Archive for March, 2005
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Kai and Maria arrived in Philly in the morning, a few hours before my flight came in. The deal was that Maria would have Kai, and I’d have the heavy luggage - they would drive home, and I’d take the train home and call for a ride when I got close to the house. Two things went very wrong with this plan. First, Maria fell asleep, and my phone call fell on unconscious ears. Second, it was brutally cold, windy, and snowy, and I had no cold weather clothing. I stuffed a t-shirt in my collar to keep my neck warm, and trudged home with the luggage. Although I could barely feel me fingers, I thought I should take this picture of me with our beach mat before going in.
So ends the journey.
Over the past several days Kai has made the suggestion that we stay forever. In addition to going to the beach every day, he’s proclaimed a particular fondness for the palm trees. But last night and this morning, he’s asked to go home, as he wants to play with his Thunderbird toys and see his friends again. As with our Japan trip last year, however, I find myself in no particular rush to get back. But we’ve already bought our tickets and I’m all out of vacation days. But our flights weren’t until the afternoon, so we still had some time.
We decided to hit Kailua beach (not to be confused with the drink Kahlua), considered by many the world’s most beautiful beach. On the way there we made a quick stop at the Nuuanu Pali lookout. Located inland, and at a height of almost 1000 ft., it offers a spectacular view of the eastern half of Oahu. It was also the site of the Battle of Nuuanu Pali, where Oahu warriors were driven over the cliffs by King Kamehameha’s forces, in his bid to unite all the Hawaiian islands.
I can’t say whether Kailua beach is the world’s most beautiful, but it’s certainly the most beautiful one I’ve had the pleasure of visiting. The shoreline is narrow but probably a mile long. The sand is incredibly soft and fine - it almost feels like you’re walking on a cushion. The water is calm and bright blue. Our guide book says it’s normally overrun with tourists, but we were lucky to find it sparsely populated while we were there.
We decided to do all our final packing arrangements in the beach parking lot (so we wouldn’t have to do it in the hectic environment of the airport) and it was with a great sense of defeat that I put on my long pants and put away my sandals for the first time since we arrived. My jeans felt like lead, and my black, thinsulate-lined shoes like two little coffins.
As I mentioned before, I wasn’t on the same flights as Kai and Maria. I was lucky enough to switch onto their flights coming out, but not on the way back. I dropped them off at the airport and still had a couple hours to kill, so I headed over to the Bishop Museum, which contains over 1.2 million works of art and artifacts related to Hawaiian history and culture. Needless to say I barely scratched the surface in just two hours, but it’s a very well put together museum with a multitude of superb displays. There was even a hula show while I was there. If you ever go to Hawaii, definitely set aside half a day for the Bishop Museum.
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Kai slept all the way until 6AM this morning, so we’re making slow but steady progress. Maybe by the time we leave he’ll finally fully adjust to the local time :-(. We headed out on an early bus to Chinatown. I don’t have any pictures because it was a rather dirty, unimpressive Chinatown. It actually wasn’t all that bad, but if you’ve been to a Chinatown in any of the major cities in the lower 48, this one is unremarkable. The one notable thing was that it seemed to have more than the usual number of Vietnamese and Filipino shops as well. We had a Filipino breakfast while we were there, which was greasy but good.
From there we walked to the Foster Botanical Garden, which is on the northern outskirts of Chinatown. It’s 13 acres, and over the past 140 years they’ve gathered a wide variety of trees and plants from around the world. I took up gardening when we lived in San Mateo, and I acquired a real interest in this sort of thing, which is why this was a “must see” for me on this trip. The pictures pretty much tell the story, except for the Baobab tree and its exceptional girth. It’s not a pretty tree, but I think it wins the prize for Widest Variety of Uses: “…prized for its many products: mucilage, gum, fiber for rope, paper and cloth. Bark and oil from the seeds have medicinal properties. In some parts of Africa the trees are worshipped by the natives who bury their dead in the oversized trunks. Old hollow trunks are sometimes used as houses, prisons, and water reservoirs” (that’s from the Garden’s pamphelt).
Our plan was to head to the Bishop Museum (Hawaii’s premier historical museum), but Maria wasn’t feeling well, so she and Kai returned to the condo for a rest, and I took a shuttle bus to the airport so I could rent a car for our remaining time in Hawaii. We had done well with the buses so far, but we had a few places left we wanted to see which were easier to visit by car. So we saved them up for our last 24 hours. I lucked out and ended up with a PT Cruiser even though I only signed up for an economy car (I guess it’s all they had left).
By the time I returned Maria was feeling better, so we headed to Sandy Beach for the afternoon (it’s on the Windward coast, just north of where we went with Jen yesterday). It’s a favortie spot for bodyboarders, and it made me wish I had brought my board with me. I used to bodyboard competitively when I was in high school, although it’s a hobby I gave up after leaving college in Santa Cruz for grad school in DC. It was an insane break - the waves weren’t particularly huge, but as you can see in the picture, they break right on the sand. Lacking a board, I did a little body surfing, and learned the hard way that the trick was to catch the wave almost completely parallel (like you would with a board, but not like you normally would body surfing). That way it’s possible to pull out through the back before getting smashed into the sand. Maria didn’t see what the big deal was until she decided to wade in just a few feet, and ended up getting knocked off her feet a couple times.
We raced back from the beach for dinner with Maria’s cousin Takateru, as we were running late. He’s Maria’s great uncle’s son, which I think makes him her 2nd cousin. He’s been living and working in Honolulu for about a year now, and doesn’t plan on leaving - ever (he’s 67, so he’s close to retirement). He took us to this really good Japanese restaurant about a mile outside of Waikiki, called Momomomo. After dinner we made a quick stop at his daughter’s house, where he’s living. She has a 5 year old son, so he and Kai played for a short time. It was getting late so we didn’t visit for long. This is the one day that really tapped me out - I went right to sleep after we got back to the condo (I think it was the bodysurfing!).
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Earlier today we drove past a neighborhood called “Hawaii Kai.” It had a big sign, and we wanted to stop to take Kai’s picture next to it, but it was on the side of a busy road and there was nowhere to stop. “Kai” is a very common word (and word part) in Hawaiian - it means “ocean.” Our Kai gets his name from the Japanese word for “open,” so the two are unrelated. But that technicality didn’t stop Kai from enjoying trying to spot his name among the many street and shop signs (he’s not reading yet, but he can recognize his name).
Kuhio Beach is one of the many beaches in Waikiki. Actually, Waikiki is really one long beach, but it’s demarcated into a number of sections. Kuhio’s distinguishing feature is that it has sea walls on each side that extended out into the water towards each other, at about a 30 degree angle. This makes for very calm waters that the kids can splash around in. Kai and I spent the morning building a complex of sand castles and mini canals along the shore, while Maria got some sun and caught up on some reading. I also worked on my sunburn.
For lunch we met up with Maria’s old advisor from Georgetown, Dan Unger (he’s also here for the conference). She hadn’t seen him for several years, so they had a nice time catching up.
Jen and her mother were staying nearby, and they had rented a car, so we tagged along with them for the afternoon. We drove to the Windward (east) side of Oahu, to Makapuu Point and Hanauma Bay. Kai and Maria stayed at the Bay while Jen, her mother, and I hiked up to the lighthouse atop the 647 ft. Makapuu Point. It’s about a half mile hike up a paved trail, so it’s not too strenuous (although it did get hot). As you can see in the pictures, the view at the top was spectacular (you can see Makapuu Beach and Sea Life Park, where Kai and I were a few days ago).
After the hike, we met up with Kai and Maria at the Bay, where we stayed for the rest of the day. It’s one of the most popular spots in Hawaii for snorkeling, as it’s filled with coral and brightly colored fish. We didn’t snorkel, but you could see the tropical fish even just wading in waist deep water (which made it fun for Kai too). Another distinctive feature was the wild chickens and roosters wandering around the beach. It was great to be there late in the day, as it wasn’t so hot and most of the tourists had already left.
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There’s a certain tactic kids engage in to evade parental instructions or discipline - I call it kid lawyering. They’ll use the letter of your instructions to avoid their spirit. A good example was a small boy I overheard a couple weeks ago when Kai and I were out sledding. His mother admonished him for the umpteenth time to stop throwing snowballs at his sister. Now, the shape of the snowballs the kid was throwing was not not really round, so his response was “they’re not snow balls mommy.”
I bring this up because Kai did this at the hula show. During the show he was running around in circles and making a nuisance of himself. I told him to stop running around in circles, because he was bothering the folks around us. His response? “They’re not circles daddy, they’re octagons.”
Kai’s making a painfully slow adjustment to the Hawaiian time zone. Our first night he was up at 2:30AM, and the past two nights he’s gotten up at exactly 4:20 AM. So far I’d say it’s a relaxing vacation, but not exactly a restful one.
After the sun finally came up and we had our $2.99 breakfast specials, we hopped on the bus to Pearl Harbor, about an hour’s ride away in Central Oahu. We started at the USS Bowfin, which is a retired diesel submarine. They allowed full access to the control room, torpedo rooms, etc., so Kai enjoyed operating the multitude of knobs, switches, and levers. Then we went to the USS Arizona Memorial (the Arizona was one of the battleships sunk at Pearl Harbor). First they had
us view a 25 minute film on the Pearl Harbor attack. I actually found this much more informative and moving than the Memorial itself. I was particularly impressed with the quality of it: making a short film on such an important and emotionally provocative historical event is not an easy task. I thought it was accurate, informative, and respectful. I have to say I didn’t have much of a reaction to the Memorial itself. My only other experience with a war memorial was the Vietnam Memorial, which did provoke a lot of feelings in me. It may be that seeing such a well made film first simply drained the impact of the USS Arizona Memorial.
Having visited two ships already, Kai was ready to move on, so we did not visit the USS Missouri (the ship where the Japanese signed their surrender documents). So we headed back to Honolulu and spent the rest of the day at Waikiki beach. This is the tourist beach in Honolulu: the shore packed with pasty folks getting sunburns, and the water filled with newbies falling off surfboards. We figured we had to check it out at least once.
After getting cleaned up at the condo, we grabbed some take out food and headed back to Waikiki Beach for it’s once-a-week free hula show. It was actually more fun and less cheesy than I thought it’d be. It was a mix of traditional and modern Hawaiian music. I had a passing familiarity with modern hula music, but I’d never heard the traditional style before, which I found much more compelling. See the short video below to get a sense of it.
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Rating: 
Address:
2270 Kuhio Ave
Honolulu, HI 96815
808-922-2668
I’ll use the occasion of our Hawaii trip to provide the first of my pho reviews. Kai fell asleep after we got back from Sea Life Park, I didn’t have much for lunch, and it was still a long time until dinner. So I set out in search of pho. Oahu has a number of pho shops. There are several in Chinatown, as well as a few scattered just past the western edge of Waikiki. On the day we arrived in Honolulu, we got a ride with a Vietnamese taxi driver, and he recommended Pho Bac 1 in Chinatown, but I didn’t have the opportunity to eat there. There’s only one pho shop in Waikiki itself, and that’s Pho Old Saigon, conveniently located on Kuhio Ave, about 60 ft. from the Marine Surf where we were staying, so I didn’t have to go far. It actually had a full menu of Vietnamese dishes, but pho was the feature dish.
Service was fast with a minimum of friendliness, and the decor was minimal - exactly the sort of things I expect in a good pho resutaurant. In the middle of touristy Waikiki, my expectations were low, but I received a quality bowl of pho. There was nothing unique about the flavor, but everything was above average: the broth was very good, they used quality meat, and the noodles weren’t overcooked. I ate there twice, and it was just as good the second time, so they also get good marks for consistency.
Today was the day for Maria’s panel (presentation) at the conference. Similar topics were clustered around each other in the schedule, so Maria also attended most of today’s panels. As her friend and co-researcher Jen put it, “having the conference in Hawaii means overall attendance is high, but attendance at most of the panels is low.” But Maria was very happy with her panel, and even got a new idea for an article out of it. I’ve also noticed she’s feeling a heck of a lot better since we got here. Something tells me it’s no coincidence that her morning sickness happened to subside just as we arrived in Hawaii…
Since Maria was at the conference all day, Kai and I were on our own. The Oahu buses go just about everywhere, so we didn’t rent a car. We took the 45 minute bus ride out to Makapuu Beach and Sea Life Park. The pictures below are all from Makapuu Beach (Kai took the picture of me - he’s getting good with the camera!). I really liked Makapuu - it was beautiful, and since it was early and it’s not the easiest beach to get to (you have to wend your way down a rocky slope to get on it), we had it all to ourselves for a while.
Makapuu is across the street from Sea Life Park, which is where Kai and I spent most of our day. It’s essentially a smaller and slightly run down version of Sea World, so I’d only recommend it if you’re traveling with kids. Kai had a ball (he particularly enjoyed the very silly sea lion show), and that’s what matters.
We finished the day at a moderately ritzy, somewhat cheesy “authentic” Thai restauraunt (it was to Thai food what Benihana’s is to Japanese food) with a group of Maria’s friends from the ISA conference. Looking around our large table, I noticed that the conference attendees who had significant others brought them, and those who didn’t brought their mothers.
I visited Hawaii once before, in 1992. On that trip I didn’t visit Oahu, so this is my first time seeing Honolulu. What struck me right away is that it’s dominated by Japanese tourists - they outnumber all the other tourists by a large margin. And since most of the tourists are Japanese, Waikiki is like a little Japan. Many Japanese jokingly refer to Hawaii as Hawaii-Ken (Ken is the term for a Japanese province). Most signs are in Japanese and English, Japanese chain restaurants like Mos Burger are here, and the convenience stores are stocked with Japanese products (the Mos Burger has a hilarious Japlish sign: “Featuring Local Volume! American-size servings!”).
The Japanese tourists are predominately young women in their 20s and early 30s. They are referred to as “parasite children” - they work, live with their parents, and don’t get married. So they have large disposable incomes, a good amount of free time, and they like to travel.
Right now Maria’s watching a show on the local Japanese language channel, which is explaining the concept of tipping (no one tips in Japan). I don’t recall seeing many Japanese when I was on the other islands in 1992. Maria’s explanation is that Japanese tourists like cities, kitsch, and feeling at home, so they come to Honolulu. While plenty of Americans are the same way, there are also a lot of American tourists who instead spend there time exploring the natural beauty of Hawaii’s other areas (like I did in ‘92).
