Thursday
I flew out on a Thursday morning out of LAX. Once again I paid a little more to fly with Hawaiian Air for their better service. They are one of the few remaining airlines that still serve meals on their flights. Unfortunately their Boeing 767 did not have individual TV screens. In fact their video screens were malfunctioning. As we were close to landing, the flight attendants went around serving complimentary cups of mai tai. As with every visit, I filled out the Plants and Animals Declaration Form.
Once we landed, I made my way to the bus stop to wait for the bus to Waikiki. It takes roughly an hour to get there but it only costs $2.50. After getting off of the bus, I walked straight over to Ramen Nakamura to eat lunch. It's on the pricey side for ramen, but I love their ox tail ramen.
Ox tail shio ramen with fried rice
I then headed over to the expo at the Hawaii Convention Center. I picked up my bib, timing chip, and bag. I'm not sure who designed the graphics for the official souvenirs, but they were downright ugly. There was only one that was worth buying, but I passed. As with the years prior, there was nothing much to see.
Honolulu Marathon expo
No trouble here
Drawstring bag from Docomo, Japanese cell service
I left the expo and headed over to my hotel, Hawaiian Monach Hotel, located at 444 Niu Street. I think I only saw one other Asian at this hotel during my entire stay. I'm guessing there was too many 4's in the address. 4 sounds like death in Japanese and Chinese, so it's a very unlucky number to have so many 4's. :) My room was pretty spacious. However the bed was old and lumpy. It had an old CRT TV with a gigantic remote, a microwave oven, and a small fridge. It also had a nice view of the Ala Wai.
Lumpy bed
Microwave oven and an old CRT TV
Big TV remote
Fridge
Restroom
Ala Wai
For dinner, I walked over to Gomaichi Ramen to eat another bowl of ramen. However they were closed and had a sign up that said their noodle cooker was broken. So instead I had to go to plan B and walk over to the Ala Moana Center to eat at Goma Tei Ramen. I ordered their popular tan tan ramen and tatsutaage. The portions were pretty big. The ramen wasn't bad, but the fried chicken wasn't good. On the way back, I stopped by the nearby Walmart to stock the fridge with some drinks for the weekend.
Tan tan ramen
Tatsutaage
Friday
My Maniac friend, David, picked me up to go visit the USS Arizona Memorial since it was the 71st Anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. There was a huge ceremony.
USS Arizona Memorial
I love black German Shepherds
After the ceremony, we drove over to Mitch's Fish Market for an early lunch. I ordered their sashimi special. They had some of the freshest fish that I'd ever tasted anywhere. I would've ordered the Chef's Special for $75 but you need to have at least 2 orders and my friend wasn't ready to drop that kind of money for lunch.
Mitch's Fish Market
Sashimi special
We went to the airport to pickup his wife before driving over to Da Kitchen to eat some more. I ordered two appetizers, the shrimp shumai and their famed fried spam musubi. The shrimp shumai was way too dainty. Don't bother ordering it. The musubi was very tasty, but they used way too much rice for such a thin slice of spam. The appertizers were good enough to tide me over to dinner.
Fried spam musubi
For dinner, we ate with a bunch of Marathon Maniacs from Singapore. We ate at one of our favorite places, Side Street Inn. Most people that have eaten here will agree that their Kim Chee fried rice is the best out there. No, it's not Korean style, but a Hawaiian fusion style. The plate is big enough for two people, but I was able to finish it all on my own. I also ordered the spicy garlic chicken, but I was only able to eat the salad and a few pieces before having to take the rest to go.
Kim Chee fried rice
Saturday
In the morning, I polished off the remaining spicy garlic chicken. Mmmmm mmmmm, good! For lunch, I walked over to the nearby Yotteko-ya to eat another bowl of ramen. I got there around 11:30am when they should've opened, but for whatever reason, they didn't open until 12pm. There was a nice line of hungry people outside the restaurant waiting to get in. Once they opened, I sat at the counter. The solo waitress was really scrambling around to get to everybody. When she finally got to me, I ordered the ebi mayonnaise and the kakuni paitan ramen.
Prevents aging of skin and joints!
Ebi mayonnaise
Kakuni paitan ramen
After lunch, I swung by Don Quijote to maybe buy some snacks. They sell a lot of nice Japanese snacks here. But I ended up just buying some coconut water. I then walked over to the Hawaii Convention Center to check out the expo again. I then went back to my hotel room to relax. I came back out later that evening to eat some dinner. I walked over to the Zippy's at the Ala Moana Center. It was pretty hard to find since it was tucked inside Sears near their automotive department. I ordered their Zip Pac and a large Orange Bang. The Zip Pac has chicken, fish, teriyaki beef, spam, white rice sprinkled with furikake, and a slice of takuwan. Good stuff!
I laid out my race gear before going to sleep. I think I had a red, white, and black theme going on here.
Zip Pac and Orange Bang
Race gear
Sunday
Since I stayed closer to the starting line this year, I walked over to the Ala Moana Beach Park instead of taking the bus from Kapiolani Park. I headed over to the not-so-secret beach restrooms near the starting line. It seems to be more crowded each year. It's still better than using the portapotties. After meeting up with my friend, we headed over to the tennis courts for the Marathon Maniacs pre-race photo. Since I was not wearing the MM colors, I didn't jump into the picture. Instead I headed over to the starting area to get into the crowd of runners itching to start the race. I didn't bother pushing my way to the very front.
2008: 4:49:34
2009: Did not run
2010: 5:00:33
2011: 6:04:05
Goal A: 4:30
Goal B: sub 5 hrs
Starting line
The Race
The first mile felt smooth and easy. But I decided to slow it down over the next two miles to prevent overheating and also I definitely do not have the endurance to hold that pace for many miles. It felt hot already and the sun hadn't come out yet. I eventually settled into a 9-10 min mile pace. There wasn't too much crowd support in the first few miles. But we got some at the Ala Moana Center and a lot running through Waikiki. Miles 8 through 9 had some nice dark climbs up Diamond Head. Then we got on the Kalanianaole Highway to be on our way to Hawaii Kai.
1: 8:06
2: 8:33
3: 9:12
4: 9:19
5: 9:14
6: 8:59
7: 9:51
8-9: 19:32 (9:46)
10: 10:36
11: 9:57
12: 9:58
13: 10:39
Half: 2:05:00
For the second half, I took my extra walking breaks, took my time and enjoyed the race as much as I could. There was some nice views out at Hawaii Kai. My pace slowed down a bit during the gentle uphills as my legs started feeling like they were filled with lead. After running back up Diamond Head towards mile 25, we got treated to a nice view of the ocean. Then it was all downhill to Kapiolani Park and the long straightaway towards the finish line. The finishing chute for this race is one of the best out of all of the marathons that I've run.
14: 11:17
15: 12:13
16: 11:53
17: 11:43
18: 12:23
19: 11:26
20: 12:42
21: 13:02
22: 13:28
23: 14:05
24-25: 26:50 (13:25)
26: 10:49
26.2: 1:54
Finish: 4:47:44
Post-race
I was very satisfied with my run. It was rough, but I can't wait to come back again. Having run this race 3 other times really helped. It's always a bit easier when you know what to expect. I picked up my puka shell necklace and bumped into some of my friends. After taking a picture with them, I just wanted to get back to my hotel which was many blocks away. Apparently just like last year, I bypassed the line for the malasadas. I made a beeline for the finisher's shirt and medal. Along the way I got in line to take a picture with a hula girl. They also gave us a cloth that could be used for a bandana just for taking a picture. This year they gave us a medal instead of the usual keychain. The medal was nice, but I prefer the keychain. After picking up the shirt and the medal, I headed out on my long hike back to my hotel. With this being my fourth year, I knew that the best way to get back was by cutting over to Kuhio Avenue and Ala Wai Blvd where there was significantly less foot traffic.
Annual photo with the hula girl
Finisher medal, puka shell necklace, shirt, cloth
After I got cleaned up and took a little nap, I met up with my Hawaiian friends for some post race beers and food at Pint + Jigger. I had a Deschutes Chain Breaker, Gösser Dark, Merry Mischief, and Deschutes Jubelale. For food I got the beer braised brats. Afterwards, my friend dropped me off at the Big City Diner at the Ward where I met up with my international Marathon Maniac friends to eat another dinner. Since I had eaten already, I only ate some of the fried rice from one of the Maniacs. The fried rice was good enough that I will need to come back here to eat an appropriate meal.
Annual photo with Ryan
Beer braised brats
Monday
Maniac David picked up me and the Maniacs from Singapore to go on a "recovery" hike up the Koko Crater Railway Trail. As usual I went out up the stairs too hard and had to sit down about 3/4 of the way up and drink my coconut water. I guess I was pretty tired from the marathon the day before. It was pretty windy up at the top, but we were treated to some gorgeous views. Going down was pretty scary as my right ankle was already sore from the marathon plus I had worn a very worn-out pair of shoes. Also wearing cargo shorts was not ideal for this kind of hike. On top of that I didn't wear my belt so it kept sliding down. This wasn't my idea of a recovery activity, but I was glad that I went. If I hadn't gone, I would've just stayed in my hotel watching TV.
Koko Crater Railway Trail
Only halfway up... too late to go back
View of Hawaii Kai from the top
Hanauma Bay
Other side of the crater... Hawaii Kai Golf Course
On our way back, we stopped by McDonald's to eat lunch. I got my usual 20 piece chicken McNuggets and a taro pie. I'm not too sure where else in the world you can get a taro pie at a McDonald's. It was pretty good, very similar to an apple pie, but not as sweet. It appealed to the Asian in me. :)
Chicken McNuggets!
Taro pie
Before we went back to our hotels to shower, we stopped by the Kapiolani Park to pick up our finisher's certificate. I forgot to bring my bib, so they had to look it up and write it on a piece of paper. They won't take your word for it even though you had a picture of your bib on your phone!
Finisher certificate
After getting cleaned up, we were all picked up again and headed out to Kahuku for some garlic shrimp. Along the way, we made quick stops at the Halona Blow Hole and the Chinaman's Hat. My friend really likes the shrimp from Romy's Kahuku Prawns & Shrimp shack over Giovanni's Shrimp Truck, so that's where he took us. I got the garlic butter shrimp just as they were about to close up shop. We had to get our orders from the back of the shack since they had already closed up the front after taking our orders. They were pretty delicious, but next time I'll want to try the famous and heavily hyped shrimp from Giovanni's.
Chinaman's Hat
Romy's Kahuku Prawns and Shrimp Shack
Garlic butter shrimp
We stopped by Leonard's Bakery, where my friends got some malasadas. But I passed since I'm not fond of sweets. For a late dinner, we drove out to Chinatown to eat a bowl of ramen at the Lucky Belly. Chinatown doesn't look very nice or safe late at night. It turned out that this place was an Asian fusion restaurant which explained why the ramen didn't taste like any traditional bowl of ramen. The belly bowl that I got was dominated by the smoked pork. Even the broth tasted very smoky. I also ordered the shrimp gyoza. They were pretty large and was topped with edamame purée. Definitely not your run of the mill Japanese gyoza. They were very tasty. I think they should give you more than just 3 pieces.
Lucky Belly
Shrimp gyoza with edamame purée
Belly Bowl
Finishing up the big bowl
Tuesday
After 5 nights of food-filled fun, it was time to go home and get back to work. But before making my way to the airport for a late afternoon flight, I had to go get one last bowl of ramen. So after packing up and checking out of the hotel. I hiked it over to Menchanko Tei. It was getting kind of hot having to carry all of my stuff with me, but it actually started to sprinkle just as I got to the restaurant. I ordered their Seafood Menchanko ramen and the mentai gohan. This bowl was much different from the ramen that I normally eat. It was a nabe style and it was loaded with seafood. I love seafood! The mentai gohan was good as well, but then again it's not something that you can really mess up.
Seafood Menchanko Ramen
After eating, I hiked it over to the bus stop at the Ala Moana Center to catch the bus to the airport. As usual it was a crowded hour long bus ride. Luckily I was able to get a seat. We flew on an Airbus 330 for the flight back home. Fortunately for me, unlike the Boeing 767, this plane had individual TV screens. They also had an USB port for me to charge my phone.
Aloha ʻOe... until we meet again!
Time to go home
Yay for individual TV!
2 comments:
Ramen overload!
Taro pie... why didn't I know about that when I was there for my honeymoon?!
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