Honolulu - The Disney World of Hawaii

Last month, I got the opportunity to go to Hawaii for 5 days. Malibu Ken was there taking part in a conference for his field. He actually was a presenter, which is pretty fancy when it comes to these types of conferences because you have to first do research on something only smart people would know about. Then you have to write a paper on some really nerdy topic, and then you have to be chosen to present it  (don't ask me what the topic was about, cause I have no clue)... So proud of him! Anyway, on the last day of the conference, I rescued him from nerdom, and we stayed an additional 4 more days in Honolulu. 
We did a lot of research before our trip, and so we figured this out early on, but if you're going to Honolulu, just expect to be a tourist while you're there. Honolulu is very tourist-y... Just embrace it... go with it.   Everything from 3 Coach stores all within a 1 mile stretch to mega hotels along the beach to the ABC stores (like 7-11) selling Hawaii trinkets on every single block lets you know you this place caters to tourists. Overall we ended up having a really great time, but I think it was because we came prepared to both be a tourist and also to "go off the grid", if you will, for a part of the time when we'd had enough. 
So here in no particular order are the must dos when you find yourself in Honolulu. 


A Luau
We chose Germaine's Luau from learning that it was featured on Diners Drive Ins and Dives through our internet research. This was the activity where I most embraced my inner tourist. First of all,  a gigantic tour bus comes to pick you up from your hotel, and you along with the other 75 tourists on your bus are harassed entertained by your tour guide named "Kali" who is quite possibly the worst comedian ever. But you roll with it because you are being held captive on your way to the luau, so you just laugh at with him. 

Here we are on the bus

Once you get to the Luau, you take in the view of the ocean cause golly it's real nice. At that point, you are forced to get your picture taken by the luau queen. And then (THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT), you then ask another nice couple to take your picture with your camera in that same position because it is a real nice picture. And also because the picture the luau queen took for you will be printed out in an 8x10 and presented to you for purchase for $20 on the return ride home. Since you have already gotten the same picture with your own camera, under no circumstances should you feel enticed to purchase an 8x10 picture of yourself on the beach... What is this the Superman ride at Six Flags?! And seriously, who needs an 8x10 of this?

Then you sit down to the community table and meet your new friends! Did I forget to mention this luau has about 500 tourists in attendance? We were lucky to be sitting across from some temporary natives (a military guy and his wife), so obvi we take the opportunity to ask them about the hot restaurants in Honolulu... How could I have known that was a recipe for disaster?  Because we were pointed to (and I quote) "a real authentic Italian restaurant, called Buca Di Beppo". No I'm not kidding. 

Here's our table. How much do you dig those necklaces?

Okay moving onto the food... it's what you came here for right? Wrong. No, you did not come here for the food cause if you did you would be seriously disappointed. Don't get me wrong, it was fine. Fine. We'll get to Hawaiian food later, don't you worry. The luau people do however cook the pig in the ground with a bunch of hot stones, and they ceremoniously unveil the roasted pig (and also remove the burning coals with their bare hands, without the aid of so much as an oven mitt)... that part was cool. What you really want to come here for is the show. It's sort of like being on a cruise, but I'd say the level of entertainment is better. Impressive actually. At one point there was a fire dancer... And those Hawaiian dancers, I don't know how someone moves their hips like that. The show was definitely worth it. 

And that's all I have to say about Germaine's. 


Real Hawaiian Food
I alluded to good food in the last section. If you want to know what good Hawaiian food tastes like, go to Ono Hawaiian Foods. It's a little off the beaten path (we had to take our rental car there), but it's sooo worth it. It's the kind of place where a line queues up outside, and the waiter sticks his head out every so often and is like "I'll take the next 2". You get inside, where there's less than 10 tables, and you basically just eat what they bring you, love every minute of it, pay with cash, and then get the heck out of there so some poor chump that's been waiting outside can have his turn. We learned about this place from Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations. Go there. 


Acai Bowl
This stuff is like crack. I ate it 3 out of the 4 mornings I was there. I wouldn't have tried it unless Malibu Ken suggested getting the most healthy thing on the coffee shop menu (love that hippie). I'm so glad I did though. It's basically the acai berry (which has some kind of unicorn powers and cures cancer or something) blended up with strawberries and other goodness into a thick smoothie consistency and topped with sliced banana and granola. I literally could. not. stop. eating these things. 

Also, I had mine with a delicious macadamia nut latte... BEST BREAKFAST EVER.

Helicopter Tour of the Island
My boyfriend is sent from heaven as an angel of love and got this for me for my birthday. It rocked my socks off. Everyone should get the chance to experience this in their lifetime. 

This is Malibu Ken's 'boyfriend of the year' face and I am happy because I'm in a helicopter

Go Snorkeling in Hanauma Bay
Everyone (even the Buca Di Bepo lady) says Hanauma Bay is the place to go snorkeling. It's basically an inlet that has tons of coral reefs and lots of wild life. A lot of tourists go there, but the park people do a really good job of keeping the park clean and the waters pristine. We saw bunches of colorful fish and would have probably seen more if I didn't get scared of scraping myself on the coral whenever we got too close. It's definitely a great experience, and I highly recommend it as a must do. 

This is the bay

Here we are on the beach where you do your snorkeling. Look at that water!

Watch the Sunset
We finally were able to enjoy the sunset on our last night. We were so busy doing other things the rest of the time that we missed it on every other day. We watched it from the pier on the Hilton Waikiki resort property. It's just one of those things you must do. Let the pictures tell you why. 

You should also schedule a sunset watch because you'll have really good lighting for pictures of yourself and your handsome boyfriend.

In the end, I'm glad I had the opportunity to go to Hawaii. It was a first for me, and it's sort of a once in a lifetime thing, and hey, it may be my last. You never know... I'd definitely like to visit Maui or one of the other islands if it works out. I hear it's not as touristy, which is more our style...


Peace, love, and Mia Tais,
Engineeringirl

Thrifty Travels - How to save big on vacations and still feel like a high roller

Lately I've been doing a lot of traveling. This is due to the fact that my boyfriend, Malibu Ken, lives 1500 miles away. We manage to see each other about once each month, however this adds up to mega traveling. I've just completed my first trip where my airfare was fully paid for via frequent flier miles, so I feel like I now am officially an expert on the subject of travel. Let me share.

See, I'm clearly a trustworthy traveler... I take cheesy tourist photos in front of  Rodeo Drive signs in Beverly Hills, you should definitely trust me....

When people think about traveling, they mostly consider the major expense of airline tickets and hotels, and yes, this is expensive, but there are many other "gotcha" expenses that get added in. Airport parking, travel to and from the airport, meals out, convenience items at the airport or on the plane, and travel accessories are just a few of the extra costs of travel.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about the costs incurred from traveling to see my honey. Did I mention, he travels just as much (if not more frequently) to see me. Plus it doesn't hurt that I get to travel to sunny Southern California to spend time with him. Not to mention that we both are lucky to live in big cities, so we get to plan to do some really neat things duirng our visits. And we have both been blessed with great jobs that allow us to carry on with this lifestyle. But with all those bonuses, it's important that we handle our finances with care. We certainly look forward to many years together, and after this special time period of 'jet setting' is over, then I hope we have done a good job of using our money wisely and preparing for our future together. So after all that rambling, here are some tips we have learned in the last year. 


Pick an airline and stick with it. My bff of the moment is Southwest (and no, Southwest is not paying me to promote them... I don't think that 18 followers on Google reader really constitutes this blog as worthy of paid advertising). For flights from HOU-LAX, we quickly learned that Southwest was the consistently the best value for our money, and with pretty frequent direct flights, no baggage fees, and flights from HOU instead of IAH (which is farther for me), they are the big winners in my book. When I first started dating Malibu Ken, I made the mistake of searching Expedia and booking a trip with Delta, and although I don't have anything against Delta, I wish I would have flown that trip with Southwest, adding to my airline miles. Because... After about a year of faithfully flying Southwest, I earned a free ticket! Imagine me rollin' through the airport with my hard side flower print spinner carry on... I'm all "High roller right here folks, coming through..." 
No not really (maybe a little bit). 

I thought you would want to know what my carry on looked like, so here it is (the one with the aqua flowers). I know you all want one now, so it's from Overstock. 

Plan Ahead. This is pretty much the theme of all savings tips. But it really really pays off when it comes to air travel. I'm signed up for the Southwest weekly emails announcing sales and deals, and like the deal stalker that I am, I check every. single. one. of those dang emails and perform a search from their website looking for the flight I'm interested in. This requires us to plan about 3 months in advance for all our trips and requires us to re-book flights sometimes 2 or 3 times before we actually ever make the trip, as sales sometimes fluctuate and prices continue to drop (another reason I like Southwest - no fees to re-book). In the end, we average about $230 per trip on airfare. For a 1500 mile direct flight, I'm thinking that's not too shabby. 
Planning ahead pays off when it comes to hotels too. We end up staying in hotels a fair amount. Not in Houston obvi, but when we I visit LA, because it makes more sense to stay in the city where all the action is instead of the desert where Malibu Ken lives, and there isn't even a Starbucks (sorry babe, you know I love LA). We've also gotten the unique opportunity to be able to meet up with each other when one of us is on a business trip in a cool place like Savannah or San Francisco. We typically extend the trip for a few days for the actual visit since one of us is working (duh, it's a business trip). So this also requires us to book a hotel. We usually book the hotels pretty far in advance as well. I'll get into that process a little later. 


Do your research. Also, another common tip for thrify-ness. This comes into play mostly in the hotel arena. Here is our scheme. We go on hotels.com and sort on the hotels in the area we want to stay based on "guest rating". We find that the traveler reviews are better indicators than stars just because they are real people's reviews based on real experiences, not how many restaurants are inside the hotel or some other random point system that is used to determine how hotels get their stars. From the list sorted best to worst traveler reviews, I skip over the hotels that are out of our price range and open up each hotel in our price range starting from the one with the best ratings. The key here is to find the happy medium between price and and rating. When reading the reviews, I look for things like free parking, free breakfast, free coffee, free internet, noise level, cleanliness level, and customer service. When selecting a hotel, beware of fees for extras like internet and parking. When comparing hotels, choosing one that includes these things can save up to $50 per night.  I also look for manager responses to the reviews. It is a good sign when the hotel manager takes a moment to read the reviews and respond to the comments. 

As you can see hotels with virtually the same guest ratings have prices that vary greatly

Don't be afraid to ask. Once we have narrowed down the hotel we'd like, Malibu Ken makes a call to the hotel's direct line and asks to book the hotel at the same price they've advertised on hotels.com. (He takes such good care of me) We do this because we want to protect ourselves if plans change. Hotels are non-refundable or have a penalty fee for cancellations if booked from Expedia or hotels.com. So just in case something happens, we'd like to avoid these charges. 100% of the time, and sometimes after negotiating a bit (thanks, babe), we get the deal listed on the discount site. So far, we've never had to cancel, but you never know what can happen. 



Sign up for ALL the rewards memberships. Hotels, airlines, rental cars... ALL of them. And make sure your membership is tied to your reservation prior to your trip. I'm not particularly married to any particular hotel chain, especially because hotel prices vary so much. I just feel it's best to cover all my bases. We got a free night in Ventura (near the biggest outlet mall of my life) last year which we paid for by combining our hotel membership points for that certain hotel chain. We've learned our lesson by not doing this one or two times, thinking "oh when am I going to stay in a Doubletree again?". And I'm still kicking myself when I realized that I did indeed stay in a Hilton again on another trip. 
Another perk of the memberships is you get little freebies here and there.... free water bottles at check in etc. It's not a lot, but hey, who doesn't enjoy a free water bottle after a long flight?
Another place where this paid off big time was at airport parking. I use the preflight parking garage at HOU (there is also one at IAH) and get rewarded with 1 free day for every 5 days spent parked. Over the last year or so, I've earned 374 points, which equates to 9 free days of parking (about a $72 savings).


Sign up for Groupon and Living Social. As soon as you know you'll be visiting a city, sign up for  the Groupon and Living Social deals of the day. Sure, your inbox will be flooded with daily deals, and you'll spend about 5 minutes every morning sorting through them, but it's totally worth it. Have you caught on yet? SAVING MONEY TAKES TIME. Oh you wanted to save tons of money without having to lift a finger? That's super interesting because I'd really like to lose 10 pounds without ever having to exercise or watch what I eat...
So anyway, Malibu Ken and I have gotten some really sweet deals and enjoyed some very nice meals through these sites. Groupons, coupons, I got 'em all and I'm not afraid to use them!

Dinner in Beverly Hills? Ummm yes please!

So I think I've covered all the major lessons I've learned during this journey. Does anyone have any other tips that I haven't discovered yet?


Peace, Love, and early boarding,
Engineeringirl

Leave it to me to find a coupon for wine

QUICK!! What are two of my favorite things?
Those who know me for a hot minute know that I love a nice glass of wine... sauvignon blanc to be specific. And those know me for about 2 more minutes know that nothing makes me happier than a coupon or a sale. So combine those two and what do we get? 
Wine made of coupons?? No no silly. 
Wine coupons!! 
And who finds coupons for wine? 
THIS GIRL!

Let me take you back to last weekend when Ken and I were planning a nice jaunt up to Sonoma after a work week for me in silicon valley. Like any sane person, I was doing my winery research, and as I was finishing my thesis writing up my findings, I stumbled across a website that advertised wineries and associated coupons. Peeing my pants with excitement, I cross referenced the highlighted wineries that had a coupon with the ones I had already narrowed down to visit (or potentially visit - using a method we'll investigate later in this post). And yes!... Almost every single winery I had on my list also had a coupon!! I texted Malibu Ken (I think he was asleep, oops) with something like OMG I FOUND COUPONS FOR WINERIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!




The weekend is over, and I'm still kind of excited about it. Or at least excited about the fact that we saved a ton of $$


So let me share the method to my madness.
I first started here at Sonoma Tourist Guide. I found the website simply by typing "Sonoma Coupon" into the google search. As always with searching for coupons, be patient and check out at least 6 or so links to find the best coupons. I think this one was found on attempt #4. Anyway, after I discovered it and realized most of the wineries I had already written down had coupons, I just researched each contender, looking for the same criteria:

• Tasting fees
• Winery features (view, picnic area, art gallery etc)
• Winery feel (stuffy, friendly, eclectic, etc)
• Tasting room hours
• Current releases - I mostly like whites so I wanted to make sure the had plenty of those on the tasting menu. You can usually tell by looking at a wineries current releases. If they are low on the whites and have only listed 1 or 2, then you can bet its gonna be slim on the pickins. 
• Wine prices - I like to buy when I visit a winery, so if the cheapest release is $36 for their Chardonnay, then it's going to turn out to be an expensive visit. I like to keep it close to $20 per bottle, and definitely under $30.
• Distribution - Because I like to bring home a few bottles (err... 12), I like to only buy them at the winery if I cannot get them at home. It doesn't make sense to schlepp home a bunch of bottles in my luggage that I can get at the local grocery store. 

So how does one find out this info? Well first, I visit the website Wine Country Getaways, which has suggested wine route tours of many California wine country areas. You basically just find the area you are going to and then figure out which trails will meet your needs. For this trip, we knew we were staying in the southern area of Sonoma, so I just looked at the wineries listed on each of those trails. Then I go to each of the winery websites looking for the above qualities, and as one looks good, I write it down. Next I visit Yelp.com and Tripadvisor.com and read the reviews for the wineries. As I'm reading, I am sure to note all the criteria next to the winery's name. You can get a good feel for the atmosphere by reading the reviews. Keep in mind, just because it's got a lot of stars, if it doesn't have the feeling you're after, then it's not a good fit for you. We like laid back wineries, and so even though some of the wineries had really good ratings, if the overall feel was fancy, then it just wasn't going to be my thing. As wineries make the cut, I either star or double star them. Double star means a for sure visit. One star means it needs to be re-reviewed before it goes on the list. Malibu Ken and I reviewed the stared ones and we made our final selections by highlighting them on the map we had printed out. Whew!
It looked like this when we were through.

Lastly, and most importantly, the coupons were printed out from the links to the coupons on the Sonoma Tourist Guide website I found, or I ensured the wineries were on an app that the website mentioned. An App? Yes, an app for wines. I know, this story keeps getting better...
Anyway, the app's name is Winery Finder, and it's AWESOME. 

This is what it looks like (bottom left corner)

The winery app finds where you are and lists all the wineries  with coupon deals

All I had to do was check in on facebook (per the directions on the coupon) and show the coupon to the winery attendant to get a buy one get one free tasting. At first, I kind of felt like a dork doing it (come to think of it, no I didn't, but I guess I should have), but I saw at least 2 people doing the same thing at one of the wineries on Saturday. Overall, we visited 9 wineries and saved $75 on our tastings. And THAT'S no chump change. 


Anyone out there have any tips on how to save on travel or would like to share their winery searching methods?


Peace, Love, and Tannins,
Engineeringirl

The Doors of Chatham County

A few weeks ago, I got an opportunity to go to Savannah. Malibu Ken was there working, so I decided to meet up with him for a couple days over one of the weekends. Savannah is the most adorable town. It's so quaint and old feeling. There are many historic homes which are labeled by special bronze plaques on the outside of the house, like this one:

Savannah has a very unique town layout with town squares and sidewalks of slate and brick and all kinds of different stones.  

This one with hexagon stones was my favorite.

Sidewalk with a herringbone brick pattern. How chic. And I love the stately double entrance.

In between the homes were the cutest courtyards. The houses were very close together and built up and back. They didn't look huge from the front, but they were several stories high and rather deep. We liked to peak in on the sweet little courtyards.

I wonder who's courtyard is this? I like to imagine the parties that can be thrown here.

The details are my favorite. Look at these cute hinges attached to the brick...

But the most unique pieces of architecture were the doors on the homes and churches.

Love the iron detail on the door and the ivy growing all around

I loved this entrance to a courtyard... Can you see the hidden balcony?

I just had to strike a pose...

This archway with the half moon window was so pretty. Love the bright white trim and the little molding pieces inside the window along with the color combo (navy and creamy yellow)

 Savannah is also known for their historic churches, which were just beautiful. This one was my favorite, and what a great shot!

Who knew my boyfriend was such a talented photog? Just a perfect shot with the horse and carriage in front!



Aren't the windows cool? Look at that swirly glass in the clover shaped windows.

This church had a pretty door too... Do you see the flower shapes carved into them?

This place was just beautiful! I highly recommend Savannah. And lastly, I must cover my favorite subject, food. Here is a picture of us in front of the Old Pink House, the absolute BEST food we had while we were there. Plus no blog is complete without a picture of Malibu Ken and me :)

Cheers and Apple Pie dreams, Engineeringirl

Gone Batty

I'm not sure how I feel about bats... generally I think they're pretty awesome. They eat bugs - A single bat can eat up to 1,200 mosquitoes in one hour! They fly in formation. And they have an acute sense of hearing because they use echolocation to find out where stuff is. Because of these reasons, I wouldn't mind if a bat or two wanted to hang out around my house. They could be my batty little pets. I think Lola would even like them.

eeee... I'm so cute! Let me be your pet!!

But on the other hand, bats are kinda disgusting... Some of them drink blood... gross. Also, some of them have rabies, super nasty. So, I'm on the fence about bats.


Meeeeaahhhh... I want a blood smoothie!!

So remembering my love/hate relationship with bats, I decided to visit a bat phenomenon when I was in Austin Texas last weekend. See the thing is, there are TONS of bats that live under this one bridge in Austin. Out of all of the bridges, they decided to make their home under the Congress Street bridge... no other bridge, just that one. There aren't any stragglers under the bridge next door... nope no bat step children that decided to run away... They're all under that ONE BRIDGE. Here's the deal, they get hungry at night time, and they go looking for food.... little insect snacks. But they go ALL AT THE SAME TIME. All of them... like thousands of them. Word on the street was they fly out around sunset, but I yelped it (I'm doing that now) and I read that the bats aren't really tied to that schedule exactly. So even though sunset was around 7:45pm, Malibu Ken and I headed to the bridge around 7:00.

Follow the bat signs

Just in case the big crowd didn't clue you in, there's bats up ahead

This is the bridge the bats live under. It's all about location with these bats. They had to pick the heart of the city (that's the capital building up ahead)

The crowd is for the bats

The sun was setting...

Here came the tour boats...

These people are about to get bat poop on them...

But the birds knew what up...

They all flew over into the tree so when the bats came out, then wouldn't be in the way. Plus they probably didn't want to get pooped on.

Then we waited... and waited... and waited...

These freaking bats were taking FOR-EV-ER

But around 8:15pm... Then they decided to come out!! In huge bat packs!! They all just started flying out looking for bat snacks. One weird tid bit... It smelled... Kind of like ammonia... That's not really a founded remark but that's what it smelled like to me. Like the smell of  bat BO.



It was kind of tough to get good pictures of the bats, but Malibu Ken did a good job of capturing them as much as possible.

Bat closeup.

Overall, the experience was bat-tastic. But I would recommend showing up a little later, like right at sunset. One thing we didn't end up doing was go to the TRIO bar at the Four Seasons right across from the bridge on the north side of the river. There was a dock down by the bar where you could enjoy your Bat-tini, a drink the bar created just to celebrate the bats. We were so full from dinner, we decided to pass on the bat-tini. Does anyone out there have any batty stories or secret bat viewing locations?

Peace, Love, and bat poop
Engineeringirl