 of them along with left overs, while catching up on all of the Big Brother Allstars episodes that we missed. We also drank some complimentary champagne from the hotel to wash down our food. We knocked out at around 7pm and didn’t wake up until the next morning.
Saturday, 8/26/06
Saturday was dedicated to shopping. We took a 1.5 hour bus ride to Aloha Stadium where we hit up the local flea market to grab souvenirs and gifts. That place is probably the best place to go when shopping for aloha shirts, jewelry, necklaces and t-shirts. While walking around the flea market, we bought a baby coconut and drank coconut juice. After we killed the juice, we had the meat of the coconut cut up and ate the pieces. We purchased gifts for our family, friends and even snuck in a couple of things for ourselves. We rounded the swap meet for about 3 hours and took another long bus ride back to Waikiki where we stopped by L&L’s and Jack in the Box. We ordered small orders of chicken katsu and a loco moco at L&L’s and picked up some large fries and a chicken sandwich at Jack in the Box (yeah, there’s plenty of Jack in the Boxes in the main land but we both were craving French fries!) Taking full advantage of our beachside view on our room’s balcony, we ate our lunch while looking at the ocean.
After lunch, we chilled for a bit and packed our stuff for our trip to Maui. We stuffed all of our souvenirs in our bags along with our clothes and toiletries that we brought for the honeymoon. After jam-packing our luggage to their fullest capacities, we hung out and got ready for dinner.
For dinner, we headed to The Colony, an award-winning fine dining restaurant located in the Hyatt Regency Waikiki. This restaurant is best known for their steaks. We chose this place because earlier in the week, we got this coupon book called the Metrobook, where we found a coupon for a “buy one meal, get an entrée for free.” It didn’t hurt that this place was considered one of the best if not the best restaurant in Waikiki.
Dean:
Erica and I came to the restaurant each dressed in casual attire. I wore a shirt and a jumpman Jordan tank top while Erica wore a tank top and jean skirt. Supposedly, I wasn’t dressed appropriately for the setting, so the hostess provided me with a black and brown aloha shirt. We went in and received reassurance that we could be able to use the “buy one get one free” coupon and ordered our dinner. I ordered a 14 oz. filet minion with mashed potatoes, a bowl of clam chowder and an oreo cookie cheesecake. Erica ordered a 14 oz. filet minion with mashed potatoes (free entrée). We split the clam chowder and the oreo cookie cheesecake. The Colony did not disappoint. The food was awesome and we even had leftovers. I would definitely recommend this place, especially if you have that coupon that we had.
After the awesome dinner, we walked around a bit and wrapped up our shopping in Waikiki. We picked up a few more things and then headed back to the hotel.
Sunday, 8/27/06
Today, we started off the morning by eating at Duke’s Waikiki Restaurant, a eatery located in our hotel, the Outrigger on the Beach, in honor of the pioneer of surfing in Hawaii and all over the world. It was a breakfast buffet that offered omelets, French toast, pancakes, eggs, sausage, bacon and other breakfast delights. The food was excellent. We didn’t do too much damage.
After breakfast, we grabbed our belongings and waited for our shuttle to the airport. We waited an extra 20 minutes longer that we should have and eventually we got to the airport. We got the airport and headed to our next destination, Maui.
At around 3ish, we arrived in Maui.
Once we arrived, we grabbed our baggage from the check out conveyer belt and proceeded to the Alamo shuttle service, where we went to pick up our rental car. We ended up with a convertible white Chrysler Sebring. After inspecting the vehicle, putting the top down and adjusting the mirrors, we hopped on the 30 and headed to the Hono Koa Resort, where we will be staying for the week in Maui (Thanks to Elaine & Carlito!).
The Hono Koa is a time share that is fully furnished with kitchen supplies, stocked bedrooms and baths and has a washer dryer. After unpacking our things, we met with the concierge lady who gave us restaurant recommendations and asked if we wanted to do any activities. Since we’d had an eventful week in Oahu, we just wanted to sort of chill this week, but graciously took notes on the restaurants, many of which we’ll be visiting for dinner this week. Since we mentioned that we wanted to pick up groceries, she recommended we go to Safeway and have dinner at this restaurant called E&O.
This place was like an Asian-Fusion-type casual dining place. We ordered calamari and this spicy chicken dish called Chicken Firecracker. The food was great and we had a satisfying meal. We then headed to the Safeway right next door where we picked up groceries for the week. It was a taste of normalcy being able to shop for groceries again, and having a car means freedom from sucky public transportation.
Monday, 8/28/06
Erica:
On our first full day in Maui, we had a really chill, restful day. It was nice to have a fully-stocked kitchen where we can prepare our own food and have a normal set of meals. After breakfast, we headed out to Lahaina, where we hit up the Hilo Hattie’s and I made a stop at Wet Seal to pick up a couple strapless tops so I wouldn’t have to deal with another messed up tan, haha. We drove down Front Street to see what kind of restaurants and places were around there, and when we got back on the 30, we spotted a mini swap meet and made a quick stop there cause we had forgotten to get something at the aloha bowl swap meet. After getting what we needed, we made another quick stop at Safeway to get ice cream.
When we got back to the Hono Koa, we made spaghetti for lunch. The spaghetti put us into food coma, and we ended up napping for a couple hours. We woke up and watched an interesting show on Discovery Health, and then headed out onto the deck up next to the ocean armed with magazines to read as we waited for the sunset.
Once the sun went down, we got ready to go out for dinner. We ended up at the Hula Grill in Whaler’s Village.
The waiting times were 30 minutes for the bar, and an hour for the main dining room. To save on having to pay tip, and also to save time cause we were pretty hungry, we just ordered for take-out. It only took 15 minutes, so we just walked around while we waited.
Dean found his long lost friend:
After we picked up our food (a couple pupus, and a couple pizzas), we headed back to the Hono Koa, and had a nice dinner.
It hasn’t been very eventful yet here, but we’re enjoying this change of pace :) There’s no schedule that we have to follow, and I’m really grateful for this time to just enjoy life. With the whole period of almost two years where we were planning the wedding and also getting settled into the new house, I forgot what it was like to not be busy. I was kind of worried that I’d have a problem transitioning into having free time, that I’d be bored easily. But it’s been wonderful. This time away is teaching me to relax again, to settle my brain of all worries.
Tuesday, 8/29/06
Dean:
Hanging out in Maui is great. There’s noting like a little R&R in the so-called “Best Island in the World.” Today we woke up at around 10ish (we seem to be getting up later and later the longer we stay in Hawaii). We munched on our leftover pizza from last night’s dinner, spam & eggs, cereal and oatmeal. It was kind of like brunch rather than breakfast. After we chowed down, we headed back to Hilo Hattie’s, where we claimed our free gifts which consisted of a beach towel and a mug, for spending a certain amount of money. Aftewards, we went to the local post office, where we picked up packing supplies to ship our souvenirs rather than taking them on the plane with us. We figured that it would be easier on our backs and luggage to send our gifts home. Then we headed to the Lahaina Cannery, a local neighborhood shopping center, where we stopped at Starbucks and walked around. In the center, we also went inside the ABC store to pick up a floating raft for the pool.
After our brief gallivanting around Maui, we went back to the condo where we packed our gifts in the boxes we picked up. We filled up two boxes and got them ready for shipping. As soon as we got done packing the boxes, we went out to grab dinner. We were craving sushi so first we went to this local strip center with a mom & pop sushi restaurant. The selection wasn’t that great and the prices were up there. We walked around the area with the sushi place and didn’t see anything appealing. We remembered this one sushi restaurant that the concierge at the condo recommended called Sansei. So we headed north to Kapalua, about 10 minutes north of the condo and proceeded to Sansei. We grabbed a to-go menu and ordered a bagel, spicy tuna, yaki maki and rainbow rolls. The bagel roll consisted of smoked salmon, maui onions and cream cheese. The spicy tuna roll had fresh Hawaiian ahi tuna. The yaki maki roll was a California roll wrapped with smoked salmon and baked with dynamite sauce. Finally, the rainbow roll was a California roll with fresh maguro, sake and avocado. We ate our sushi while watching the latest episode of Big Brother All-Stars. The sushi was awesome! Now we know why it was recommended and why it was an award-winning restaurant.
Wednesday, 8/30/06
Erica:
we got up at around 9 this morning and went to the post office to send the two boxes of souvenirs back home. We didn’t eat breakfast, so we went to Lahaina and got some McDonalds french fries and did a little more exploring. Dean had been wanting a plate lunch, and in the middle of our exploring, we ran into this place called Aloha Mixed Plate right behind the Lahaina Cannery Mall. It had won the award for best plate lunch and a couple other things, so we decided to stop by and give it a try. I got a Hawaiian plate, which had kalua pig, poi, lomi lomi salmon, two scoops of rice, and a scoop of macaroni salad. We also stopped by Safeway again cause we ran out of cheese for our sandwiches, and then went back to the condo.
Dean:
I finally got my lunch plate! Can’t have a trip to Maui without an authentic Hawaiian lunch plate. I ordered a breaded teriyaki steak plate which consisted of katsu-style teriyaki beef, 2 scoops of rice and a side of macaroni salad. That was very filling and satisfying. I couldn’t finish the lunch plate and therefore kept it for leftovers. I foresee us going back there before we leave Maui.
After our filling lunch, we chilled in the condo for a bit and then we headed to the pool. It took me 10 attempts, but I finally was able to lie belly-first on our floating raft. We swam, read magazines and sun bathed for a total of 4 hours. Cosmo is a pretty good magazine. I ran out of fantasy football magazines (yeah I have to prep for a couple of fantasy leagues) so I grabbed Erica’s Cosmo. There are a lot of interesting facts in that mag. It was very relaxing and it wasn’t too hot outside. Afterwards, we washed up, ate dinner. We checked our emails and guess what, we got an email from our wedding photographer, Susie, with a link to view our wedding photos! We were so excited that we spent over 3 hours viewing the photos via slideshow. There were over 1,000 edited photos. That email sweetened the honeymoon. We spent the rest of the night looking at the pictures.
Thursday 8/31/06
Dean:
After a nice sleep we got up at around 10ish. As soon as we got up, we ate some breakfast and more leftovers. We had cereal, pizza from a couple nights ago, the rest or our plate lunches and last night’s 4-cheese rice-a-roni. It was very filling. We then made a quick trip to Safeway for a small grocery run. We picked up some fruit, pancake mix and some water.
After the quick run, we chilled at the condo for a bit and then headed to the pool. I went for a swim while Erica read a few magazines and a book. We ate a quick snack, watched the latest Big Brother All-Stars episode and then played some cards.
We had dinner at Sansei, a sushi restaurant we got take-out at a couple of days ago. They had a special, 50% off sushi and appetizers. We took advantage of the deal and ordered a rainbow roll, a tempura shrimp roll, ahi tataki salad, Japanese calamari salad, tempura calamari rings and tempura sweet potatoes. All of the rolls and appetizers were great. The 50% off on each item sweetened the deal. After dinner, we headed back to the condo for some more R&R.
Friday 9/1/06
Dean:
We slept in again woke up around 10:30. Elaine called us and told us about this Pilipino fast food joint near the condo called Lourdes. After driving around, we spotted the place but instead of Lourdes, it was called Lynn’s. We grabbed some rice and a side of food. We were also craving lunch plates, so we drove to Aloha Mixed Plate for the 2nd time! L&L’s and Da Kine’s can’t touch this place. I ordered chicken katsu while Erica ordered the kalbi beef with rice and macaroni.
After lunch, we spent the Friday counting down the days until we get to go home. We were feeling the homesickness and wanted to see our girls, Nala and Kiwi. We basically sat around, watched TV and viewed the wedding photos for the rest of the day.
Saturday 9/2/06
Dean:
Another day in paradise and just a couple more days until we head home. We slept in and woke up around lunch time. For some reason, we were craving burgers. We found a local burger place called Johnny’s Burger Joint, a bar and grill next to the Kaanapali Golf Course. Both of us ordered a cheeseburger and we split a basket of garlic fries to go. While we were waiting for our burgers, we played some pool. The pool table was in an awkward spot. One of the sides of the table was really close to the wall, so basically we had to struggle to make a shot if the cue ball rolled on that side. Once the food was ready, we finished our game of pool and took our food to this park right across the post office. We found a bench and sat down with an awesome ocean view. After lunch, we cruised around Maui and headed back to the condo. We turned on the lap top and browsed our wedding photos once again. We can’t ever get tired of looking at those photos.
Towards the end of the night, we noticed a tiny lizard creeping around the condo. To put it in perspective, the lizard was the size of a quarter in diameter, but it still scared the crap out of us. After numerous attempts of trying to catch that thing, I finally was able to corner the reptile and trap it under a glass. In doing so, I accidentally chopped off a portion of its tail. I didn’t mean to do it, I just didn’t want the slippery thing to some how sneak into our bags and follow us to San Diego. I dragged the glass over a piece of paper and slowly placed the glass outside on the balcony. That event brought some adventure to our vacation. For a minute I felt like the crocodile hunter (may he R.I.P).
Sunday 9/3/06
Dean:
Sunday would be our last day on our honeymoon. It’s hard to go back to work and responsibility, but at the same time, it will be a new chapter in our lives as we begin life as a happily married couple.
We woke up at around 9. After packing the rest of our belongings, we let the uncovered the lizard on the balcony and checked out of the condo. Our flight wasn’t until scheduled for 10PM, so we had plenty of time to kill. We decided to head over to the Queen Kaahumanu Shopping Mall and got there at around 11. This mall was an outdoor, 2-story mall with major department stores and a movie theatre. We worked up an appetite and made a pit stop at the mall’s food court, where we got some Hawaiian food, Panda Express and a taco. Pearl’s Barbeque, Panda Express and Maui Taco were the fast food places we got our grub. It sounds like a lot but it was just enough for the both of us. At Pearl’s, we grabbed a plate of Korean BBQ with rice and sides. That place was really good. We also grabbed a small bowl of chow mein and a taco at Panda and Maui Tacos. After lunch, we still had about 4 hours before check-in. To kill more time, we went to the movie theatre and watched the movie Step Up. It ended up being a really good movie. As soon as the movie was over, we gassed up the rental car and turned it in to the Alamo rental car company. We hoped on the airport shuttle and arrived at the Maui Airport where we checked out bags in and got ready for our flight back to San Diego. Unfortunately, our plane was delayed for an additional hour. We sat at the airport for an extra hour and snacked on some nachos. Finally, the plane arrived and we were able to board.
First class is awesome! We took our seats and prepared for the 5.5 hour flight. We were exhausted and ready to get back home to San Diego. Dinner was served at around midnight and it was really delicious. We had a side salad, pasta, ravioli and a chocolate cheese cake. Probably the best airline food both of us have ever tasted! After we ate dinner, both of us knocked out and slept through out the flight.
