Paradise Lost

We crossed the International Date Line and the Equator and ended up in Honolulu the day before we left.

Honolulu - a tropical paradise...

It was a bit like moving from Middle Earth to the Twilight Zone. The move from New Zealand to Honolulu is like moving from one dream state to another.  The difference is the type of dream.  New Zealand is one of those wish fulfillment dreams where all your worries are resolved or your fondest desire is realized.  Honolulu is one of those bizarre dreams where things are disjointed, don’t make any sense and you wake up from it and think, “Where did THAT come from?”

I love Hawaii.

I love the sunshine, the beaches, the warmth and the scenery.  Honolulu is not Hawaii.  Honolulu is just a big American city attempting to project the image of a tropical paradise.  It ain’t successful.  There is a constant background noise of police sirens, construction and car horns.  The streets are lined with shops that only the rich and famous dare enter.  People strut down the street in their swankiest tropical clothing trying to look high and mighty and there are limousines cruising everywhere.  The staff in all the businesses look cranky and stressed.  I can find that in any American city – why would I come here?

Waikiki? 

Waikiki is the most famous stretch of sand in the world.  This should be the reason to come to Honolulu.  Waikiki is a beach with delusions of grandeur.  The only reason it is famous is because it is in Honolulu and the only reason Honolulu is famous is because it has Waikiki.  Sounds a bit incestuous, doesn’t it?  Don’t get me wrong – Waikiki is a nice beach, albeit a bit crowded, but there is nothing extraordinary about it.  We have beaches back in Canada that make Waikiki look like an after-thought. 

Waikiki beach 

The difference is the temperature.  About 15^oC difference.  At home you get about five minutes in the water and you start to shut down – here you can spend an hour in the water and only get a bit shivery and slightly blue.  So, maybe that is a good reason to come here – especially when the weather back home is grey, wet and cold.  The other reason is the amount of clothing required.  Shorts, sandals and t-shirts are all that is necessary here as compared to…. well, I won’t get into what is required back home.

The weather has been windy and rainy - but sometimes that can give you Rainbows!

Honolulu is a place you have to see.   Like most famous cities you have to see what it is that makes them famous.  We don’t plan to spend a lot of time here and I cannot imagine we would voluntarily return but we plan to make the most of our time. 

What do you do in Honolulu?  You go to the beach and expose yourself to copious amounts of sunshine in order to get a tan and, possibly, malignant melanoma - always fun.  You can go shopping and spent vast amounts of earnings for exclusive brands of Italian clothing hand-made in Cambodia – an effortless way to aid the wealthy.  You can go to Pearl Harbour, see a tribute to war and get a nourishing dose of propaganda – always beneficial for the sanity.

We decided to do all three.

Because the weather has been very windy and showery we felt that the beach was not going to be too crowded.  What we did not count on was the fact that it was an American holiday called “President’s Day”.  The other thing we did not think of was that all these tourists had spent an inordinate amount of money to come here on their holidays and, damn it, they were going to spend their beach holidays on the beach! 

I understand that completely.  Me too!

It was peculiar to see all these people stretched out on their beach towels with another beach towel wrapped around them to keep warm.  It was not cold and the rain came in little spurts that lasted about 5 – 10 minutes but North American instinct says if it rains – its cold.  If they took the towels off and allowed the sun to warm them up they would be fine but they kept the damp cold towel wrapped around them insulating themselves from the warmth. The beach appeared to be a haul-out for some peculiar species of multi-coloured sea lions.

We wandered along the beach for a while enjoying the sun when it came out but did not stay a long time there.  It was just caution.  I spent the summers of my childhood and youth at the beach getting sunburn after sunburn.  My default skin colour was red and I peeled off more skin than a sack of potatoes every year.  Sun damage?  Most assuredly! I felt that more sunburns were, at best, a very bad idea.  So we lathered up with high SPF sunscreen and limited our exposure time.   This was not my idea – I am nowhere near that intelligent.  Telen figured that one out and, in spite of whining and stomping my feet, I did as I was told.

It has been fairly windy here and Telen was complaining about her hair blowing in her face.  I thought that was a bit insensitive.  I suggested we go to the Ala Moana mall and she could get a haircut at one of the salons.  Little did we know what awaited us at the Ala Moana Shopping Centre. We blundered on in to the mall in our MEC shorts and Southeast Asian t-shirts. I have heard the names Prada, Armani, Neiman-Marcus, and the like but I have never seen a store with those names on it.  To say we were under-dressed might be a bit of an understatement. 

Telen did find a small hair-salon tucked into a corner of the basement behind a pillar that would cut her hair as long as the fat hairy man in the cheap t-shirt left IMMEDIATELY.  So, I poked around the mall for a while looking at electronics and marveling at skill that could crowd that many numbers onto a small price tag.  Some, I guess, couldn’t fit the numbers on so they left the price tags off completely.

When I retrieved Telen from the hair-salon we wandered around the Mall.  Telen thought it would be fun to go into the Prada store.  The moment we walked into the store the security guard was onto us.  He did not say anything but he made it obvious that he was watching by standing right behind us. Telen saw a little black skirt for $695.00.  I saw a white cotton t-shirt.  It was the cheapest thing in the store at a bargain $275.00.  I looked at it, puzzled over it and even touched it (the security guy got apoplectic at that) and I could not figure out why it was $275.00.  Why was the skirt $695.00?  I assumed they were made in the same factory in Cambodia that my $6.00 t-shirt was made and they all cost 5 cents to make.  It is amazing that people will pay that much money for a t-shirt or a skirt because it has a brand name on it.  Does it make them feel better than everyone else because they spent that much money on clothes?  Are they that desperate for status?  It seems to me as if they have been swindled by their own snootiness.  I can just hear Prada chortling, giggling and shrieking as they roll around in the cash.

Pearl Harbour and the Arizona memorial was as expected.  Actually it was a little more subtle than I expected.  In contrast to the blatant propaganda and loaded words we experienced in Vietnam the message was stealthier.  The information they presented about the Japanese attack on Oahu was good and they did present quite an involved section on why they attacked.  However, the Americans were presented as selfless, courageous and disciplined victims of an unprovoked strike by a ruthless enemy.  I have no doubt there was courage and cowardice on both sides.  People are people.  Once again we see the incredible loss of life (over 2000 people in 4 hours) brought on by a bunch of old men in positions of power who are playing the “Game of Thrones”. 

American war machine.  Nice to see on a tropical holiday...

They had a twenty-minute film about the attack on Oahu with actual film footage of the battle.  The narrator went on to explain how the Americans rebuilt the fleet and went to war against the Japanese.  He explained about the millions of lives lost in the war and how the Americans managed to sink five of the Japanese aircraft carriers involved in the attack on Pearl Harbour.  At that point a woman a couple of rows up from me pumped her fist in the air.  As the house lights came up she started clapping loudly and looking around the room urging everyone else to clap.

I don’t think she got it.

It is not a football game where your team wins.  Those 5 aircraft carriers that the Americans sank were full of young men and women who died horribly and in terror by burning or drowning.  All those parents back home would never see their children again and would know that they died horrible deaths.  All the young wives and husbands would never see their beloved again and all the children would never see their moms or dads. It is the same as the Americans that died at Pearl Harbour and every combatant in every battle in every war.  Revenge, vengeance, justice – whatever you want to call it – it all boils down to people killing and dying for the fancies of power-hungry old men.

The memorial was to the courage and valor of the combatants in the War of the Pacific.  I have no doubt those people showed great courage and should be remembered for it.  But they were all victims.  Both sides.  I guess it makes it easier to bear if you believe that they died for a noble cause.

Either the latest "Star Wars" technology or testing lab for "Double Bubble"

Oahu and Waikiki did not feel like Hawaii.  Telen and I had to keep reminding ourselves that we were, in fact, in Hawaii.  If nightlife and big spending are what you go to the tropics for then Honolulu is the place for you!  If beautiful beaches, warm water and relaxation are why you go the tropics – go somewhere else. 

We will!

Telen writes:

I was told before that Honolulu is a big city of over 900,000 people and, yes, it is indeed a city full of high rises, limousines, Hummers and obese people in electric scooters.  I keep having to remind myself that this is the tropical paradise called Hawaii.  The main reason that we ended up in Honolulu is that it is one of the stops for our Circle Pacific plane ticket.

I am more of an optimist compared to Rand.  I try to see the positives wherever I go.  What do I find appealing in Honolulu?  The act of people watching, I would say.  Rand and I found ourselves repeatedly comparing the people here to those in New Zealand.  In general, the pace of life in Honolulu is typical of America:  fast pace and consumer oriented as reflected by the huge number of expensive stores and gas guzzling vehicles.  We often reminisced about our experience with the people in the New Zealand, seeing fields and fields of sheep and cattle grazing and the gentle humor of the locals.  I do not recall seeing a single limousine or a Hummer there.

We are continuing our search for the authentic Hawaii.

Sunset from Waikiki