Hawaiʻi Five-0

Our last day on Oʻahu.

To check out of the condo, we just entered a code in the keyless entry to let them know that we were leaving - totally contactless! We would definitely stay here again!

Then we drove over to Diamond Head Market and picked up some goodies from the bakery.  Clockwise from the top left:  Diamond Head torte (peanut butter cheesecake, chocolate pudding, bananas, Oreo crust), chocolate ganache cake, blueberry cheesecake scone, and lemon crunch cake. Although we are all about the food, dessert for breakfast is a little much, even for us. So they all went straight into a cooler bag for later enjoyment.

Next we headed over to Nana Ai Katsu to pre-order our lunch. We got there right after they opened at 11:00AM, but set the pick-up time for 1:00PM. That gave us almost two hours to poke around downtown Honolulu.

First photo op - the Kamehameha I statue in front of Aliʻiōlani Hale, the former seat of government of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi and current home of the Hawaiʻi State Supreme Court. Or for pop culture geeks like us, the headquarters of Steve McGarrett, Danny "Danno" Williams, and the Five-0 task force. Is the theme song running through your head now?!

The statue here was the replacement made after the original one was thought to be lost when the ship transporting it sank near the Falkland Islands. However, the first one was recovered before the second statue was delivered, and it now stands near the birthplace of Kamehameha in Kapaʻau in Kohala, which we saw on our trip to the Big Island in 2019.

Directly across the street from Aliʻiōlani Hale is ʻIolani Palace. The royal residence of the rulers of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi, the last monarch to reside here was Queen Liliʻuokalani, who was overthrown in 1893. We didn't want to spend time on a tour of the interior, so we just walked around the grounds.

On the other side of ʻIolani Palace is the Hawaiʻi State Capitol. Due to COVID, the building was not open to the public, so I couldn't get my state capital stamp. Guess I'll have to request one by mail...

Queen Liliʻuokalani

Then it was back to Nana Ai Katsu to grab our order and find someplace to chow down. Since we were not too far from UH, we decided to go to the same spot we ate our lunch a few days ago. 

Spam katsu musubi and Kurobuta Kasane Tonkatsu Bento

I don't know if these pics will do the food justice. The tonkatsu was made from kurobuta pork pounded super thin, layered (7+ pieces!), breaded in panko, and fried. OMG, it was melt-in-your-mouth good! I think this is probably one of my most favorite things that we ate on the entire trip!

We spent the afternoon at Ala Moana Center, shopping for souvenirs and other goodies to bring home. And we hit yet another Costco on our quest to find more of the Cornflake Butter Crunch Nibbles that R's cousin gave us when we were on Kauaʻi. No luck. 😞

For dinner we opted for convenience and tried a Filipino restaurant next to Costco since it was right there. Just meh. Oh well, can't hit a home run every time.

With nothing else left on our agenda, we filled up the rental with Costco gas, returned the car to Hertz, and spent the rest of the evening waiting in the terminal for our red-eye flight back to the mainland. 

What a super fun ten days we've had! Aloha, a hui hou...