Tag Archives: hiking

Hawaii – Oahu 2025 Day 5

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Started the morning with hiking! We first went to Diamond Head for our 9am ticket. The hike was fairly easy and fast, only taking us about 45 minutes to complete. 

So we then decided to try a harder hike, Koko Crater. This hike was definitely intense. Needed to take five 30 seconds to 2 minutes breaks for the last 1/3 of the climb. Made it up to the top in 30 minutes, and slightly under 30 minutes back down. Definitely great view of Haunama Bay and Waikiki.

After, went to The Pig and the Lady at a town called Kaimuki (the town is a log the way back to the hotel. Apparently not really anything notable to do in the area except if you want to eat at a certain restaurant). Details can be found here:

https://food.johnmatienzo.com/2025/11/29/the-pig-and-the-lady/

We then headed to South Waikiki for coffee (started at the Aston at the Waikiki Banyan). Went to Kai Coffee. Details can be found here:

https://food.johnmatienzo.com/2025/11/29/kai-coffee/

Wanted to explore going from South Waikiki back to our hotel (which is considered North Waikiki), so we ended up walking back (without stops probably a 25 minute walk). 

Started walking close to the beach, where we ran into an old Banyan tree. Then the road sort of splits from the beach, so then explored where all the high end shops are, and the International Marketplace Mall. Then ended up in the “resort area” near our hotel (where we had been at night a few days ago), and then back at our hotel for Pina coladas.

After taking a quick nap, we headed over to the Ala Moana Center for some shopping (surprisingly it wasn’t busy for Black Friday).

Some stores we visited included: Rolex (wanted to confirm the fit of their 40mm Explorer), Grand Seiko (spent 40 minutes in this store. friend wanted to get a watch with Spring Drive), Travis Matthew’s, Uniqlo (got a tank top), and Foodland Farms (for a poke bowl, but just missed their poke station time. They close at 9pm while the store closes at 10pm).

After shopping got a lite bite and cocktails at a place called Eleven:

https://food.johnmatienzo.com/2025/11/29/eleven/

To end the night, saw an EDM show at a place called Hawaiian Brian’s Social Club (called HB), which is like a 5 minute walk from Ala Moana Center. Fake Illenium, Sabai, performed (gotta say he was better than the first time I saw him at midway).

Croatia – Plitvice Lakes / Vodice Day – 12

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We woke up at 8:30am to get to the Plitvice Lakes park entrance for 9pm (got there at 9:30ish). There are two entrance (we went to entrance 1 as it was closer to our AirBnb). It’s suggested to get tickets ahead of time online (the ticket line was really long).

We decided to do the “hardest” advertised hike (Hike K). All trails advertises it as moderate. Note that you have cell reception throughout the park so you can use All Trails pretty easily).

The park itself is really well maintained (lots of wooden and stone paved trails). As well as lots of places to get food, coffee, ice cream and restrooms. (Although we ended up packing everything for a traditional hikes like wraps, water, beef jerky, etc).

During the hike, we did end up going a bit off the K trail into a harder (less scenic route) called ST1. But we got back on it (the ST1 is more intense but less scenic).

The hike has a bunch of different sized waterfalls, as well as intermittent streams (difference between intermittent and active is that intermittent only happens some times during the year).

The large waterfall that is the most famous at Plitvice lakes is called Veliki Slap (literally means Large Waterfall.

As a side note, there is one part of the hike you have to use a boat (which is provided) to cross the lake.

It took us about 4.5 hours to complete the hike. Here is the Strava link: https://strava.app.link/76shb33JGib

After the hike, we went to the pharmacy to get some supplies.

Because of some unforeseen circumstances, we then decided to go to Vodice and get a hotel. (We stopped by Zadar Airport so I could get my official COVID test for the states). We got to Vodice around 9pm.

To end the night, we got got food at Konoba Porat. Details can be found here:

http://food.johnmatienzo.com/2021/08/13/konoba-porat/

Some notes about Vodice is that it’s mainly a beach town, and seems quite “residential”. Definitely a different feel from Split, Hvar and Plitvice Lakes.

Joshua Tree, Day 2 and 3

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The second, and main day of the trip we left the house at 11:30 (and before leaving, had A).

We headed to a trail called Cap Stone. The great part about the trail is that it is 0.3 miles only, which is great for not being entirely sober, but also there are many Joshua trees with many rock formations around as well, but it is relatively flat.

After, we headed to Skill Rock. This trail is definitely more involved than Cap Stone, but still do-able (I believe this one is 1.8 miles). We didn’t finish the trail, it got probably half way through. Still a great hike nonetheless 🙂

We then spent the rest of the day in the house. At night, we used the hot tub, and watched several episodes of Drunk History, as well as read an interesting picture book from Taschen about LA from the 1920’s onward.

On the last day, we left the AirBnB around 11:30am, and made our way back to SF. The one interesting thing along the way was a police stand off that was happening in the highway (basically there were two police cruisers stopping this one car, and one police had their gun out and longed towards this girl with her hands in the air).

After, since we had a full breakfast, we only stopped by Panda Express along the I5 for an early dinner.

Overall, great trip, with lots to reflect on 🙂

Joshua Tree, Day 1

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We flew out from SFO to LAX at 8am, and arrived 9:30am. After, we went to Airport Van Rental to pick up the Dodge Caravan (it was the cheapest place to rent this car with unlimited miles, and returning to a different city). (also, note that you should take the Thrifty shuttle to get to AVR, and use Google Maps for the exact location).

After picking up the car, we grabbed lunch at a pho place near by:

http://food.johnmatienzo.com/2019/05/06/pho-hue-oi/

From there, we drove 2 hours to get to our AirBNB near Joshua Tree. But before we reached The AirBNB, we stopped by Vons to grab some supplies (and note to self, they have the good hard liquor at the front of the store!).

We got to the AirBnB at 6:30pm. Since we wanted to squeeze in a hike, we quickly unloaded and headed out.

We went to a trail called Fortynine Palm Oasis, which was only a 3 mile hike. However, because of taking a lot of photos, we didn’t compete the hike since we wanted to get back before it was too dark (sunset was at 7:30pm).

When we came back, it was a night of dinner and drinks.

Alberta – 3rd Day

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On this day, I actually went on a hike. We went to the Johnston Canyon, all the way up to the ink pots (it’s called that since they look like ink pots).

The hike itself was paved for half of the way, making the first half easy. The second half had pretty steep hills, but still manageable. The only annoying part of the hike is that it rained on and off (fortunately I had my rain coat).

After the hike we went into town to eat Korean food (originally we were going to get Ramen, but the line was long). Here is the food link:

Seoul Country Korean Restaurant

Afterwards, we chilled at the hotel’s hot tub for a bit before we got dinner.

For dinner, we went to a place called The Bison Restaurant and Lounge. Food overall was good. Here’s the link:

The Bison Restaurant and Lounge

After dinner, we made our way back to The Hidden Ridge since we wanted to finish all the alcohol everyone bought (that’s what happens when you tell people who are working to BYOB).

We spent the night in the Wedding party’s room. One game we played was this alternate life Tinder game (basically what it would have been like if Jon had not met Cyrene). And then we burnt the non-top 4 cards away. Abi ended up winning the game (and Sam came in second).

Afterwards, some of the guys went to smoke cigars, while Abi and I started a game of “Here’s to the Governor”. I sucked as usual, but Jimmy was the worst. Also, Cyrene’s brother (although not playing) made up some complicated rules. I ended up switching out with Jon so he could get a taste of the game.