Greetings from the state of Hawaii, where my friend Tom and I are staying for two and a half weeks, visiting the islands of O'ahu, Hawai'i and Maui. This first blog entry is for O'ahu. For those of you who don't know this, 70% of the population of the state of Hawaii live on O'ahu, and the capital of the state, Honolulu (population 371,657), as well as Pearl Harbor, are on this island. The state is, of course, a melting pot of people of different ancestries: Polynesian, European, Japanese, and Chinese, to name just a few. And O'ahu, as I discovered, is much more than just Honolulu and Waikiki. Comprised of two mountain ranges (the Wai'anae on the west coast and the Ko'olau on the windward shore), it offers spectacular mountain views and hikes, relatively
... read more