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Published: January 9th 2012
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Neither of us had visited Hawaii before. Over the years we had been bombarded with magical images of huge waves tossing apparently miniscule surfers towards endless white, sandy beaches whilst hula girls’ hips gently swayed their grass skirts to the sound of distant ukuleles. How much of this was to prove true and how much was myth? We had seen footage of the recent world surfing championships on TV when we were in Australia so at least we knew that the waves are huge (at about 20 feet).
We arrived into Honolulu early one morning and were very efficiently whisked through customs and into a minivan towards our Waikiki hotel. The first thing that struck me was that we were most definitely in the United States of America- the cars were huge, the people were bigger and all the accents were “like totally awesome”. One thing you cannot fault the Americans on is customer care and enthusiasm- which was appreciated as we were tired from another overnight flight. I am not sure what I expected from Honolulu. What we got was a fairly big, fairly generic American city with Waikiki, a huge built up tourist area adjacent to it. We
went to bed and slept til lunch before venturing out. Being only a couple of blocks from the famous Waikiki beach, we wandered down. The actual beach is quite small and unremarkable but stretches quite a distance with numerous rocky outcrops and breakwaters punctuating the coast. It was jam-packed with sunbathers and the water was full of surfers. The waves were small but long and would roll for hundreds of metres, enabling the surfers to catch one and ride it right into the beach. It looked really easy so we figured that we would need to give it a try sometime. Behind the beach were innumerate high-rise plush hotels crammed into a very small area. A couple of the bigger streets were filled with designer clothing shops but otherwise it was the hotels that ruled and the streets were packed with tourists. Try picturing Benidorm where the sunburnt drunken Brits are replaced by geriatric Americans and the tourist-tat shops replaced by Louis Vuitton and Gucci. Oh, and throw in a few surf dudes on boards. Oh, and more tramps than the Grassmarket. To give them credit, I reckon if you want to have a career as a vagrant, Waikiki beach
seems to be the place. Their essential survival tool seems to be a sun parasol. These dudes sport the obligatory “wino’s beard” but they can just wear a pair of old shorts. Try that in the Grassmarket on a frosty winter’s night! It sounds like I am giving Waikiki a bad review. I am not. It is nice but just not great. It’s a bit generic and has been over-commercialised for my tastes.
We were determined to do something memorable on our most unusual Christmas day. Wandering around Waikiki, it seemed just like any other day - everything was open and everywhere was bustling with tourists. We booked into a Vegas-style show called “Legends in Concert”. We had a nice buffet dinner with a gazillion Japanese tourists and a couple from Airdrie then were treated to selection of tribute acts including both young and old Elvis Presley’s, an Elton John, Michael Jackson and, wait for it, Lady Gaga!!! The older Elvis had a great walk through the whole of the audience shaking all of our hands. I began to wonder if he was deluded and actually thought that he was the real deal. Karen thoroughly loved the performance and
contributed with more than her fair share of sing-a-long. I couldn’t make my mind up as to where on the spectrum it sat between watching the best concert ever and watching a karaoke contest. Whatever the verdict, it was a very memorable Christmas.
We intended to see a few of the Hawaiian islands but all the flights were either full or too expensive for us. We were therefore only to see the island of Oahu. We hired a car and set off around the island for a few days, settling on the North Shore where all the big waves and surfers are. We stayed in a couple of hippy, surf-dude places notable by their outdoor showers! Not a place for prudes and actually quite liberating! Not sure if it will catch on in Dunfermline where the wind might blow the water horizontally. We did give surfing a try by taking an hour-long lesson in a relatively sheltered bay. Our instructor was a nice young Californian lady who had obviously been to the same surgeon as Jordan and whose entire wardrobe apparently consisted of 3 eye patches. She was an excellent teacher and managed to get us both standing on
our boards as we caught a few waves.
We also went for a trip where we were diving in a cage with sharks. The sea was rough and being in the cage was a bit like being put in a washing machine. The local sharks are fed by fishermen so are attracted to boats. As soon as we stopped we were surrounded by around a dozen Galapagos and black tipped sharks of around 10-12 feet. The boat captain caught a few mackerel then used them to attract and tease the sharks so that they became very active and aggressive right by the cage. A couple of times they bumped into the cage and were frequently within a few feet of us. It surprisingly wasn’t frightening but was truly awesome to watch these graceful creatures in their element. It might have been a little different had the cage not been there!
The rest of Oahu island was beautifully rugged with huge hills and large bays with enormous waves crashing into them. The north shore seemed to have a long line of beach houses with no real focal point of towns or villages. We drove down to Pearl Harbour. There
is a large museum and memorial built around the harbour with a submarine and battleship there to visit. We figured that a look around the museum and memorial would be what would interest us most. Although we arrived at lunchtime, we were told that the boat tours to the memorial we sold out for the day. We found this a little strange but continued with our visit. It was a very moving and sombre experience and really shows how awful war can be. Notably, it was interesting that approximately one third of the Hawaiian population in the 1940s were either first or second generation Japanese immigrants. They US authorities were concerned that these 150,000 men, women & children may have mixed loyalties so rounded them up and interred in huge camps. No events of sabotage were ever recorded. We later found out that the holidaying President Obama (!!) had visited Pearl Harbour memorial the same day and that was why we were not able to visit it. I believe he was very sad he didn’t get a chance to catch up with us…
We spent our last night in a little motel by the airport in a slightly dodgy
industrial area. Despite a few initial reservations, the motel was actually very comfortable. The reception was full of signed photos from actors in the remake series of Hawaii 5-0 as they had used the motel for filming. We guessed that the storyline was probably the police looking for some ne’er-do-wells who were laying low after committing some heinous crime!
So, to summarize Hawaii. Mmm, difficult one. An amazing place but one of contrasts- the large, built-up, clean, generic Americanised city of Waikiki/Honolulu being the polar opposite of the relaxed, beach bum, surf dude sprawl of the North Shore. I preferred the latter but I could appreciate why Waikiki would be viewed as paradise to others- if you like large luxury hotels and designer boutiques. In many ways Fiji and Hawaii are very similar but I think I would opt for the more underdeveloped Fiji. But if you are a surfer, Hawaii is everything that you could ever want and more. Oh, and there are a load of golf courses that I never explored. Perhaps if I return with some golf and surfing mates I would see a different side.
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