Good-bye to Kauai, Hello Again Waikiki

Today was transition day; time to shift attention and focus to other places.  We left Kauai today, but first we drove slowly from our little bungalow along the skinny winding and scenic road east to Hanalei Bay to feast our eyes one more time.

Waves were steaming into the bay from its outer reaches, long plume-bedecked rollers that kept on and on without collapsing or playing out.  The heavy rain from the day before had washed lots of silt into the bay and turned it brown.  Mist hung on the surrounding hills like lace, sun glittered on wet places and the ever-present rainbows arched left and right.

It's deceptive to see photographs of Hanalei and the north shore because most of them look brooding and overcast, but the air at this time of year is about 75 degrees.  Bikinis, shorts, t-shirts and water sports are worn all four seasons.  Actually, in Hawaii, like other tropical places, there is a wet season and there is a dry one.

I never know whether to just get up and go away from a place or person I love, quickly leaving to avoid prolonged good-byes or to linger and savor every last moment together.  As we walked out onto the Hanalei pier to watch the surfers and paddle boarders, it became obvious we were just going to have to say good-bye once and for all and get it over with.  We savored the views, trying to memorize every aspect and finally got into the car and drove away.  Fittingly, a downpour started and seemed to erase the scene just behind us for a while.

The flight to Oahu is brief; no time for in-flight service.  You zoom up and away into the face of the tradewind and then you land again.  In Waikiki, our last treat was to rent a room at the Park Shore Hotel to get a view of one more beautiful Hawaiian sunset before traveling to the mainland tomorrow.   We're here overnight to say hello and good-bye to our two loved ones once again.  They called us before the dramatic sunset quite hit its highest note.  Their community was going to be having a Christmas parade; did we want to see it?  Of course yes.  Christmas in Kaimuki would be just the right bookend to a holiday vacation.

The whole community, which lies about three miles southeast of Waikiki, was in the parade, or half of it was.  The other half watched, and so did we, while Santas in shorts, t-shirts and whimsical headgear paraded by.  A Santa waved to the parading kids and posed for me.  Cub scouts, Brownies, football teams and beauty princesses waved and yelled to friends.  Eventually, another Santa on a truck decorated in lights and holiday garlands rolled slowly by, followed by The Grinch who guarded a volcano fuming green smoke.

There go my countrymen, I thought, all these people who live in America, Hawaiian style.  They're parading happily down this street with their beautiful and precious little children, yelling Merry Christmas the same way every kid in America does, no matter their State or ethnicity.  Santa hats, reindeer noses, candy canes and Christmas carols - no matter the way the weather feels - it's the way we do it, we nutty Americans.

Then, it started raining again, so we ducked inside for Thai food - still another flavor of life in Hawaii.  The whole day felt like some sort of parade of images, gradually turning from one to another before my eyes.  Rainbows in Hanalei turned to our own flight's arc from Kauai to Oahu and then the descent of the winter sun down to the horizon.  Finally the bright smiles of cheering kids and waving Santas, all a patchwork of tropical colors and din of city noises.  What is it about life that we don't live it like a vacation all the time?

An International Day in Honolulu

Honolulu, like most big cities, gets up and roars from before dawn on through the day and late into the night.  On the stretch of playground called Waikiki, the bus system is an arterial flow of people borne in large vessels to every reach of street and highway.  It's all about pleasing tourists, moving them  around, feeding them and seeing to their every need.  In quieter parts of Waikiki, you can hear the rustle of palm leaves in the tradewinds, the soft swish of waves on the long beach, and small Hawaiian doves calling gently.

This morning, we went to Chinatown to buy groceries for tomorrow.  We parked at the Aloha Tower complex nearby and walked a few city blocks to the middle of Chinatown.  This oldest part of town is nearly a separate nation, distinguished by its nearly total dependence on Chinese culture, started back in the 1840s or so.

The Chinese immigrants who were brought here as laborers more than 150 years ago gradually recreated China complete with all its delicacies, fabrics, art and customs, and the many city blocks that were the heart of the community are still in use today.  All signs are written in Chinese as well as English, and you get a sense of both Disneyland and foreign territory as you walk around.  The Disney aspect comes from the scaled-down size of things including many diminutively sized people bustling about their business.  I felt very tall.  A very long line of people was formed outside of the Lee Bakery on one street.  We didn't want to stand there with them to find out what was so amazing, but found out later it was pork buns.

With several bags of produce in hand, we piled all of it into our car and drove a little way south to Ala Moana Park, a sprawling city park with a fine large lagoon where I swam for a half hour or so.  It was fun to stroke along and see parasails on the western horizon, Diamond Head to the south and the Honolulu skyline to the east.  There were  few rainbows now and again and other folks out for runs or swims with me.  Paddle board riders floated by talking story in pidgin.

Next, we drove across the road to Ala Moana Shopping Center, a shopping mecca, where we shopped for Thanksgiving dinner supplies.  Thai food back in Waikiki was pretty good, not the best, and then we stopped for a nap back at the hotel.

On an impulse, we put our swim suits back on, walked over to Waikiki Beach - two blocks away -  and shopped around for an outrigger canoe ride.   Everyone shoves the canoe into the edge of the surf, gets in, gets a 20-second lesson on how to hold a paddle, and off you go to join the lineup of surfers, hundreds of them.  The helmsman turns you around, tells you to paddle like the dickens and you catch a wave and go powering along to the swish of whitewater, keeping up with surfers standing on their boards next to you.  We surprised one guy swimming back out.  He saw our outrigger coming straight at him and ducked under water just in time to avoid a new buzz haircut.  

To top off the day, we rounded up our two loved ones and found a wonderful Indian and Nepalese restaurant in Kaimuki, not far from their home, called Himalayan Kitchen.  Kaimuki is an old community that could be called a suburb of Honolulu to the southeast a bit.  It has always been home to blue-collar workers and students, and its main business district is definitely eclectic.  In the one-block area where the restaurant was, we found nine other ethnic cultures represented in cuisine.  Locals in the know flock to the hidden gems in Kaimuki.  After a fine meal in a warm and hospitable setting, we walked home in a spritzing effervescence of rain, tired out, heads full of Thai, Chinese, Nepalese and Hawaiian culture.