Shopping, Hawaii-style

Anyone hoping for a post on how we bought Hawaiian shirts, ukuleles, grass skirts and bikini tops made from coconut shells is going to be sorely disappointed. For us, Hawaii was well and truly the 50th state of the USA as far as shopping was concerned.

On our first full day there we were unfeasibly happy to find an outlet mall where a number of our favourite US brands had stores - GAP, Banana Republic, Crocs; there was even a Lucky Brand, although we do find it to be very hit and miss, and this time it was definitely a miss. We also found a Safeway supermarket where we were able to stock up on a few edible goodies. Not to mention a secondhand book store where I got lucky (so to speak) in the cozy crime section. On the second day we found an Old Navy, and then of course there was the unexpected stop-over in San Francisco which furnished us with the opportunity to visit the fantabulous Williams-Sonoma (it's like a gold-plated version of Lakeland) and the fooooood heaven that is The Cheesecake Factory where I may, or may not, have purchased four slices of pure bliss from this little selection:

This is the shopping from Day One. 

And this is pretty much everything I bought during our entire trip.

We hit pay dirt in the outlet mall since Banana Republic and Gap were offering major discounts (50% and 30% respectively) off their already discounted prices. Hubby loves Gap and BR for shirts, so he really stocked up. In the photo below you can see two of the shirts I got from BR (the green/blue diamond pattern one on the left for $18.50 and the navy one with red boats at the bottom for $25); the green top at the back was $23 from Gap and the blue pj bottoms on the right were an absolute steal at just over $4 (about £2.50!)

The blue stripe (left), blue floral (centre) and denim (bottom left) tops all came from Old Navy along with a red stripe swim shirt that I've managed to miss out.

Reading matter: I picked up a couple of the US home magazines that I enjoy at San Francisco airport. Luckily our village shop orders in some other US mags that I love to read, so I don't have to travel quite so far to get my monthly fix.

And I got the five cosy crime books for just $8 in a second-hand book store in Kahalui. Reeeeesult.

Food! Ahhh, all that chocolate-y goodness! Saying that, a lot of the things in this photo were brought back as gifts. I've only kept the Reese's bars (ahem, just eight of them...), milk choc-covered Graham crackers from Starbucks (again, only eight packs...), the Goldfish crackers and the crunchy Cheetos. Oh, and the Starbucks hot chocolate. And the Milka bars (given to us on the plane - Lufthansa snacks are the best.)

The Reese's bars in glorious technicolour close up. Mmmmmmm.

Not forgetting the clothes and Crocs for DC. Two t-shirts from Gap, a zip up hooded top and t-shirt from Old Navy, and two pairs of Crocs.

And last, but not least, (please excuse awful awful photo) this wonderful hula dancing Father Christmas to add to our selection of Xmas decs from around the globe.

Mele kalikimaka, as they say in Hawaii.