Four years and a few months after our trip to Maui, a conference brought us back to Hawaii. It was an exclamation point that capped a year full of beach travel. But this was emphatically not a beach vacation.
- My biggest fear was getting there and back. I’ve had bad luck with air travel recently and was fully ready for us to get stuck on a layover or loose baggage. It ended up being the smoothest ride both ways, and all four flights were early to their destination. Delta from National via JFK and United to Dulles via LAX, in case you were wondering.
- My first impression of Honolulu was paved paradise. It required much skill to turn tropical heaven into a commuter nightmare, but there is nothing the Americans can’t do. Then I remembered that it is first and foremost a military base, so of course there would be “interstate” highways — marked H — for all those defense needs, and more roads led to more cars which in turn led to most of downtown Honolulu being congested.
- But the weather and the beaches and the food are all so nice that tourists won’t mind crossing 8 lanes of traffic to reach their destination, or get a good shot of that mural. Resilience!
Statue of Father Damien in front of the Hawai'i State Capitol, Honolulu.
- Then there is the brutalist bug, which has spread to Hawaii’s State Capitol and which, surprisingly, I didn’t mind as much as e.g. Boston City Hall or L’Enfant Plaza. The brilliant statue of Father Damien — Saint Damien of Molokai — helped, and I was sad to see that the artist who made it, Marisol Escobar, “became world-famous in the mid-1960s, but lapsed into relative obscurity within a decade.” so the statue, made in 1969, was close to the end of her brief career.
- But concrete caskets are not the ugliest thing humanity visited upon the island. There is also glass and steel, because nothing makes more sense to build on a tropical paradise than a greenhouse.
- Of course, it is not all gloomy — far from it. The more ground-level the building was, the nicer it was to be around (funny how that works), and even in the nooks and crannies between the brutalist behemoths you could find livable spaces. They also tended to serve great food!
Wasabi Bistro, Waikiki, HI.
- Which is a segue into all the marvelous food we had on Oahu, and usually in unassuming places: from Korean BBQ at a shopping center food court, to Waiola shave ice in a bit of an urban desert, to shrimp at a North Shore food truck. Admittedly, it was nothing you could not also get in DC: four twice the price and with half the quality. Also, as good as shave ice was, bao bing was better.
- Ube and taro have been a family favorite ever since a visit to Mt. Pleasant’s Purple Patch soon after we moved to DC, so we were happy to see it used everywhere, including an ube-flavored Melona you could get at a gas station. So clearly we went twice to a restaurant that served both pancakes and waffles made with ube, and of course the next step is to start making them at home.
- This is all good food, but for the food/atmosphere combination Wasabi bistro was best by far, and I am a bit worried for our waistlines and wallets both if and when we go to Japan.
Mana Kai catamaran just before leaving for Turtle Canyon, Waikiki, HI.
- I am burying the lede here, which is that the water and the beaches of Oahu are absolutely fantastic, and though busier than Maui’s they are busy for a reason, which is to say better in every way (sorry, Maui). An East Coast beach vacation requires chairs, food, toys, and other implements to keep you busy because let’s be honest, you don’t want to spend too much time in the cold, turbulent waters, and if you aren’t anxious about rip currents because you don’t plan on swimming, there are all those sand holes to keep your thoughts occupied with death and gloom. And no, it’s not all that bad — we keep coming back, after all — but it can’t hold a candle to Waikiki, where you don’t even need a beach towel because the weather is so nice that air drying is actually pleasant even after a sunset swim.
- But wait, there is more: for the price of a mediocre dinner you can get on a catamaran and go snorkeling with turtles, among other things, which isn’t quite like paying next-to-nothing to a Thai fisherman to take you to a coral reef, but then again Koh Samui doesn’t have a Costco (let alone two that are on Oahu). Some of the lifeguards on our boat looked like they were no older than 16 and what a life that must be, though of course I imagine you have to leave Hawaii for higher education at some point, unless you plan on becoming a marine biologist.
- To see Honolulu from up high — and you should! — the first place that will come to mind is the Diamond Head crater which is easily visible from any Honolulu beach and easy to climb and of course you should go not just for the views but also to check out a pre-WW1 bunker that is nestled on the top and is now the foundation of the observation deck. But there is also the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, which in addition to the views will also teach you a few things about the naval battles of WW2 and beyond — or rather what the US military would like you to know about them. Educational either way!
- Not every activity was good: the Dole plantation was a bit of a tourist trap. I imagine the target audience is a busload of people taking a day trip from their cruise. Also, everything in that store and the ubiquitous ABC stores is grossly overpriced. Good thing there is a Costco.
- That last point is also why Honolulu may be on our list of places where we could maybe work for a year or two — apparently they have a cancer center — but not live long-term. While restaurant prices are on par with DC — at much higher quality! — groceries were much more expensive, and I can only imagine what the real estate market looks like. There is also the Groundhog Day effect that a friend who lives in Honolulu remarked upon: when every day is perfect and the weather never changes, days tend to run into each other. Also: the island is small enough for things to get claustrophobic rather quickly.
- But it is a great place to visit, which, duh, of course it is, but it is also nice to have confirmation from time to time that not everything we have been told and shown on TV was a lie.
