Hawaii Day Ten – Aquarium and Shopping

We did a few things today: Visit to Diamond Head Crater, the Waikiki Aquarium, and then shopping at the Waikele Premium Outlets. We didn’t actually plan to go up Diamond Head Crater initially, but since we were going to be driving past it, we thought why not just stop for a few moments. It does cost $5 per car to go in, according to a sign post at the bottom on the trail doing up. It turned out that the car park at the top was full, so we couldn’t go in anyway. We turned back and stopped somewhere along the way to look around and take some photos.

We were high enough to get pretty good views of the city below. I don’t know exactly what we might get to see had we actually paid the $5, parked the car, and explored the crater. But it was good where we were without having to pay anything. ($5 isn’t much anyway.)

Next stop was the Waikiki Aquarium. It’s really small and unimpressive if you compare it to something like the Underwater World we have at Sentosa. But like the many other things we did, I guess this is for the kids. There are a few outdoor exhibits, the largest being the Hawaiin monk seals. Most of the exhibits are indoors. They had giant clams here, so huge that I couldn’t recognize them as clams initially. The jellyfish were pretty too. But many of them had their super long tentacles all tangled up. I wonder if they know how to undo the mess on their own, or if anyone (i.e. the aquarium staff) helps to untangle them.

I’m wondering if the Sea Life Park Hawaii might have been a more interesting visit, but we were told the Waikiki Aquarium was better. Perhaps it depends on that you want to see or do.

In the afternoon, we headed over to the Waikele Premium Outlets. This is probably the main adult activity for me. For those of you who haven’t been to the US to shop, this is where you get all the branded goods at discounted prices. I’ve learnt that sometimes the prices aren’t a whole lot cheaper than those you get in the regular downtown shopping malls, but there are other items that are really cheap. At any rate, they are a whole lot better than in Singapore. Take Levi’s jeans for example. The same pair that lists at over S$200 here, and which probably gets discounted to S$130 or so during Great Singapore Sales or other promotions, goes for something like US$25. Really cool. I bought some Levi’s tees at 2 for US$20, so that’s just S$14 per tee. The Wife got plenty of clothes for the kids. The kid’s clothes at Carter’s start at US$3.99. It’s a pity we didn’t have more time to browse though all the shops there.

I think, new clothes for the coming CNY should be quite settled.