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Josiah's Hawaii Travelogue
December 2011
Thursday (December 15): Off on Vacation

While winter vacation at the college where I'm working officially began late last week, I still had to come into work though Wednesday. But now it was finally time for my vacation. My parents have always loved Hawaii (they met there, in fact) and have been vacationing on Oahu for a couple of weeks already. The plan was to meet up with them for the rest of their trip and then head back to Colorado for a week before returning to work. Unfortunately, a few phone calls revealed that a taxi to the nearby airport would be way more expensive than I'd expected so I decided to just park there. That wasn't cheap either, but it was close and more convenient.
Gainesville has a pretty tiny airport so I had a quick flight to Atlanta before changing planes for the very long flight (around 10 hours) to Hawaii. Fortunately, I've gotten rather used to long plane rides and, between books and video games, easily kept myself busy the entire time.
I arrived in the middle of the afternoon. Oahu is the third largest Hawaiian island and the most popular among tourists. It contains Hawaii's capital city (Honolulu) and a number of famous sights including Diamond Head Crater and Pearl Harbor. While I've been to Hawaii before, this is my first visit to Oahu. My parents picked me up and, after a stop at a very fancy hotel room, we headed out to walk around.
Honolulu is a pretty interesting city. Due to all the Asians (especially Japanese) who immigrated in the late 1800's during the sugar cane boom, it's a big mix of cultures. It's also become a very popular spot for Japanese tourists, so there's a lot of Japanese stores and restaurants scattered about. There are some nice shopping streets right off of Waikiki beach and we walked around there for a little while before heading onto the beach itself to watch the sunset.
After that, it was off to supper at a Japanese soba and udon restaurant. It was very authentic (we were the only non-Japanese people there) and very good. While it wasn't especially late at that point, I had a fairly large time difference to adjust to on top of a long string of late nights so we headed back to the hotel and called it a day.

Friday (December 16): All Around Honolulu
My mom and I got up early Friday morning and headed down the road to a popular breakfast spot. I got some really good macadamia nut pancakes and then it was off to Hanauma Bay for some snorkeling. There are a bunch of small reefs right off the bay, making it a popular scuba and snorkeling spot. While not spectacular, I did see a lot of cool fish. If you're really lucky, there are supposed to be eels, octopus, and sea turtles around as well, but I didn't see any of them.
After a couple hours of snorkeling, we met my dad at a large mall. I didn't have time to look around the mall much, but the reason we were there was to visit a genuine Japanese department store. While seeing a Japanese department store here in the US was cool enough, this one had a small Book Off (a Japanese chain of used book, movie, music, and game stores) and a number of food stands as well, so that was a lot of fun.
We stayed for lunch and then headed off to China Town. Like most China towns, it's a bit dirty and run down, but there's a lot of stores and restaurants around. After walking around for a while it was back to Waikiki for another sunset.

Saturday (December 17): Flowers and Music
I got to sleep in a bit, which was nice, but it wasn't too long before my parents and I headed off to a botanical garden. This particular garden was up in the mountains and rainforest. Which is fitting since it was raining a lot of the time. Fortunately, the rain was mostly light enough not to cause a problem. We walked around a bit and saw a lot of very pretty tropical flowers. And, for something unusual, check out these pink bananas.
Once we finished looking around, we drove to an overlook and got a nice view of the Northern side of the island (Honolulu is on the Southern shore).
That night, we headed to downtown Honolulu (which, as a note, is pretty dead at night on the weekends). After supper at a Cuban restaurant, we got to see Neil Sedaka in concert. It was a nice concert. Small, but pretty long, and he's still got a really good voice. Definitely worth it.

Sunday (December 18): Museums and Malls

Sunday my parents and I needed to switch hotels. But checkout time at the old hotel came way before check in time at the new one. So we loaded up the car and paid a visit to The Bishop Museum. It's got a lot of different exhibits but the main hall is focused on Hawaiian history. It went all the way from early Hawaiian culture through when Hawaii became a state. It was pretty interesting and each section had a good combination of text and artifacts. While there, I also took a look at a couple of temporary displays. One was about the early Japanese immigrants to Hawaii (but I'll talk about that more in a later entry) and the other was about Mars. It was a good museum overall, and there seemed to be a lot of different shows and presentations throughout the day. Certainly not a bad way to spend a couple hours if you're interested in history.
After that, we got some rather interesting hamburgers (I had a miso and Japanese cucumber burger) then swung by Toys 'n Joys, a video game, anime, etc. store that was supposed to be really good. While it was certainly nothing like the shops in Akihabara, I'll admit that I was pretty impressed. They had the best selection of anime figurines and import video games that I've seen in the US, other than at major anime conventions, and they had a lot of other related items as well (plushies, pendants, DVDs, CDs, etc). Prices were a mixed bag though, ranging from really good to rather expensive. I had fun browsing while my parents explored the surrounding area (which has quite a lot of Asian restaurants).
After that, it was my parents' turn to have some fun and engage in their long time hobby of looking at real estate. Considering what a popular vacation spot Honolulu is, it's only natural that it has a number of very nice (and very expensive) condos and the like available. They had already toured some before I came to Hawaii, but they weren't quite done yet. I went with them to see a couple but then headed back to the big mall we'd visited to the other day, leaving them to do a bit more looking and check into the new hotel.
Last time, I really didn't get to see much of the mall aside from the Japanese department store. This time, however, I was able to get a good look around. While not the largest mall I've ever been in, it's very big and pretty fancy. Besides that, without much time left before Christmas, it was also extremely crowded. It had a pretty good selection of stores and one of the more diverse food courts I've come across, but I didn't find anything else as interesting as that Japanese department store. They did, however, have some good Japanese restaurants including Japanese chains Coco's Curry House and Beard Papa (chu, Japanese cream puffs).
After a lot of walking and a bit of grocery shopping, I eventually made it to Hilton Hawaiian Village. It's a really nice hotel (and often featured rather prominently in the new version of Hawaii Five-O. They've got multiple pools (including one with a water slide and a mock ocean lagoon), beautiful flowers, tropical birds (like flamingos and African penguins), and a shopping and dining area with a number of stores and restaurants. The rooms even have Playstation 3's and come with free movie and video game rentals for the duration of your stay. Very impressive. And that was pretty much it for Sunday.

Random Hawaii Comment: The Japanese Influence
Japanese people have a long history in Hawaii, with many Japanese immigrating here in the mid to late 1800's to work in the sugar cane fields. These days, it's also a very popular Japanese tourist spot. As a result, outside of the Japan towns in San Francisco and Los Angeles, it's probably the most Japanese place in the US. There are a number of Japanese stores and restaurants (including major Japanese chains such as Book Off, Coco's Curry House, and Don Quixote) and several Japanese TV stations. Many signs and restaurant menus are in Japanese as well and I've heard quite a lot of Japanese just walking around the city. There's no real Japan Town (though there is a China Town), but Japanese things can be found spread all over the city. It's certainly not the same as being in Japan, but it's not bad for part of the US.

Monday (December 19): The Northern Side of Oahu

Honolulu is on the Southern side of Oahu. Today, my family and I paid a visit to the Northern side. We started out by heading to the Dole Plantation. While most pineapples are grown in other countries these days, Dole still has some pineapple fields in Hawaii. At the plantation you can see pineapples (and a number of other plants) growing, check out a very large souvenir shop, and work your way through what they claim to be the world's largest maze (though I have a tough time believing it's bigger than some of the corn mazes I've visited. Unfortunately, the maze was closed due to mud (it had been raining on and off throughout the night and morning), but seeing the growing pineapples was cool.
Since we couldn't do the maze, we decided to hit up some other sites on that part of the island. First up, a stop by the beach to watch the surfers. Of course, our hotel is right on a beach, but this time of year all the good waves are at the Northern beaches, so that's where the surfers go. Surfing with a paddle in hand seems to be pretty popular these days. I suppose it make it easier to move into position and stay ahead of the waves, but it seems like there's a good chance the thing would hit you in the head whenever you fall off your board...
Moving on, we passed through a moderate sized Mormon town (complete with fancy temple) and stopped at a rocky stretch of coast to see an arch.
My dad wanted to take the long way back to Honolulu so we followed the coast East for quite a ways before starting to make our way South towards the city. Since it was on the way, we decided to hit up another attraction, Byodoin Temple. If you think the name sounds familiar, you're right. The original Byodoin (or Phoenix Pavilion) is an over 900 year old Buddhist temple that I visited in Kyoto. The Byodoin on Oahu is considerably newer and only about half the size, but it's still a beautiful temple set in a very picturesque location. Unfortunately, there weren't any sakura trees around, but there were some other flowers. For comparison, here one of my pictures of the original Byodoin back in Kyoto.
From there, a bit more driving brought us back to Honolulu where I got to spend a while relaxing on the beach and at the pool before going out for kaitenzushi (conveyor belt sushi), which I've been really missing since moving to Florida. I also got some macadamia nut ice cream afterwards which, for the record, is really really good.

Random Hawaii Comment: Rain
It rains a lot in Oahu (and Hawaii in general), though how much and how hard can vary greatly depending on your exact location. So far, I think it's rained at least a bit every day of my vacation. While it can rain pretty hard in Honolulu at times, it's most often something between a heavy drizzle and a light shower. Since the weather is pretty nice, and that amount of rain won't drench you unless you're out in it for a really long time, it's not bad to walk around in, even without an umbrella. That said, it can get rather annoying after a while. I'll note though, that I've been told this is the rainiest part of the year so perhaps it's not always like this. On the plus side, all the rain does lead to a lot of rainbows.

Tuesday (December 20): Hiking Diamond Head

Diamond Head Crater is one of Oahu's major attractions. While you can see it easily enough from Waikiki Beach, the main draw is the trail that goes to the top. Despite iffy weather, my parents and I headed out to hike it. The trail started simply enough. It was raining most of the time but more a drizzle than anything else, so it wasn't too bad. A rainbow even came out later on. The trail was paved and simple to follow, but it wasn't entirely straightforward. Back during World War II, Diamond Head was used by the military and there's a bunch of bunkers and the like carved into it, including a long tunnel that the trail passes through. Overall, it wasn't too bad of a hike. Kind of steep at spots but not too long or rough. And, despite the rain and clouds, the view from the top was still good.
After making our way back down, we did a little shopping and, since it was nearby, we also stopped at the Japanese cultural center. While the center is primarily for events, classes, and the like, they also have a small but well done museum about the history of Japanese people in Hawaii. As I previously mentioned, most of them came to the islands in the mid to late 1800's to work on the sugar planations. Most planned to complete their contracts then return to Japan with the money they earned. However, things rarely went as planned and they had to face horrible living conditions and unfair contracts which ensured that nearly all their money went back to the company. A series of protests and labor reform laws finally changed things and many of the Japanese chose to stay in Hawaii and raise their children as Americans. Of course, that's the highly simplified version. If you like history, you may want to look into the details, as it's pretty interesting.
After a nice lunch at a shabu shabu restaurant, my dad and I ended up walking back towards the hotel. We split up after a while and I strolled around the Waikiki Beach area. I'd been there before, but always with my parents and some specific destination in mind. This time, I was able to explore a bit. There are a couple of long streets following the beach that are lined with shops and restaurants, some of which are set in a series of fancy malls. There's a pretty nice variety of restaurants in the area and the rest of the stuff is mostly divided between souvenir shops and clothing stores (many of which are very high end). Not really my kind of thing (aside from the restaurants), but it was kind of fun to walk through once and, at night, a lot of street performers come out. As I was walking, I passed the beach's most famous surfing area, marked by the statue of Duke Kahanamoku, a legendary swimmer and surfer. Even though all the best waves are on the North side of the island this time of year, the area was still packed with surfers.
Later that evening, since it was the first night of Chanukah, my parents and I went back to Waikiki to see the big menorah lightning. As part of the event, a number of cars drove up with menorah mounted on their roofs. Here's my mom next to the most creative of the bunch. And that wrapped up the day.

Random Hawaii Comment: The Smell of the Ocean
Those of you who have been to beach have probably noticed that you can tell when you're getting close to the ocean by the smell of salt water in the air. It's not an unpleasant smell, but it's there and makes it clear that the ocean isn't far off, even if you can't see it. Strangely, that smell is almost completely absent in Honolulu. I don't know if it has something to do with the wind patterns or water composition, but you can't really smell the ocean here, which strikes me as a bit strange.

Wednesday (December 21): A Palace
After so many days of touring, my parents and I took things a bit easier on Wednesday. I spent most of the morning between the beach and the swimming pools at the hotel then walked with my mom to the big mall I mentioned before to get lunch at Coco's Curry House (a popular Japanese chain that has some branches here). It wasn't until the middle of the afternoon that we headed out to pay a visit to Iolani Palace.
For a while, Hawaii was actually a sovereign kingdom of its own. That began when King Kamehameha united all the islands under his rule in 1810 and lasted until a US official staged a coup and overthrew the monarchy in 1893. Despite the questionable legality of his actions and numerous protests (including those by President Cleveland), that was the end of Hawaii's independence. Iolani Palace is a remnant of the Hawaiian monarchy and the only true royal palace in the US. There palace itself, while not as fancy as some of the ones in Europe, is a nice building and has lots of fancy decorations inside, along with a throne room and all the other things you'd expect to find in a palace. It also has this neat castle like side building. We took an audio tour of the inside of the palace but pictures weren't allowed. It was interesting though and worth an hour or so if you're ever in the area.
After that we swung by a farmers' market (there's a lot of them around Honolulu) to look around and get some food for supper. It wasn't one of the biggest farmers' markets I've been to, but there was a pretty nice selection of produce and food (I got guava chicken). After that, the rest of the day was spent relaxing. After all, this is a vacation.

Thursday (December 22): Kualoa Ranch

My mom had originally planned this activity for Wednesday but, due to the weather report, we switched it to Thursday. In the end, we still got rained on, but anyway... While my dad stayed at the hotel to relax, my mom and I went back to the Northern part of the island, specifically to Kualoa Ranch. It's a large cattle ranch containing some of the island's more scenic landscapes. As such, it's been used as a setting in numerous movies and TV shows including Lost, Jurassic Park, George of the Jungle, and Hawaii Five-O, just to name a few. They have all sorts of different tours you can take to the filming locations including bus tours, horse tours, and ATV tours. We did the ATVs. While I've ridden an ATV before (a very long time ago), this was my first time driving one. It really wasn't too hard, though since they lack power steering you really need to keep a firm grip on the handles. Despite the rain, it was a lot of fun and we got to see a number of different filming locations. We ended up being the only people in our tour (which was rather unusual, judging by the size of the other groups I saw) so we were able to move pretty quickly and cover a lot of ground. Unfortunately, movie sets are often built with the intention of demolishing or tearing them down at the end of the shoot, so there wasn't anything too elaborate. But there were still some things to see. This mountain range, for example, is featured in tons of different movies if you look for it. And here's the location of Hurley's golf course from Lost. See the giant footprints? They're from Godzilla (the relatively recent American remake, I believe). Our guide said they were originally ten feet deep, but had to be filled in a bit since the ranch's cows kept getting stuck in them. For Jurassic Park fans, here I am with the log the kids hid behind. Now this statue isn't from any movie or show (though I heard it was shown in an episode of National Geographic). Basically, a lot of scientists have trouble believing that the people of Rappa Nui (aka the Easter Islands) could have made the giant stone maoi heads by hand using traditional tools, so some locals without any real carving experience decided to give it a try. While not on the same level as the real maoi heads, it's pretty impressive considering their lack of training. Hard work - 1. Skeptical Scientists - 0.
During World War II, parts of the ranch were also used by the army and they put a bunker in one one of the mountains. It's been shown in some movies and TV shows but now it's primarily used as a gallery of all the different things filmed there, with lots of signed movie posters, cast photos, and the like. They've even got the submarine from Lost. Well, part of it anyway (the rest was a set).
If you're a movie buff, or just want to take in some beautiful scenery, Kualoa Ranch makes for a nice visit, especially with all the different types of tours you can choose from.
The rest of the day was spent relaxing, though my mom and I did go out for supper at an udon restaurant that was nearly identical to the kind that were really popular on my last visit to Japan. Specifically, the type where you order your noodles then grab some assorted tempura and onigiri off the counter before paying. It was very authentic, both in regards to the food and the style of the restaurant, and just about everyone was speaking Japanese as well. Even better, it charged Japanese prices, so it was easy to get a good complete meal for several dollars.

Random Hawaii Comment: Produce
While Hawaii was once a hot spot for commercial agriculture including sugar cane and pineapples, most of it has long since moved to other countries. That said, it's still a great place to get tropical fruit ranging from the more common (bananas, pineapples, mangos, coconuts, etc.) to the somewhat unusual (egg fruit, rambutans, etc). While grocery stores work in a pinch, you've got a much better shot at getting fresh local fruit at one of the many farmers' markets (Oahu seemed to have at least one every evening) or produce stands. If you see something you're not familiar with, it's worth getting a little to give it a try. Just don't go overboard, since some tropical fruits are definitely an acquired taste.

Friday (December 23): Hanging Around Honolulu
My parents had some things they needed to do in the afternoon, so this was a pretty easy day. In the morning, my dad and I walked to the aquarium at Waikiki. It wasn't all that big, but it was nice. Their collection of coral was especially impressive and they had some things you don't see too often like an octopus and a bunch of different types of jellyfish. We also got to watch them feeding their seals.
I spent the afternoon swimming and reading and then we ate supper in the food court at the Ala Moana Mall. That might not sound too impressive but with a lot of nice Asian restaurants (including several types of Japanese food, a fairly elaborate Chinese restaurant, Vietnamese, and Thai, among others) it's no ordinary mall food court.
At night, we went out to watch the fireworks. They weren't for Christmas, the Hilton does a show on the beach every Friday night and, judging by the crowds, it's quite a popular event. The show wasn't especially long but it was well done, and gave me a chance to play with the under used fireworks mode on my camera.

Saturday (December 24): Heading Out
Our flight back to the mainland didn't leave until 10 PM, which meant that we had a lot of time to kill after checking out of our room. Though, since it was a Saturday, that kind of limited our options. I spotted this gingerbread house version of Byodoin on display in one of the Hilton's lobbies and we went to services (getting caught in the rain on the way). After that we walked around a bit, saw one last rainbow (here's a shot of my parents in front of it), and watched the sun set over the ocean once more before starting to make our way towards the airport. We'd planned to stop somewhere to eat along the way but, being Christmas Eve, most places were closed. We suspected a lot of things would still be open down by Waikiki but that was in the opposite direction so we ended up just grabbing some things in the airport.
And that's pretty much it. The flights to Salt Lake and then on to Colorado went well. I'm not a big fan of overnight flights since I really can't sleep on planes, but I managed to stay pretty awake and alert throughout the following day despite the lack of sleep.
Overall, it was a fun and relaxing trip. Oahu (and especially Honolulu) certainly has a stronger Japanese influence than most other parts of the US (the exceptions being the Japan towns in San Francisco and Los Angeles), the weather is nice (though it can get rather windy and rainy at times), and you've got the beach, some nice hiking, and a lot of good stores and restaurants. I don't know if I'd call it "paradise", but it's certainly a nice place to go on vacation.





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