Dim Sum Anyone?: Our Adventures in Chinatown

Way back in March when we first came to Hawaii, we knew we wanted to surf and blog and generally take advantage of being near the equator and get in some daily fun in the sun. So it's somewhat surprising to both of us that one of our favorite things to do here is shop. Not just any shopping of course, though the malls here are excellent. We discovered Chinatown.

We seem to end up there almost every week, stopping off for a delicious dim sum lunch at Legend or Golden Palace, and then browsing for hours in the local markets nearby.



Besides wonderful chinese meals, we get lost in street after street of Asian markets full of fresh seafood, fruits and vegetables, and traditional medicines. The lei wholesalers are clustered here too. It's crowded, and noisy and sometimes there are shady characters lurking at the bus stops. But it's not a boring place, and that's why I think we like it so much.

We always come home loaded up with fresh fruits and veggies. We used to come looking for good bargains on fresh fruit for smoothies. But soon enough our trips to the Asian markets in Chinatown turned into a hobby. Our goal? To unearth the strangest foods we could find, take them home- and blog about them.

It's a whole new world of Asian cuisine we'd never explored before. Makes me wonder sometimes, where have we been all our lives to have missed out on such amazing stuff?

One place Dan actually likes to shop:



We'll have one of everything please:




Yummy rambutan fruit:


I'm actually not sure what this is, but it didn't taste good at all:


Delicious ube, or purple yams, and their very mysterious green cooking broth: