I’m flying home right now so I have some time to reflect on the amazing time I had in Hawaii this year. This is the first time I went island hopping on a trip. It’s a little more moving around, but definitely quite exciting! It’s been a long and wonderful vacation filled with lots of learning, eating, adventures, and quality time with friends!

Here were some of my trip’s highlights:

• Spending a lot of time with my cousin Ed when Albert & I first arrived on the island.
• Eating at all of Ed’s favorite places on Oahu — Zenchu, Zippy’s, Sanoya Rahmen, and more..
• Meeting my Twitter friends face-to-face at the Hulaween Tweetup!
• Social Media – Having my Twitter / Facebook / BrightKite / DailyBooth / Foursquare / Gowalla / Posterous friends follow me on my vacation! Sorry about the excessive posts, but it means a lot to me that you all came along virtually! I loved all the suggestions and advice you’ve given me on this trip. You’re welcomed to virtually come along anytime! :)
• Rethink Tweetup – This was just geektastic! Christine Lu and the [Re]Think Hawaii crew could put together quite a gathering! I met so many geeks on the island that night. Loved it!
• Flight over Kauai – This was the best adventure on this vacation. The Garden Island is so amazing from up above – away from all the cars and buildings and just being a bird flying over nature. The view was quite magnificent.
• Hiking in Waimea Canyon in Kauai – It was like seeing a mini Grand Canyon with rainbows!
• Hiking up Kalalau Trail – The view is amazing! Look down and you see the beach and ocean waves. Look up and you see green trees, waterfalls, mountains, and more!
• Amazing hotel view in Oahu – the sunset from the room was amazing. Sunrise is just as beautiful.
• Dinner with Nathan at Street Side Inn
• Dinner with Gypsy at Akasaka Sushi
• Learning how to make mochi with Renee from Happy Hearts Mochi!
• Taking amazing photos of sunsets.
• Visiting a cute scrapbook store called Pineapple Cove!
• Kayaking in Kailua Beach Park – We started late, so we only got to Flat Island, but it was so much fun kayaking in the ocean!
• Eating Shave Ice everyday!
• and so much more..

This has been a great experience and memorable trip! I can’t wait to browse though all the 60 gigs of photos and scrapbook them all (well.. most!) Pineapple Cove, I might need your help! :)

Hawaii, Aloha for now.. but I’ll be back!

Daynah & ManLe at Pineapple Cove – Photo Taken by Albertech on iPhone

Everytime I go traveling, I try to stop by local scrapbook stores to pick up a few special things I can’t find at home. Of course, this trip to Hawaii is no exception!

I was unsure about where to start, so I asked on Twitter where the best scrapbook store in Oahu was. @TweetPea sent me a link to Joscie’s “Scrapbooking in Hawaii list” and I couldn’t be more happy! Going down the list, I fell in love with the store named “Pineapple Cove.”

At the Rethink Hawaii Tweetup, I was asking people about local scrapbook stores, and I someone sent a tweet out about my question, and again, I was pointed to Pineapple Cove! Wow, now I really HAVE to visit this place!

Well, I’m finally at the store, and I have to say, it’s a pretty big place full of scrapbook and crafting goodies! There are tons of paper, stickers, wooden cutouts, albums, diecuts, and much, much more! I picked up a few Hello Kitty Sizzix Diecuts, wooden flowers, and a few other things. I was quite happy! :)

Although the shopping part was fun, the best part was probably meeting ManLe, the store owner of Pineapple Cove. She’s the sweetest and nicest person ever. She was teaching me all kinds of scrapbook techniques and giving me ideas for projects… that believe it or not, I can’t wait to go home to start working on.

I spent hours in the store, just learning about techniques, chatting about scrapbooking, Twitter, and other social media topics. I know staying in a store for a few hours is not something people do on their vacation, but this was a slice of heaven for me. If you love crafting and you’re in Oahu, be sure to check out Pineapple Cove! I’ll definitely be back on my next trip!

Flying in a small plane over Kauai has to be one the most adventurous things I’ve ever done, not to mention my favorite activity (so far) in Kauai! The view from above was amazingly breath-taking!

My husband and I did a drive around the island yesterday, and hiked up to a few parts of Kauai… but seeing it from above puts it in a whole new perspective! I can’t say it enough.. it’s simply amazing!

It rained a lot yesterday, which is why we booked the flight for today. I’m so glad we did because we saw waterfalls everywhere!

We came prepared with cameras of course, and got the most amazing photos from up above. You can see all the beautiful coastlines and beaches, as well as the vast vegetation and discover the hidden world on the mountainous tops of Kauai. Hundreds of different bird species live up here and the wettest place in the exists here as well.

If you ever get the chance to come to Kauai, I highly recommend a plane ride above the island. The best time is on a clear afternoon, right after a few days of rainfall. It’s such a wonderful treat for your eyes!

We flew on AirVentures and had such a fabulous time. The staff is really nice and helpful, and they make sure they take a photo of you with the plane before taking off, and that you’re comfortable on the flight.

More photos from the SLR, Canon Powershot, and the iPhone 3Gs when I get back.

I had a great time at the [RE]Think Hawaii Tweetup tonight. It was geektastic! Christine Lu and the ReThink Hawaii Crew put together an amazing event. I had the opportunity to meet so many fantastic geeks there that I hope to see again soon.

Photos taken by Albertech. Above is Renee from Happy Hearts Mochi, Chris Pirillo, Traci Toguchi, and me. To the right is Renee, Christine Lu, and me.

After mochi-making, Ed dropped us off at the car rental place, and we went around, exploring what the island has to offer.

Dinner at Zenshu sounded really good! We ordered Sushi platter, which had 6 of the freshest sushi of the day, and the Halloween Roll, which was perfect because it was Halloween! For dessert, we had green tea ice cream. Yum.

I give this place 5 out of 5 stars! Great service, delicious food, and great deals.

I got a special treat today. Actually, I MADE a special treat today! Happy Hearts Mochi was kind enough to teach Nerd’s Eye View, Albert, Ed, and I, how to make mochi from scratch! That’s not something I’ve done in Hawaii before!

It was so much fun and somewhat messy at the same time. We made the peanut butter and beans mochi. And got to taste the pumpkin, strawberry, and haupia (coconut) ones. The strawberry ones were definitely my favorite!

Renee, thanks so much for teaching us the ways of Happy Hearts Mochi! We’ll be back soon!

p.s. Don’t worry, we ate all the ones we made. So you’re only going to buy the professional ones made by Happy Hearts Mochi. ;)

One thing I love to do when traveling is organize Tweetups so I can meet my twitter friends! And going to Hawaii is no different. We had a “Hulaween” Lunch Tweetup on Saturday, Oct. 31st. It’s a good thing that it was on a Saturday because all the kids were able to attend.

We had lunch at Nico’s at Pier 38, which is a favorite place of ours ever since @hawaii introduced it to us last year! Anything with the seared ahi is good!

It was such a nice and friendly tweetup group. 19 people attended (more came after this photo was taken). More photos to come (after I’m back from my vacation).

p.s. This photo should be on Hawaii IRL! :)

Vacation is finally here! Albert and I left for LAX in the afternoon to catch our flight to Honolulu. Traffic was amazingly non-existent, and on a Friday afternoon too!

I love Hawaiian Airlines. It’s one of the few airlines that still serves food on their flights! My 5-hour flight was pretty enjoyable. Before I knew it, we landed in Honolulu already!

Ed was sweet enough to pick us from the airport when we landed, and took us out for dinner at Sanoya Rahmen. The service here was a bit slow, the food here was definitely worth the wait. The portions were huge, and slowly, but surely, I finished my bowl of ramen!

Before heading back to the hotel, we stopped by the biggest Safeway on the island to pick up some snacks. We had to pick up some POG (Passion, orange, guava juice) while we were at it! It’s a favorite of ours, along with the Hawaiian sun drinks.

We then checked into Aqua Pearl Waikiki and called it a night. It’s right on the other side of the International Market. So if you like shopping, it’s within walking distance to all the little shops. But since it’s close in town, it’s a bit on the noisy side as well.

First night in paradise.. and we can’t wait for tomorrow’s Tweetup! Going to see a lot of friends at Nico’s at Pier 38!

Day 7.. We woke up early to finish packing and checked out of the hotel. And then headed to North Shore again. We liked this area. We stopped by the Dole Plantation to do some shopping. Anything you can imagine in pineapple — you can find here! Candy, t-shirts, stuffed toys, keychains, and ice cream! I only stopped by the store, but there was enough for me to play with that I was quite happy!

The front of the Plantation looks lovely!

And I love the stuffed toys!

Hello Kitty Tour by me. haha

Pineapple ice cream is so yum!

For lunch, we had to stop by the locals’ favorite, Ted’s Bakery. I had the Mahi Mahi dish and Albert had Ted’s Bento box. They were both quite delicious. I suggest getting both! Bento box if you like variety. After lunch, I tweeted where I was and asked for dessert suggestions. Everyone tweeted back and told me to get the Chocolate Haupia pie. Done. And what a great choice that was!

We drove around a bit and ended up on Turtle Bay Cove. It was a cloudy day, so I opted to stay on the beach and playing in the sand. Albert went snorkeling but he couldn’t see much in the water. Too cloudy.

It started getting late, so we headed back to Waikiki. I had one more stop to make before heading home! I briefly ran pass the new Waikiki Apple Store..

Yes, I had to go to the second location of Paper Island! I was in heaven! So many papers and scrappy stuff!

The store manager even gave me a tour of her store! I bought a few things and we then rushed to dinner.

I was meeting up with Ed and Neenz for dinner, so I didn’t want to be late.

We arrived at Longhi’s and had an amazing dinner with Ed, Neenz, and Noe.

Can you believe Ed made all of this earlier this morning? Yummy. I love desserts! Couldn’t choose one, so I ate them all. haha

Had had a wonderful 3-hour dinner! So much to talk about.. and so sad to leave. We hesitantly left. Our flight was leaving in about 45 minutes.. so we were a bit worried. We returned the car, and arrived a few minutes before the plane was about to take off! Whew.

Aloha Oahu. I’ll see you again soon..

Day 6.. My husband and I went searching for Paper Island because that was one of the places I wanted to go on our visit. Our wonderful GPS took us in circles all morning. We even ended up driving around Chinatown, and no scrapbook store in site. We eventually found the Honolulu store after making a few 360′s and wrong turns. It was a lot smaller than I imagined. After talking to the store manager, it turns out that this is their card and invitation location. The bigger store is actually in Waikiki (where I was at!) haha I had a great chat with the store manager though. Very friendly people. He even gave me a small tour of his store. Check out the clip.

A tour with Jarred from Paper Island, Honolulu location.

After my scrapbook adventure, we headed over to meet my Twitter friend, Ryan at Nico at Pier 38 for a Tweetup! It was so nice to finally meet him and his friends (my new friends!)

We talked about all sorts of things, from cameras, to the best snorkeling spots, to iphones and web development. Loved it!

The funniest part was when we were all asking each other our Twitter names. And DragonAl said, it’s Dragonal, but no one follows me. And every whipped out their iphone and said, “we’ll take care of that!” LOL

Here’s a short clip of the Tweetup. I took while Hawaii was Qikking us.

Twitter friends at the Tweetup: Hawaii, PineappleJuice, Bytemarks, Tadasauce, NctrnlBst, JPhilipson, DragonAl, and I!

We had such a lovely 2-hour lunch. Too bad everyone had to get back to work! There was a Costco nearby, so we stopped by to see if they had any unique Hawaiian goodies. The fresh poke and other goodies were among the many unique things! Too bad we just had lunch.

I did find these sets of rubber stamps! I was pretty sure the mainland had them.. but didn’t want to risk not having them in case they didn’t. So I bought a set!

We went looking for the beach behind the Ko Olina Beach Resort. It’s in such a nice area! There’s not much parking, but we were lucky enough to find a spot. I really loved the chairs and umbrellas on the beach! There’s some great snorkeling spots as well. I just took it easy and relaxed here for a few hours. The sound of the ocean waves were so peaceful and the area is quite secluded.

It was close to 4:30pm, so we decided to start driving back. We stopped by the Ed & Don’s factory to get some candy, but they were closed. I figured the nearest Kmart may sell the candy, so we stopped there. Sure enough, there were rows and rows of this candy!

After shopping, we headed back to our Waikiki hotel and started packing our things. So sad to know we only have one more day here.

For more photos from Oahu Day 6