Tuesday, January 27, 2015
A Week in Hawaii
While everyone else was heading back to work after the holidays, I headed to Hawaii to attend a conference; the International Humanities Conference is held every year in Waikiki and I had decided that this year, I was going to spend part of my winter at a conference somewhere warm. (It didn't hurt that I didn't have to rush back to work since I'm on sabbatical this semester-- and so I was free to extend my time in the sun and warmth.) That said, very little of this is about said conference-- it's not as interesting as the outside-conference activties (while it was a good conference, it's not really the part of the traveling that I'm trying to create a permanent memory of) and (with the exception of one-- my breakfast plate) I have no pictures of it. While Hawaii is gorgeous, it turns out conference centers the world round, even ones located in fancy resorts, are pretty boring and standard: there are rooms with walls that can be opened or closed to make the rooms larger or smaller which all have generic, somewhat uncomfortable chairs, computers and projectors. Not really worth taking pictures of. So, there was a conference, but you might not know it from the blog.
It's a very long flight to Hawaii from the east coast (and, I happened to have flown Delata, which doesn't think the route from Atlanta to Honolulu is long enough to merit providing a complimentary meal or free movies)-- but then, you land in Hawaii and that no longer matters. From the time you get off the plane, everything is lovely, even the airport (which has lots of open air walkways between the gates and baggage claim).
I'm guessing it's hard to be in a bad mood in Hawaii-- it didn't hurt that when I left North Carolina earlier that day it had been about 18 degrees and now it was 80 and sunny. That will cure anyone of the last 10 hours of flight misery.
The conference was taking place in the resort at the Hilton Hawaiian Village in Waikiki, and so I stayed there for the first half of my trip. (I moved hotels once it was no longer being funded by work-- but it would have been difficult to stay at somewhere other than the resort and attend the conference since parking is so difficult in Waikiki. When you can find parking, it's really expensive. It just seemed like it would be a bit too much without a car-- and, the resort was really nice.) I had an ocean view room-- which meant this view from the balcony of my room.
Or this view if I looked in a different direction.
Either way I looked, it was nice. Horrid flight forgotten. I had arrived late afternoon, and by the time I got to the hotel it was after 5 pm-- and I had been up for quite a while, so my first night wasn't very exciting. There was enough time to meet my friend and colleague, who was also there for the conference, and his son for dinner at one of the resort restaurants (CJs, which is not one of the fancier restaurants) and start my trip off with a drink that seemed to say "you're in Hawaii".
It's a lava coloda-- or something like that. Basically, it's a Pina Colada with strawberries in it. And it was (as you can see) served with a wedge of pineapple which made me really happy-- I like pineapple and was very excited to be in the land where pineapple grows and where I could have it fresh every day. (I think I did actually manage to eat it every day of the trip.) I also had Kahlua Pork for dinner-- it was a menu staple at a lot of places (as were other varieties of pork)-- though the fries are pretty much the star of the plate in the photo.
We finished dinner at about 7:45, just in time for the fireworks "show" to start. Every Friday, there are fireworks set off in Waikiki (ostensibly to welcome visitors to the island-- I guess a lot of us arrive on a Friday). The shuttle driver had told everyone in the van about them on the way to the resort. He oversold them. (This was not the only time I heard about the Friday fireworks; lots of people in various hospitality roles talked about them. There are many things to love about Hawaii and tons of beauty to be in awe of; the Friday fireworks show is not one of the more impressive sights.)
They last maybe 3 minutes-- this photo is from the finale. Granted, I wasn't in the best position to get a good photo of them, but you can tell it's not a grand spectacle. Still, it's a nice effort.
I walked around the resort for a few minutes to get an idea of what it was like (and then I took pictures during the day-- it's really a pretty resort)
and then I decided that I needed to go to sleep. I had been up for nearly 24 hours. I think I was asleep by 9 pm. To be fair, this is not ever going to be a great story of nightlife in Honolulu... I never really got off of east coast time and so I was wide awake by 5:30 in the morning most every day (which is 10:30 am on the east coast) and was pretty much passed out by 10 pm every night (or, 3 am on the east coast-- I was maintaining party hours, just not in the right part of the world).
Saturday at the Resort
And, so, I was wide awake the next day before the sun was even up. I tried to go back to sleep but that didn't work, so I made coffee (hotel packaged, but it said it was Kona coffee. I'm doubting that it was 100% Kona...) and went to read on the balcony for a while. I was just happy to be able to sit outside, in shorts, with coffee and a book (it had been months since the temperature had allowed for that at home. Sitting outside on my deck with coffee and a book is my favorite way to start a day; sitting on a balcony with a beach view is equally good, if not better.). And then, at a more normal hour, I went over to sign in at the conference and get breakfast.
I have to admit, I didn't have much hope for breakfast since at most conferences, if breakfast is even provided, you're lucky to get a mini danish and some weak coffee. But, the International Humanities Conference knows how to do breakfast.
I loaded up on fruit on day one (really good pineapple!). But there was a large buffet every day that always included some flavor of pancakes, some kind of egg dish, and apple-banana fritters with vanilla sauce (which I had actually resisted on this first day, trying to be healthy, but I lost that battle quickly. I had them every other day of the conference). There was also good coffee, brought by wait staff who also bussed plates and seemed quite cheery. One waiter even came running after me to replace my coffee when I accidentally refilled my own from a carafe with decaf in it. (I guess I don't look like someone who wants decaf.) I went to sessions at the conference that day, including my friend's presentation. (This is how pretty much every conference day went... breakfast and sessions. Just add that in on your own as part of the next few days. It would get repetitive if I actually wrote it.) But, I also go to lay out for a little while in the sun at the resort beach.
Water is so blue in Hawaii. East coast oceans never look like this. (Consequently, I took hundreds of photos of Oahu beaches. They are all just stunningly gorgeous. There are lots of beach photos to come-- and they represent only a fraction of the photos I took.)
I also got to lay out by the pool later in the day, post-conference.
I never did swim in the pool; I dipped my foot in and the water was icy. And, sitting in the shade (it was hard to find a sunny spot at the pool this late in the day), it wasn't really hot enough to need to jump in.
We ate at Beni Hana that night; the resort, lovely as it was, didn't have the best food offerings. But, I don't think I've been to a Beni Hana since I was about 8 years old, so it was kind of fun. While the resort didn't necessarily have the best restaurant options, it did have a wonderful ice cream and gelato shop.
That, I believe, is one scoop of salted caramel and one scoop of banana macadamia gelato (I went several times-- I only took one picture. I don't think this is the ice cream from that night. I was too full that evening to have ordered two scoops.). It was yummy-- definitely the best place in the resort to eat (though, I would eat ice cream for every meal if I could. It's hard to go wrong with an ice cream shop.). And, a great way to end a day.
Sunday on the North Shore
We had decided to rent a car (this is really the way to go if you aren't staying in a place with free parking. Parking in Honolulu/Waikiki is hard to come by and very expensive-- renting a car for a day is a little more expensive than it is in other places, but not having to pay for parking makes up for the expense of a one day rental. Some of the expense is probably a cleaning fee; there was a lot of sand in the car when we left it at the end of the day. I imagine that's often the case.) and drive up to Turtle Bay and the North Shore. I don't know what people did before GPS (I do actually, but to be honest I can't remember the last time I looked at a paper map for directions), but it does make taking off with just a general idea of a destination much easier. That said, it's kind of hard to get lost on Oahu; once you're on a highway (I'm using highway loosely here-- I don't think there's anywhere on the island you can drive faster than 45 and those places are rare. 25 or 35 is pretty common.), it's pretty much a circle around the island. It's all stunningly gorgeous landscape-- which makes it really nice that you can't drive fast because I'm pretty sure tourists would go slowly no matter what. It makes it easier to take in all the mountains and water (though, it's still not easy to take pictures from a moving vehicle. Most didn't come out too well. This is something of an exception-- we may have been stopped at a light.)
I took some video which came out a little better than still photos... they give an idea of what the view on the ride is like anyway.
We did stop several times along the way; there are lots of scenic pull-offs all along the coast and they all make for great photo opportunities. This was one stop; there was also a port-o-potty here that I didn't take a picture of. (I took photos at many "rest stops". They're all on beaches.)
We stopped here as well.
I took video just to be able to a sense of the scope of the landscape.
At this stop, there were also chickens running wild.
It turns out there are a lot of chickens running wild on Oahu. I learned the next day, from our snorklefest shuttle driver, that there was a hurricane about 25 years ago that destroyed the coops at a farm, setting all the chickens free. And, once they were all out, there was no way to get them back. Chickens breed pretty quickly, so now there are lots of them and they just roam around the island. (I have no idea if people catch them and eat them or not. It seems like an easy way to get free food, especially since there are quite a few homeless people living on the island, but I don't know a lot about chickens-- it may be that they have diseases that make eating them not worth the risk.)
This was the other wildlife at this particular stop. (It's a tiny crab; look near the bottom middle. It's almost the same color as the sand.)
We were headed first to Turtle Bay (at which there were no Turtles, which was really disappointing. I think it got its name because someone thinks the land formation looks like a turtle.). To see the bay, you have to drive into Turtle Bay Resort which has parking for public beach access-- to this area.
At Turtle Bay is also a lovely restaurant, Ola.
What makes it most lovely is the view you can have while you're eating.This was the view from our table.
The food was good, too. It's all organic and locally sourced as best as possible. I had a hamburger; what was a bit more exciting for me was my pineapple and guava juice mix (I don't know that I knew I was this excited about fruit before this trip... maybe it's that it's winter at home and so none of the produce is really fresh. It had been a few months since I've been to a farmer's market... more on that later).
What we really wanted to see were the beaches with the surfers, so after lunch we left Turtle Bay (where there aren't waves of note) to drive a few more miles up the road to the North Shore proper.
You can see the waters are a bit more tumultuous; what you can't tell from photos is how strong the undertow is (and, this was on a relatively calm day-- I would hate to know what it's like when the waters are rough). It's difficult to even stay standing in the water if you go in above your knees. The water was pretty cold; it didn't inspire much swimming, at least not for me. I went in a couple feet a few times to cool off after lying in the sun (which was pretty strong even though it was only about 80 degrees out) but between the undertow and, even more, the cold water, I wasn't too encouraged to actually swim. There are signs along most beach fronts warning of the dangers of swimming in the waters; in some places, there are lifeguards who call out warnings about swimming. Signs and lifeguards seem to be pretty much universally ignored.
While I was in Hawaii, the waves were generally pretty small by North Shore standards. (Apparently, there was a front coming down the week after I left that made the waves much bigger.). So, there was some surfing, but not a lot. I got some video of it-- you can actually see the people in the video better than I could from the beach. I didn't think about bringing binoculars, but they would have been helpful for this excursion-- the surfers are pretty far out in the water and a little hard to really appreciate from shore.
After some time on the North Shore, we got back in the car and headed out again, this time towards Dole Plantation. We were in the land of pineapple; it seemed like the thing to do (it's also on the route back if you drive in a full circle from Waikiki to the North Shore and back again. You have to drive past it, so you might was well stop.).
Dole Plantation is probably the most touristy place I went in the sense that it had a very large gift shop selling everything pineapple related you can think of (and then some). But, it also has a small cafeteria that sells soft serve pineapple ice cream with a variety of toppings including fresh pineapple. Pineapple on pineapple-- who could resist? (I really was this excited about pineapple-- and being at the plantation of pineapple only amplified it.)
There are lovely gardens at the Done Plantation; a tour of them comes with an audio guide that informs you all about flora in Hawaii, including a lot about bromides, of which the pineapple is one kind. This is a bromide that is NOT a pineapple. There are a lot of them growing in the garden. (There are no actual pineapples growing in the botanic garden. Those are further out in the plantation.)
The bromides weren't really the prettiest part of the garden; there were more colorful parts to be seen.
The tour audio guide also discusses things like irrigation and other kinds of crops grown there, like cacao and bananas. Those trees are in the gardens; this is a banana tree.
There is also a lei garden; the audio tour provides a lot of information about how to wear a lei and how to give one and what different leis mean; I didn't know it was so complicated. And, I'm pretty sure I have forgotten more than I remember. However, I do remember that it is terribly rude to refuse a lei (you pretty much can't do it) and that you can't give a closed lei to a pregnant woman because it's bad luck-- it's like wishing that the umbilical cord will wrap itself around the baby's neck and choke it. What I've forgotten is what different kinds of leis can symbolize; it's really complicated.
There are koi ponds seemingly everywhere in Hawaii, including at Dole Plantation.
Just outside the garden proper, however, is a larger lake area with more koi and a machine that dispenses food so that visitors can feed the koi. The resulting frenzy is disturbing-- and yet we fed them twice just to see this spectacle a second time.
This was the end of the day; we left Dole a little before 5 pm and headed back towards Waikiki to find a gas station to fill the car (which was much more difficult than it should have been-- gas stations are on the outskirts of the area where the resort hotels are located. On the up side, gas prices have gone down so much that it's not even all that expensive to get gas in Hawaii at the moment.) and return the rental to the resort garage. So, it was an early night again-- though, to be fair, there isn't much to do in the resort at night. There is some live music (cover bands) at bars, and there was some kind of circus show (a la Cirque de Soleil, I think) that didn't seem worth the fee, but overall, it was a pretty chill place. I ended my day with a take-out personal pizza and Downton Abby (and, yet again, was asleep by 10-- or 3 am east coast time).
Monday at Snorkelfest
Originally, I had booked a very early morning trip (like, at 5:30 am-- which sounded early when I booked it but in retrospect, probably wouldn't have felt all that early since I kept waking up around that time anyway) to snorkel out in deeper waters where there would be dolphins; it's a long and boring story, but that trip was canceled in favor of snorkelfest at Hanauma Bay-- shallower waters but also much less expensive. And, we could go later in the day. A shuttle picked us up from the resort and drove us over to Hanauma Bay; the service also provided all the snorkel gear-- it all cost about $20 (and then, the fee to get into Hanauma Bay and tipping the driver) which really did feel like a bargain compared to the other snorkeling expeditions. The view from above Hanauma Bay-- from the parking lot-- is gorgeous.
The first thing you have to do when you get to Hanauma Bay is watch a 9 minute video about the reef; it's basically a video about what to do and not do to best preserve the reef and fish. It is, however, accompanied by a soundtrack that sounds straight out of Sesame Street or some other children's programming which undermines the somewhat serious instructions on maintaining the reef. The big rules are don't touch the wildlife and don't touch the reef. You can swim over the reef in a lot of places, though there are designated channels to take to swim out into deeper waters. The reef is the darker parts of the picture. The lighter blue is where you're allowed to stand in the water.
There are a lot of areas to snorkel in and each area, even though it's not that big, has a different set of sea life that seems to inhabit it. Supposedly, there were sea turtles on the left side, but there weren't that many fish and I didn't see any turtles, so after a few minutes, I went to the right side to see more fish. It didn't seem worth hanging around hoping to see a turtle and missing the rest of the sea life since we only had about 2 hours before the shuttle picked us up (and, that included the movie watching time).
You can see the reef a lot better from above; from beach level, it's hard to see unless you're in the water.
I did have a GoPro camera with me so that I could film the snorkeling. It said it was charged and then, when I took it in the water, it promptly died (even though I was supposed to have an hour and a half of filming time according to the screen that flicked on briefly), so I have no video of the fish. They were large and colorful though. It takes a lot of restraint to not touch them. It's not so much that fish are really pet-able creatures as they are right there, a few inches away, and there's this urge to reach out and touch one just to prove that you really are that close (I didn't though.). There is sort of that same urge with the reef, but the reef is pretty sharp. People emerge from the waters bleeding because they've accidentally stepped on it (it's hard to completely avoid the pieces of it that have migrated to the shallower waters despite the movie that admonishes visitors to never touch nor step on the reef because it's a living thing-- the film says that a lot in its 9 minutes. I'm pretty sure I accidentally stepped on pieces a couple times. I was wearing flippers though, so at least my feet were protected.). All my photos are different angles of Hanauma Bay.
And then, there are photos of the other animals in the parking lot area. More chickens...
And, a mongoose. I have never seen a mongoose before. I thought a mongoose was bigger. Instead, it's kind of ferret- like and small.
There are mongoose on Oahu because they were brought in to control some kind of rodent or snake problem; it turns out, however that mongoose are awake during the day and the creatures the Hawaiians wanted to get rid of were nocturnal. Instead, there are now mongoose running around the island eating birds; they've basically killed off one native species. (I can't remember which one-- I'm not much of a bird watcher, so the specifics weren't resonating well with me.) We returned from snorkelfest pretty late in the day.
Dinner that night was (appropriately or not) sushi-- my colleague had told that the sushi place at the resort was amazing. It (much like the fireworks) was oversold. It was pretty basic sushi-- I didn't take pictures. Usually when I have sushi, I order at least one "fancy" kind of roll. I appreciate the artistry of it as well as the myriad flavors. I ordered a fancy roll at this place, but it was probably the least decorative "elaborate" roll I've ever had. I also sort of forgot about picture taking at that point-- even though snorkelfest was only a few hours, snorkeling is tiring. And, I needed to go back to my room to practice my paper one more time as my presentation was the next day.
Tuesday Closing out the Conference and Changing Hotels
My presentation was at 9:45 am on Tuesday; it was the second to last session of the conference. Afterwards, I sat by the pool at the resort reading for a while I had packed up and left my luggage with a baggage hold, and after finishing my thriller novel, it was time to move to a new hotel, one that was less expensive (as work was no longer paying for my lodging since the conference was over) and which also felt like it was a bit more in the heart of things. I moved about 2 miles down the road to a small hotel, the Prince Waikiki, which lacked the luster of the resort and the beach view (this was the new view)
but had its own kind of charm. The staff were incredibly kind and friendly in a way that felt genuine and the hotel was in the heart of shops and restaurants. And, it had a kitchenette which was really convenient now that I didn't have the conference breakfast to eat everyday.
Moving to this room was refreshing, which I can't quite explain except to say that it felt real, and not plastic, and that was nice. It was also only a block off of the beach-- so while the view off my balcony was of rooftops and treetops, I only had to walk for a minute or two to get to this.
Even the sidewalks in this neighborhood were pretty.
You wouldn't really know from the picture that all of this was located on a major road (that's the beach off to the left).
And, there was an ABC store on every corner (quite literally-- they is an ABC store on each block. There is a joke that the ABC stands for All Blocks Covered-- it may not be a joke. I was also told it stands for Aloha Brings Customers.), so getting food for breakfast for the next few days would be easy. (ABC stores are convenience stores that sell everything: food, souvenirs, toiletries...) As it turns out, I didn't really need the ABC stores because in wandering around this neighborhood, I stumbled across the Farmers' Market held in the atrium area of the Hyatt. For some reason, farmers' markets open from 4-8 pm in Waikiki (I asked a few people why-- I'm accustomed to farmers' markets that open at 6 am, most of which are emptied of produce halfway through the morning. But no one seemed to know-- I was just told that's what they do.)
The farmers' market had lots of fruits and veggies one would associate with Hawaii: pineapple, papaya, coconut, and rambuton. And, most of the vendors sell and assortment of fruit cut up in to-go containers which made it perfect for breakfast the next day. (And, this was exciting since I haven't had fresh, farmers' market fruit in a few months.)
There was also a more traditional grocery store near my hotel where I discovered mochi ice cream. Mochi is a kind of rice cake that can be pounded into a shape-- in this case, a round one that contains all different flavors of ice cream.
They're my new favorite thing, though I have no idea how I would get them where I live-- that might have been some of the attraction to it. It was both familiar and exotic. And, it also has the advantage of built-in portion control since the ice cream is contained in a reasonably sized wrapper (though, I guess you could eat a lot of them in one sitting. I didn't buy a lot of them at a time. I just went back for more later in my stay.)
I wandered around this new neighborhood for a couple hours and then went back to my hotel to figure out what to do about dinner. I wanted something that felt more authentic to Hawaii rather than resort fare or something from a chain restaurant (of which there are a lot in Waikiki-- I walked past multiple Jimmy Buffet themed places as well as a Cheesecake Factory which, true to Cheesecake Factories everywhere, was packed and had a line). After consulting apps like Urban Spoon and Yelp, I decided I wanted to go to a place called Murakame Udon. Reviews said lines snaked out the door and they weren't wrong. But, I figured a Japanese restaurant that had a line of customers from Japan standing outside had to be good, and it was. (For the rest of my trip, there was a part of every evening when I considered just going back to Murakame, but the part of me that thinks I need to try as much variety as possible always won out.). And, there were sights along the way, before I got to the counter to order. Like, outside the restaurant was a display of the food options.
And, at the entry is the station where the udon noodles are made fresh.
Bowls of Udon varieties are ordered at a counter
followed by a self-serve counter where you can load up on tempura and musubi (which means something akin to rice ball). I got way too much food-- though, in my defense, that's the small bowl of soup and a pretty small selection of the available tempura. And only one musubi-- sweet plum (which is deceptively named since, while good, it's not sweet. It's pretty sour.)
The musubi were wrapped, so I took that to go and made my way back to my hotel (and, eventually, a piece of my waiting mochi ice cream).
Wednesday Taking the Food Tour
I had booked a food a tour for my first fully free day; it's the Hole in the Wall Food Tour and it promised to go to local spots around Honolulu and Chinatown. (There is also a North Shore version of this tour which I afterwards wished I had time to do as well.) It started around 9:15 am; it was relatively small with only four of us on the tour (a couple from Australia who were on their honeymoon and an older woman who, it turned out, lived a couple miles from my parents) which was nice because there was no jostling to get our share of the food or to hear the guides or, most important, fighting to get pictures. Our guides, Robin and Krystal, were fantastic. Robin used to be a chef at Nobu and it was really clear that he knew food. Most of what I can recount in such detail here is due to an email from Krystal after the tour reviewing where we had gone and what we had eaten. (The email also included restaurants to check out on other islands and links to recipes for some of the food we had.)
The first place we went to was the Royal Kitchen for Baked Manapua.
Manapua are Chinese Bao buns steamed with a choice of fillings. I ordered the char sui, which is a kind of pork, and then we got to try pieces of a couple others including the Portuguese sausage and Chinese black sugar (which isn't really sugar but a sweet bean paste). This is what it looks like whole.
This is what it looks like inside (that's Chinese black sugar on the left and Portuguese sausage on the right).
Hawaiian food is a mix of cultural influences-- the Chinese used to sell these to workers in the fields. Manupua is the Hawaiian name for the Chinese buns; it's just one simple example of the kind of cultural integration that makes up Hawaiian culture. You can tell that there is this variety of influences just based on the buildings. Right near the Royal Kitchen were both a Japanese temple and a building with Chinese influence.
The food tour tended to alternate between savory and sweet, so the next stop was at Liliha Bakery for Coco Puffs (not the cereal).
A coco puff is a pastry filled with chocolate cream and topped with Chantilly cream (for which I think I got the recipe in the email... it's a fantastic icing).
From here, we went to Chinatown which was a walking and eating tour. Chinatown has actually burned down twice, once in 1886 and once in 1900, so a lot of it has been rebuilt. But some of the character still remains.
Certainly, the food reminds you that you are in Chinatown. Many shop windows display dim sum.
Our first stop was at Lin's Lei Stand (not for food)
where I had some of the information about leis that I had learned at Dole Plantation reiterated (which I think is why the thing about not giving a pregnant woman a closed lei stuck). The variety in leis is amazing, but the most exquisite ones are hand-sewn together, like this.
There is a lot of tradition in Chinatown. The next place we went to was a traditional noodle factory-- Ying Leong Look Funn Factory. It's a rice noodle factory that has been operating for more than 50 years. There you can watch rice noodles being made. The noodles get rolled out on trays.
Then they are left to dry, steamed, handfolded, stacked and cut to specification (so, in a variety of thicknesses for the restaurants that order from here daily).
All the rice noodles I've ever used in cooking have come dried in a package and have to be reconstituted the same way pasta does-- I'd never seen a fresh rice noodle before.
The factory is located in a square that contains a large marketplace
as well as more traditional farmers' stands.
The factory just makes the noodles; others use them to make really good food, like this stir fry noodle dish. We had Korean BBQ from Jackie's corner (inside the marketplace) along with the noodles.
Keeping with the savory then sweet theme, we then had fruit from the marketplace: rambuton and longon. (The rambuton is the hairy, red fruit.)
This was to the left.
The signs warn of the danger of climbing over the rocks or swimming; people ignored them.
Some of the people who went up while I was eating my hot dog had asked if swimming was allowed at the falls, to which the guy watching the parking lot responded that there were signs that warned against it but pretty much everyone ignored them, which seemed to me (and, to them) like tacit permission. I probably would have done it too, except that I didn't have a bathing suit with me.
I hiked down from the falls (down still being easier, though it's also pretty easy to slip on this particular trail) and went to my car. My initial intent for the end of the day had been to go to Ala Moana Shopping Center (an open-air mall) and wander for a little bit before going to Alan Wong's Pineapple Room (somewhat oddly located on the 3rd floor of the Macy's) for dinner. Alan Wong is a famous Hawaiian chef who is largely credited with bringing attention to what Hawaiian cuisine is and elevating it; the Pineapple Room is the least expensive of his restaurants (his flagship restaurant is incredibly expensive) and several people had mentioned it-- Robin and Krystal had mentioned it several times on the Food Tour. However, by this time I was tired and felt really sweaty and dirty and I couldn't muster the energy to do much else. So, instead, I decided that the culinary treat I should try was Hawaiian Shaved Ice. I went to Ailana, a small shop near the mall, and ordered a shaved ice with a pineapple, passion fruit, and li hing flavor trio.
Shaved ice is a little different from a snow cone though it might be hard to tell from the picture. The ice is shaved a lot thinner than in a traditional snow cone so the flavored syrup doesn't sink through the ice and to the bottom. And, it's very refreshing after hiking 3 trails in one day.
I went back to the hotel (which meant returning the rental car since, even though I could have kept it for 24 hours, there was nowhere to park it), showered and took a brief nap. I had been in the mood for "Hawaiian" food since I had intended to go to the Pineapple Room, so I found a restaurant nearby that was listed as Hawaiian. I'm sure it wasn't as good, but it did have a hibiscus sangria
and Kahlua Pork quesadillas (it's the way of preparing the pork that makes that Hawaiian in nature).
And, by that point, I was so hungry and tired, it was a stretch to have even made that much of a decision about where to go or what to order. On the way home, I decided that my day of exercise merited more mochi ice cream, so I stopped off at the grocery store for a few more pieces and then headed back to go to sleep.
Friday at Pearl Harbor
I figured if you make it all the way to Honolulu, you have to go to Pearl Harbor so this is what I planned to spend my last day in Hawaii doing. It's not easy to get public transportation to it, though. I had looked up how to take a bus there and, according to Google, using public transport was going to take me more than 2 hours in each direction, which seemed like a lot of time (and felt extremely complicated considering Pearl Harbor was only about 11 miles from where I was staying). So, I booked a tour to Pearl Harbor instead; it costs a little more to do it this way, but it included easy transportation. It also included a somewhat odd tour of the city that seemed intended to take up time more than anything. The basic tour of Pearl Harbor included the Arizona Memorial. However, some of the people on the Pearl Harbor Tour (which included the Australian couple from the Food Tour I had taken on Wednesday) had paid extra to also visit the Missouri. Those people were dropped off at Pearl Harbor early; the rest of us were shuttled around for a while on the city tour before returning to join those who had gone to the Missouri so that we could all visit the Arizona Memorial.
The city tour was largely a driving tour, which was okay since this was the one day that was overcast and a bit rainy (though, the misty drizzle didn't really merit needing an umbrella by anyone other than those who rarely see rain). It went through the Puowaina, or Punchbowl, Crater where the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, a cemetery for veterans, is located (I ended up taking video of it because we weren't allowed to stop; there is some rule that tour vehicles can't stop or let their passengers out, though you can drive up in a car on your own and explore. I guess they don't want large crowds tromping through.).
There is also a memorial building with a statue of Lady Columbia, also known as Lady Liberty and who is supposed to represent all grieving others, which was built in 1964 in honor of the American armed forces of the Pacific from WWII and the Korean War. In 1980, it was expanded to include those who died in the Vietnam war.
There are really great views of Waikiki and Honolulu from here, including a great view of Diamond Head, but it was difficult to get pictures because we never stopped. But there's a small sense of it in shaky video (this isn't my best-- but the van was moving pretty fast). Diamond Head is to the right at the beginning.
From Punchbowl, we headed into downtown Honolulu. The guide of the city seemed a little odd in structure, but our driver/guide was really informative. I did learn a lot about Hawaiian history, especially the royalty of Hawaii. We stopped to look at two buildings, both of which seem better known for their appearances in Hawaii Five-O than for their actual functions.
We stopped next to Aliiolani Hale, where there is a statue of Kamehameha I, a beloved leader of the 18th century.
This is actually the second statue of him that was cast; the first one, which was more colorful, was lost at sea. (It was eventually recovered and is now on the Big Island in Kapaau.) The building itself was originally built to be a palace but now serves as the home of the State Supreme Court. On TV, it's the facade of the Hawaii Five-O headquarters.
Across the street from Aliiolani Hale is Iolani Palace. It's currently undergoing some kind of renovation (which you can tell from the crane in the right of the picture-- this was the only picture I could get that minimized the influence of the construction. I have more close-up shots, but the construction dominates them.), so visitation is by special appointment only. This was a bit disappointing for me since I love a palace and this is the only palace on US soil.
Iolani Palace was built in 1882. Eleven years later, Queen Liliuokalani was imprisoned in the palace after a government overthrow. The palace notably had both phone lines and electricity before the White House (Thomas Edison apparently visited to do installation). Iolani Palace was also the facade for the Hawaii Five-O headquarters in the original series.
After this tour through downtown which really for me was better for the brief history of the royal rule of Hawaii than the sites, we returned to Pearl Harbor for our tour. The weather seemed appropriately moody and austere.
The trip to the Arizona Memorial begins with a 45 minute film about Pearl Harbor and the attack by the Japanese. The attack lasted approximately 2 hours and did a lot of damage to the Oahu airfields (where planes had been stored) and the battleships in the harbor and, obviously, killed many. However, the Japanese missed hitting the aircraft carrier ships and the fuel tanks which meant that the blow was horrible but not crippling to the Pacific Fleet. (There is a lot of recounting of both the tragedy and the Japanese tactical mistake which contributed to our victory in WWII.) After the movie, visitors take a ferry to the Arizona Memorial.
The Arizona Memorial itself was erected directly above the sunken ship.
In the back of the memorial is a wall with the names of all those who died on the Arizona as well as the names of those who survived the attack but have since died and been returned to the waters.
Bits of the ship are out of the water which makes this both somber and a little bit creepy because, if it were allowed, you could reach down and touch the boat-- which means that the remains of the soldiers who died aren't terribly far away from visitors.
The Arizona is steadily leaking fuel at a few gallons a day and you can see the oil on the water; years ago, divers went down to try to figure out if they could remove the fuel from the ship but the ship is so corroded that it was decided that it was safer to leave the fuel on the boat and let it leak slowly than to risk it all spilling at once into the harbor while trying to remove it. You can sort of see it "glimmering" on the water here.
Visitors to the Arizona spend about 30 minutes at the memorial and then the ferry returns with new visitors and takes the previous group back to shore.
At Pearl Harbor, there is a museum which is mostly dedicated to telling the story of the attack in great detail. There is also some space dedicated to the technology of the day like this oscilloscope which would have been used to detect vessels in the water.
There are artifacts on display, like the Arizona's anchor and small planes
and on-shore memorials like the Waterfront Submarine Memorial.
You can also see the USS Bowfin from the waterfront (which can be toured, though I didn't).
It's a very long flight to Hawaii from the east coast (and, I happened to have flown Delata, which doesn't think the route from Atlanta to Honolulu is long enough to merit providing a complimentary meal or free movies)-- but then, you land in Hawaii and that no longer matters. From the time you get off the plane, everything is lovely, even the airport (which has lots of open air walkways between the gates and baggage claim).
I'm guessing it's hard to be in a bad mood in Hawaii-- it didn't hurt that when I left North Carolina earlier that day it had been about 18 degrees and now it was 80 and sunny. That will cure anyone of the last 10 hours of flight misery.
The conference was taking place in the resort at the Hilton Hawaiian Village in Waikiki, and so I stayed there for the first half of my trip. (I moved hotels once it was no longer being funded by work-- but it would have been difficult to stay at somewhere other than the resort and attend the conference since parking is so difficult in Waikiki. When you can find parking, it's really expensive. It just seemed like it would be a bit too much without a car-- and, the resort was really nice.) I had an ocean view room-- which meant this view from the balcony of my room.
Or this view if I looked in a different direction.
Either way I looked, it was nice. Horrid flight forgotten. I had arrived late afternoon, and by the time I got to the hotel it was after 5 pm-- and I had been up for quite a while, so my first night wasn't very exciting. There was enough time to meet my friend and colleague, who was also there for the conference, and his son for dinner at one of the resort restaurants (CJs, which is not one of the fancier restaurants) and start my trip off with a drink that seemed to say "you're in Hawaii".
We finished dinner at about 7:45, just in time for the fireworks "show" to start. Every Friday, there are fireworks set off in Waikiki (ostensibly to welcome visitors to the island-- I guess a lot of us arrive on a Friday). The shuttle driver had told everyone in the van about them on the way to the resort. He oversold them. (This was not the only time I heard about the Friday fireworks; lots of people in various hospitality roles talked about them. There are many things to love about Hawaii and tons of beauty to be in awe of; the Friday fireworks show is not one of the more impressive sights.)
They last maybe 3 minutes-- this photo is from the finale. Granted, I wasn't in the best position to get a good photo of them, but you can tell it's not a grand spectacle. Still, it's a nice effort.
I walked around the resort for a few minutes to get an idea of what it was like (and then I took pictures during the day-- it's really a pretty resort)
and then I decided that I needed to go to sleep. I had been up for nearly 24 hours. I think I was asleep by 9 pm. To be fair, this is not ever going to be a great story of nightlife in Honolulu... I never really got off of east coast time and so I was wide awake by 5:30 in the morning most every day (which is 10:30 am on the east coast) and was pretty much passed out by 10 pm every night (or, 3 am on the east coast-- I was maintaining party hours, just not in the right part of the world).
Saturday at the Resort
And, so, I was wide awake the next day before the sun was even up. I tried to go back to sleep but that didn't work, so I made coffee (hotel packaged, but it said it was Kona coffee. I'm doubting that it was 100% Kona...) and went to read on the balcony for a while. I was just happy to be able to sit outside, in shorts, with coffee and a book (it had been months since the temperature had allowed for that at home. Sitting outside on my deck with coffee and a book is my favorite way to start a day; sitting on a balcony with a beach view is equally good, if not better.). And then, at a more normal hour, I went over to sign in at the conference and get breakfast.
I have to admit, I didn't have much hope for breakfast since at most conferences, if breakfast is even provided, you're lucky to get a mini danish and some weak coffee. But, the International Humanities Conference knows how to do breakfast.
I loaded up on fruit on day one (really good pineapple!). But there was a large buffet every day that always included some flavor of pancakes, some kind of egg dish, and apple-banana fritters with vanilla sauce (which I had actually resisted on this first day, trying to be healthy, but I lost that battle quickly. I had them every other day of the conference). There was also good coffee, brought by wait staff who also bussed plates and seemed quite cheery. One waiter even came running after me to replace my coffee when I accidentally refilled my own from a carafe with decaf in it. (I guess I don't look like someone who wants decaf.) I went to sessions at the conference that day, including my friend's presentation. (This is how pretty much every conference day went... breakfast and sessions. Just add that in on your own as part of the next few days. It would get repetitive if I actually wrote it.) But, I also go to lay out for a little while in the sun at the resort beach.
Water is so blue in Hawaii. East coast oceans never look like this. (Consequently, I took hundreds of photos of Oahu beaches. They are all just stunningly gorgeous. There are lots of beach photos to come-- and they represent only a fraction of the photos I took.)
I also got to lay out by the pool later in the day, post-conference.
I never did swim in the pool; I dipped my foot in and the water was icy. And, sitting in the shade (it was hard to find a sunny spot at the pool this late in the day), it wasn't really hot enough to need to jump in.
We ate at Beni Hana that night; the resort, lovely as it was, didn't have the best food offerings. But, I don't think I've been to a Beni Hana since I was about 8 years old, so it was kind of fun. While the resort didn't necessarily have the best restaurant options, it did have a wonderful ice cream and gelato shop.
That, I believe, is one scoop of salted caramel and one scoop of banana macadamia gelato (I went several times-- I only took one picture. I don't think this is the ice cream from that night. I was too full that evening to have ordered two scoops.). It was yummy-- definitely the best place in the resort to eat (though, I would eat ice cream for every meal if I could. It's hard to go wrong with an ice cream shop.). And, a great way to end a day.
Sunday on the North Shore
We had decided to rent a car (this is really the way to go if you aren't staying in a place with free parking. Parking in Honolulu/Waikiki is hard to come by and very expensive-- renting a car for a day is a little more expensive than it is in other places, but not having to pay for parking makes up for the expense of a one day rental. Some of the expense is probably a cleaning fee; there was a lot of sand in the car when we left it at the end of the day. I imagine that's often the case.) and drive up to Turtle Bay and the North Shore. I don't know what people did before GPS (I do actually, but to be honest I can't remember the last time I looked at a paper map for directions), but it does make taking off with just a general idea of a destination much easier. That said, it's kind of hard to get lost on Oahu; once you're on a highway (I'm using highway loosely here-- I don't think there's anywhere on the island you can drive faster than 45 and those places are rare. 25 or 35 is pretty common.), it's pretty much a circle around the island. It's all stunningly gorgeous landscape-- which makes it really nice that you can't drive fast because I'm pretty sure tourists would go slowly no matter what. It makes it easier to take in all the mountains and water (though, it's still not easy to take pictures from a moving vehicle. Most didn't come out too well. This is something of an exception-- we may have been stopped at a light.)
I took some video which came out a little better than still photos... they give an idea of what the view on the ride is like anyway.
We did stop several times along the way; there are lots of scenic pull-offs all along the coast and they all make for great photo opportunities. This was one stop; there was also a port-o-potty here that I didn't take a picture of. (I took photos at many "rest stops". They're all on beaches.)
We stopped here as well.
I took video just to be able to a sense of the scope of the landscape.
At this stop, there were also chickens running wild.
It turns out there are a lot of chickens running wild on Oahu. I learned the next day, from our snorklefest shuttle driver, that there was a hurricane about 25 years ago that destroyed the coops at a farm, setting all the chickens free. And, once they were all out, there was no way to get them back. Chickens breed pretty quickly, so now there are lots of them and they just roam around the island. (I have no idea if people catch them and eat them or not. It seems like an easy way to get free food, especially since there are quite a few homeless people living on the island, but I don't know a lot about chickens-- it may be that they have diseases that make eating them not worth the risk.)
This was the other wildlife at this particular stop. (It's a tiny crab; look near the bottom middle. It's almost the same color as the sand.)
We were headed first to Turtle Bay (at which there were no Turtles, which was really disappointing. I think it got its name because someone thinks the land formation looks like a turtle.). To see the bay, you have to drive into Turtle Bay Resort which has parking for public beach access-- to this area.
At Turtle Bay is also a lovely restaurant, Ola.
What makes it most lovely is the view you can have while you're eating.This was the view from our table.
The food was good, too. It's all organic and locally sourced as best as possible. I had a hamburger; what was a bit more exciting for me was my pineapple and guava juice mix (I don't know that I knew I was this excited about fruit before this trip... maybe it's that it's winter at home and so none of the produce is really fresh. It had been a few months since I've been to a farmer's market... more on that later).
What we really wanted to see were the beaches with the surfers, so after lunch we left Turtle Bay (where there aren't waves of note) to drive a few more miles up the road to the North Shore proper.
You can see the waters are a bit more tumultuous; what you can't tell from photos is how strong the undertow is (and, this was on a relatively calm day-- I would hate to know what it's like when the waters are rough). It's difficult to even stay standing in the water if you go in above your knees. The water was pretty cold; it didn't inspire much swimming, at least not for me. I went in a couple feet a few times to cool off after lying in the sun (which was pretty strong even though it was only about 80 degrees out) but between the undertow and, even more, the cold water, I wasn't too encouraged to actually swim. There are signs along most beach fronts warning of the dangers of swimming in the waters; in some places, there are lifeguards who call out warnings about swimming. Signs and lifeguards seem to be pretty much universally ignored.
While I was in Hawaii, the waves were generally pretty small by North Shore standards. (Apparently, there was a front coming down the week after I left that made the waves much bigger.). So, there was some surfing, but not a lot. I got some video of it-- you can actually see the people in the video better than I could from the beach. I didn't think about bringing binoculars, but they would have been helpful for this excursion-- the surfers are pretty far out in the water and a little hard to really appreciate from shore.
After some time on the North Shore, we got back in the car and headed out again, this time towards Dole Plantation. We were in the land of pineapple; it seemed like the thing to do (it's also on the route back if you drive in a full circle from Waikiki to the North Shore and back again. You have to drive past it, so you might was well stop.).
Dole Plantation is probably the most touristy place I went in the sense that it had a very large gift shop selling everything pineapple related you can think of (and then some). But, it also has a small cafeteria that sells soft serve pineapple ice cream with a variety of toppings including fresh pineapple. Pineapple on pineapple-- who could resist? (I really was this excited about pineapple-- and being at the plantation of pineapple only amplified it.)
There are lovely gardens at the Done Plantation; a tour of them comes with an audio guide that informs you all about flora in Hawaii, including a lot about bromides, of which the pineapple is one kind. This is a bromide that is NOT a pineapple. There are a lot of them growing in the garden. (There are no actual pineapples growing in the botanic garden. Those are further out in the plantation.)
The bromides weren't really the prettiest part of the garden; there were more colorful parts to be seen.
The tour audio guide also discusses things like irrigation and other kinds of crops grown there, like cacao and bananas. Those trees are in the gardens; this is a banana tree.
There is also a lei garden; the audio tour provides a lot of information about how to wear a lei and how to give one and what different leis mean; I didn't know it was so complicated. And, I'm pretty sure I have forgotten more than I remember. However, I do remember that it is terribly rude to refuse a lei (you pretty much can't do it) and that you can't give a closed lei to a pregnant woman because it's bad luck-- it's like wishing that the umbilical cord will wrap itself around the baby's neck and choke it. What I've forgotten is what different kinds of leis can symbolize; it's really complicated.
There are koi ponds seemingly everywhere in Hawaii, including at Dole Plantation.
Just outside the garden proper, however, is a larger lake area with more koi and a machine that dispenses food so that visitors can feed the koi. The resulting frenzy is disturbing-- and yet we fed them twice just to see this spectacle a second time.
This was the end of the day; we left Dole a little before 5 pm and headed back towards Waikiki to find a gas station to fill the car (which was much more difficult than it should have been-- gas stations are on the outskirts of the area where the resort hotels are located. On the up side, gas prices have gone down so much that it's not even all that expensive to get gas in Hawaii at the moment.) and return the rental to the resort garage. So, it was an early night again-- though, to be fair, there isn't much to do in the resort at night. There is some live music (cover bands) at bars, and there was some kind of circus show (a la Cirque de Soleil, I think) that didn't seem worth the fee, but overall, it was a pretty chill place. I ended my day with a take-out personal pizza and Downton Abby (and, yet again, was asleep by 10-- or 3 am east coast time).
Monday at Snorkelfest
Originally, I had booked a very early morning trip (like, at 5:30 am-- which sounded early when I booked it but in retrospect, probably wouldn't have felt all that early since I kept waking up around that time anyway) to snorkel out in deeper waters where there would be dolphins; it's a long and boring story, but that trip was canceled in favor of snorkelfest at Hanauma Bay-- shallower waters but also much less expensive. And, we could go later in the day. A shuttle picked us up from the resort and drove us over to Hanauma Bay; the service also provided all the snorkel gear-- it all cost about $20 (and then, the fee to get into Hanauma Bay and tipping the driver) which really did feel like a bargain compared to the other snorkeling expeditions. The view from above Hanauma Bay-- from the parking lot-- is gorgeous.
The first thing you have to do when you get to Hanauma Bay is watch a 9 minute video about the reef; it's basically a video about what to do and not do to best preserve the reef and fish. It is, however, accompanied by a soundtrack that sounds straight out of Sesame Street or some other children's programming which undermines the somewhat serious instructions on maintaining the reef. The big rules are don't touch the wildlife and don't touch the reef. You can swim over the reef in a lot of places, though there are designated channels to take to swim out into deeper waters. The reef is the darker parts of the picture. The lighter blue is where you're allowed to stand in the water.
There are a lot of areas to snorkel in and each area, even though it's not that big, has a different set of sea life that seems to inhabit it. Supposedly, there were sea turtles on the left side, but there weren't that many fish and I didn't see any turtles, so after a few minutes, I went to the right side to see more fish. It didn't seem worth hanging around hoping to see a turtle and missing the rest of the sea life since we only had about 2 hours before the shuttle picked us up (and, that included the movie watching time).
You can see the reef a lot better from above; from beach level, it's hard to see unless you're in the water.
I did have a GoPro camera with me so that I could film the snorkeling. It said it was charged and then, when I took it in the water, it promptly died (even though I was supposed to have an hour and a half of filming time according to the screen that flicked on briefly), so I have no video of the fish. They were large and colorful though. It takes a lot of restraint to not touch them. It's not so much that fish are really pet-able creatures as they are right there, a few inches away, and there's this urge to reach out and touch one just to prove that you really are that close (I didn't though.). There is sort of that same urge with the reef, but the reef is pretty sharp. People emerge from the waters bleeding because they've accidentally stepped on it (it's hard to completely avoid the pieces of it that have migrated to the shallower waters despite the movie that admonishes visitors to never touch nor step on the reef because it's a living thing-- the film says that a lot in its 9 minutes. I'm pretty sure I accidentally stepped on pieces a couple times. I was wearing flippers though, so at least my feet were protected.). All my photos are different angles of Hanauma Bay.
And then, there are photos of the other animals in the parking lot area. More chickens...
And, a mongoose. I have never seen a mongoose before. I thought a mongoose was bigger. Instead, it's kind of ferret- like and small.
There are mongoose on Oahu because they were brought in to control some kind of rodent or snake problem; it turns out, however that mongoose are awake during the day and the creatures the Hawaiians wanted to get rid of were nocturnal. Instead, there are now mongoose running around the island eating birds; they've basically killed off one native species. (I can't remember which one-- I'm not much of a bird watcher, so the specifics weren't resonating well with me.) We returned from snorkelfest pretty late in the day.
Dinner that night was (appropriately or not) sushi-- my colleague had told that the sushi place at the resort was amazing. It (much like the fireworks) was oversold. It was pretty basic sushi-- I didn't take pictures. Usually when I have sushi, I order at least one "fancy" kind of roll. I appreciate the artistry of it as well as the myriad flavors. I ordered a fancy roll at this place, but it was probably the least decorative "elaborate" roll I've ever had. I also sort of forgot about picture taking at that point-- even though snorkelfest was only a few hours, snorkeling is tiring. And, I needed to go back to my room to practice my paper one more time as my presentation was the next day.
Tuesday Closing out the Conference and Changing Hotels
My presentation was at 9:45 am on Tuesday; it was the second to last session of the conference. Afterwards, I sat by the pool at the resort reading for a while I had packed up and left my luggage with a baggage hold, and after finishing my thriller novel, it was time to move to a new hotel, one that was less expensive (as work was no longer paying for my lodging since the conference was over) and which also felt like it was a bit more in the heart of things. I moved about 2 miles down the road to a small hotel, the Prince Waikiki, which lacked the luster of the resort and the beach view (this was the new view)
but had its own kind of charm. The staff were incredibly kind and friendly in a way that felt genuine and the hotel was in the heart of shops and restaurants. And, it had a kitchenette which was really convenient now that I didn't have the conference breakfast to eat everyday.
Moving to this room was refreshing, which I can't quite explain except to say that it felt real, and not plastic, and that was nice. It was also only a block off of the beach-- so while the view off my balcony was of rooftops and treetops, I only had to walk for a minute or two to get to this.
Even the sidewalks in this neighborhood were pretty.
You wouldn't really know from the picture that all of this was located on a major road (that's the beach off to the left).
And, there was an ABC store on every corner (quite literally-- they is an ABC store on each block. There is a joke that the ABC stands for All Blocks Covered-- it may not be a joke. I was also told it stands for Aloha Brings Customers.), so getting food for breakfast for the next few days would be easy. (ABC stores are convenience stores that sell everything: food, souvenirs, toiletries...) As it turns out, I didn't really need the ABC stores because in wandering around this neighborhood, I stumbled across the Farmers' Market held in the atrium area of the Hyatt. For some reason, farmers' markets open from 4-8 pm in Waikiki (I asked a few people why-- I'm accustomed to farmers' markets that open at 6 am, most of which are emptied of produce halfway through the morning. But no one seemed to know-- I was just told that's what they do.)
The farmers' market had lots of fruits and veggies one would associate with Hawaii: pineapple, papaya, coconut, and rambuton. And, most of the vendors sell and assortment of fruit cut up in to-go containers which made it perfect for breakfast the next day. (And, this was exciting since I haven't had fresh, farmers' market fruit in a few months.)
There was also a more traditional grocery store near my hotel where I discovered mochi ice cream. Mochi is a kind of rice cake that can be pounded into a shape-- in this case, a round one that contains all different flavors of ice cream.
They're my new favorite thing, though I have no idea how I would get them where I live-- that might have been some of the attraction to it. It was both familiar and exotic. And, it also has the advantage of built-in portion control since the ice cream is contained in a reasonably sized wrapper (though, I guess you could eat a lot of them in one sitting. I didn't buy a lot of them at a time. I just went back for more later in my stay.)
I wandered around this new neighborhood for a couple hours and then went back to my hotel to figure out what to do about dinner. I wanted something that felt more authentic to Hawaii rather than resort fare or something from a chain restaurant (of which there are a lot in Waikiki-- I walked past multiple Jimmy Buffet themed places as well as a Cheesecake Factory which, true to Cheesecake Factories everywhere, was packed and had a line). After consulting apps like Urban Spoon and Yelp, I decided I wanted to go to a place called Murakame Udon. Reviews said lines snaked out the door and they weren't wrong. But, I figured a Japanese restaurant that had a line of customers from Japan standing outside had to be good, and it was. (For the rest of my trip, there was a part of every evening when I considered just going back to Murakame, but the part of me that thinks I need to try as much variety as possible always won out.). And, there were sights along the way, before I got to the counter to order. Like, outside the restaurant was a display of the food options.
And, at the entry is the station where the udon noodles are made fresh.
Bowls of Udon varieties are ordered at a counter
followed by a self-serve counter where you can load up on tempura and musubi (which means something akin to rice ball). I got way too much food-- though, in my defense, that's the small bowl of soup and a pretty small selection of the available tempura. And only one musubi-- sweet plum (which is deceptively named since, while good, it's not sweet. It's pretty sour.)
The musubi were wrapped, so I took that to go and made my way back to my hotel (and, eventually, a piece of my waiting mochi ice cream).
Wednesday Taking the Food Tour
I had booked a food a tour for my first fully free day; it's the Hole in the Wall Food Tour and it promised to go to local spots around Honolulu and Chinatown. (There is also a North Shore version of this tour which I afterwards wished I had time to do as well.) It started around 9:15 am; it was relatively small with only four of us on the tour (a couple from Australia who were on their honeymoon and an older woman who, it turned out, lived a couple miles from my parents) which was nice because there was no jostling to get our share of the food or to hear the guides or, most important, fighting to get pictures. Our guides, Robin and Krystal, were fantastic. Robin used to be a chef at Nobu and it was really clear that he knew food. Most of what I can recount in such detail here is due to an email from Krystal after the tour reviewing where we had gone and what we had eaten. (The email also included restaurants to check out on other islands and links to recipes for some of the food we had.)
The first place we went to was the Royal Kitchen for Baked Manapua.
Manapua are Chinese Bao buns steamed with a choice of fillings. I ordered the char sui, which is a kind of pork, and then we got to try pieces of a couple others including the Portuguese sausage and Chinese black sugar (which isn't really sugar but a sweet bean paste). This is what it looks like whole.
This is what it looks like inside (that's Chinese black sugar on the left and Portuguese sausage on the right).
Hawaiian food is a mix of cultural influences-- the Chinese used to sell these to workers in the fields. Manupua is the Hawaiian name for the Chinese buns; it's just one simple example of the kind of cultural integration that makes up Hawaiian culture. You can tell that there is this variety of influences just based on the buildings. Right near the Royal Kitchen were both a Japanese temple and a building with Chinese influence.
The food tour tended to alternate between savory and sweet, so the next stop was at Liliha Bakery for Coco Puffs (not the cereal).
A coco puff is a pastry filled with chocolate cream and topped with Chantilly cream (for which I think I got the recipe in the email... it's a fantastic icing).
From here, we went to Chinatown which was a walking and eating tour. Chinatown has actually burned down twice, once in 1886 and once in 1900, so a lot of it has been rebuilt. But some of the character still remains.
Certainly, the food reminds you that you are in Chinatown. Many shop windows display dim sum.
Our first stop was at Lin's Lei Stand (not for food)
where I had some of the information about leis that I had learned at Dole Plantation reiterated (which I think is why the thing about not giving a pregnant woman a closed lei stuck). The variety in leis is amazing, but the most exquisite ones are hand-sewn together, like this.
There is a lot of tradition in Chinatown. The next place we went to was a traditional noodle factory-- Ying Leong Look Funn Factory. It's a rice noodle factory that has been operating for more than 50 years. There you can watch rice noodles being made. The noodles get rolled out on trays.
Then they are left to dry, steamed, handfolded, stacked and cut to specification (so, in a variety of thicknesses for the restaurants that order from here daily).
All the rice noodles I've ever used in cooking have come dried in a package and have to be reconstituted the same way pasta does-- I'd never seen a fresh rice noodle before.
The factory is located in a square that contains a large marketplace
as well as more traditional farmers' stands.
The factory just makes the noodles; others use them to make really good food, like this stir fry noodle dish. We had Korean BBQ from Jackie's corner (inside the marketplace) along with the noodles.
I'd had both in the fruit bowl I bought from the farmers' market, but they had already been opened for me. These we had to open on our own, which isn't too hard, but harder than it looks (rambuton has a fairly thick skin; you need a good fingernail to get it started.), or at least it was a lot messier when I did it than when Robin did (I only recorded Robin, who makes it look easy.).
We spent some time wandering around the market place (or, walking off what we'd eaten so we could eat even more). It was filled with produce and fish, both already slaughtered and alive.
I also found some stuff that I thought more unusual, like fried gluten.
I generally try to avoid gluten (though I clearly did not on this day-- or this trip) and so I generally know what it tends to be in, but I have never seen gluten as its own thing, certainly not fried. So, this is what gluten looks like (kind of like a pork rind?).
After our walk around the market, we went back to eating. We had ma tai su (which is a Chinese pot pie-- right) and char sui gin doi, a kind of dumpling (left).
Then we ate the "local boy" food-- a must have in Hawaii... spam. We had spam musubi (which in this presentation looked more like traditional sushi than the sweet plum musubi from the night before, but probably because it's cut up)
as well as fresh ahi poke.
I have to admit that Spam has always weirded me out-- meat should not be in a can (and I have never known what the gelatin stuff on top is). But, I also really like the experience of trying local food. I don't think I'm a Spam convert-- it's just too salty for me-- but it wasn't bad. (It didn't hurt that the gelatin wasn't in sight). The poke was just lightly marinated-- it was basically sashimi style tuna.
It was hard to believe that more food was coming, but there were still a few more tastings to come, including more fruit: pineapple two ways, both plain and dusted with li hing powder (which I discovered I really like. I may have to find a way to get it... and then figure out how to cook with it). There were also apple-banana lumpia (which I was happy to see since I hadn't had apple-banana fritters in a couple days, not since the end of the conference).
An apple-banana is just a varietal of banana. It tends to be smaller than the bananas you get in the grocery store. The "lumpia" part was a caramelized crust around the apple-bananas (think the top of creme brulee).
Then, it was cocktail time-- Krystal brought us lychee-pineapple smoothies which Robin then spiked with vodka (because it's 5 pm somewhere... and none of us were driving).
It's a reddish color because it has li hing powder in it (more reason to go find some as I have the recipe for this smoothie as well-- it's quite good even before the alcohol is in it, so I may try it for breakfast when the weather gets warmer).
We made one more stop before we left Chinatown, to try pork two more ways.
On the top is what Robin calls "five layers of heaven" and the bottom is char sui. We were clearly all getting full at this point-- that was the serving for all four of us (though, only three of us ate meat, so really it was pork for three) and there were leftovers (which was a snack for me the next day).
Our last stop on the tour was for a final sweet snack.
We stopped at Leonard's Bakery for Malasadas, which is a kind of Portuguese doughnut, which you can have plain or with a variety of fillings.
Apparently, Dunkin' Doughnuts tried to move into Hawaii a few years ago-- it didn't work. No one wanted traditional doughnuts when they could get malasadas. They went out of business pretty quickly. I have to agree-- these are better than regular doughnuts. (They are also messy; despite being careful, I managed to get some of the filling on my shirt.)
This was the last stop of the day-- from here it was back to the hotel. It was mid-afternoon and I was planning to do something in the afternoon but that didn't happen; I was in a bit of a food coma. I did manage to go across the street and find out about booking a tour for Pearl Harbor for Friday (there are travel agencies everywhere in Waikiki-- and tons of tour options for anyone who wants to sight-see but doesn't really want to plan), but that was about it. I took a nap.
You wouldn't think I would have wanted dinner, but I did want something light later that evening, so I walked a block to a small restaurant Krystal had recommended to me: Musabi Cafe.
I had decided that Robin and Krystal knew what they were talking about when it came to food, so I ordered the curry bowl (which was different from the curry I think of since this was a Japanese style of curry instead of the Indian or Thai I'm accustomed to) as I was told to. I also tried to order mochiko chicken (chicken wrapped in mochi) but they were out, so I got a plum musabi (figuring it should be good in a namesake place). I took it all back to my room and finished it with a mochi ice cream ball.
Thursday Hiking Three Trails
On the North Shore day, we had skipped past Southeast Oahu and since I wanted to hike Diamondhead, I decided I would rent a car, go to Diamondhead and then explore that part of the coast that I hadn't seen the previous Sunday. I was up early to pick up the car and go to Diamondhead since I was advised that it was a good idea to hike Diamondhead before the sun moved to be higher in the sky and beating down on the trail. I was on the trail before 9 am (which wasn't hard since I was up anyway, still waking on east coast time).
It looks like a more daunting climb from the bottom than it really is (it is 560 feet at the summit)-- and it begins to look really high up even when only about a third of the way to the top.
The video is the view from about halfway up.
According to the brochure about Diamond Head, the crater is believed to be about 300,000 years old, formed during one eruption. It is wider than it is high (350 acres in diameter). It has been used as a military post since the views from the top are panoramic, but no artillery has ever been fired from there during a war.
There's a lot of stairs to climb to get up Diamond Head, but it is well paved. It doesn't feel like a treacherous climb. From listening to others talk, I get the sense that it's been more and more paved over the years and that many of the railings and delineated pathways are new. It is certainly now set up to be virtually impossible to fall down the side of the crater.
What is unique about Diamond Head is that you hike the inside of the crater rather than the outside-- a lot of other hikes have paths that are on the outside of the crater. This means that, at one point, you have to go through a tunnel. After the tunnel, there is a staircase-- about the time I started thinking, "wow, this is a really steep set of stairs" I got to the top, and these views.
You can get a better sense of the panoramic view from the video.
I spent a while admiring the view and then headed back down. Down is much easier than up. My plan for the day was to drive around Southeast Oahu, though I did specifically want to see the Halona Blowhole, part of the Koko Head shoreline. The blowhole itself is that circle of water-filled space in the rock.
It's a lava tube that sucks the ocean in and spits it out. As I've mentioned, the waters were relatively calm when I was in Hawaii, so it wasn't as impressive as descriptions of it lead me to believe it can be. But, I recorded some of it. I think when the waters are really rough, the spray is probably much higher (some people had told me that they had gotten sprayed on other days. There was no danger of that on the day I was there.). You can see how the water gets sucked in though. And, from this (because I moved the camera) you can see how the water to the side of the blowhole is actually more impressive in its "crashing" than the water coming in and out of the blowhole.
The view from this spot is lovely though; it's a view of the Koko Head shoreline from above. This was to the right of where I was standing.
This was to the left.
I stayed for a little while trying to see whales since there was a sign that claimed I could (and, all the tour books and sites claim winter is the best time to see whales in Hawaii).
I saw no whales.
I got back in my rental car and drove for a minute or two and came to the parking lot for the actual Koko Head beach, which provided a view of the Blowhole from ground level (it's the low rock formation that juts out a little).
I also decided to play with the panorama function on my cell phone a bit while I was here; it produces a pretty nice picture (though, it was hard to avoid getting a glare from the sun).
I got back in my car, thinking I would try to find food and then thinking, more immediately, that I needed a rest stop. Rest stops continued to be beautifully scenic, as they were on the North Shore (and, the bathroom was surprisingly less disgusting than I expected, especially since it's really unclear who is responsible for cleaning or stocking them). I didn't take a picture of the actual bathroom structure, but this is the view from where it's located.
I was still looking for food when I drove past a pull-off with a lot of cars-- and decided I, too, should pull off since there must be something to see there if so many people had parked their cars (not just in the parking lot, but along both sides of the access road; my rental car was pretty small, so I managed to squeeze in behind a tour shuttle). It turned out to be the bottom of the trail leading to Makapu'u Point. I initially thought people were stopping to take a picture of the shoreline (which was now technically the Ka'Iwi scenic shoreline)
but when I discovered it was a hike, I grabbed the protein bar I had thrown in the car, forgoing a real lunch for a while longer, and a bottle of water and followed people up. This hike was also paved, though there were no stairs. It is longer than Diamond Head (about 2 1/2 miles round trip), once again pretty much straight uphill, and in direct sun. There was no shade-- and I was doing this around noon. But, it wasn't too bad since it was January and the temperatures were in the high 70s. I had fully established my holiday tan by the end of the day.
There is a lighthouse on the side of the cliff; it's been operational since 1909 and has the largest lighthouse lens in America (I'm not sure what that means, but tour brochures mention this). This is pretty much as close as you can get to it; it's closed to the public.
I'm assuming there is an easier way to get to it than down the terrain in the picture since someone must have to attend to it.
The views from Makapu'u Point were the best I saw in all of my time in Hawaii (I think this is my favorite picture of the trip).
It was amazing from this height how blue the water continued to look. I played with the panorama function again (though, I was starting to use my cell phone camera sparingly since I needed the battery power for GPS. Almost all the photos in this blog are from a point and shoot. Using my cell phone is worth it sometimes, though-- like for shots like this.).
There's an even better sense of the the 360 from video.
I met a family at the top-- a couple with their niece and her husband who were about to relocate to North Carolina (though closer to Wilmington than where I live). They recommended I also hike Manoa Falls which is a completely different landscape than Makapu'u or Diamond Head. The landscape up Makapu'u is pretty much desert; there are large cacti
and views galore, but not real flora.
There was also supposed to be good whale watching from here. I would definitely have needed binoculars. Some people claimed they had seen a whale or two, but it could have also been a small wave. It was really hard to tell from so far away. I'm guessing the real whale watching required a boat and being in the water (even though there was a sign, like at the Blowhole, that claimed one could see whales from the climb).
I hiked down the trail (again, down being so much easier) and committed to finding food while deviating off my intended path so that I could make my way towards Manoa Falls-- this was my last chance to have a car, and I figured I wasn't going to see the Falls if I didn't go right then.
Manoa Falls is a bit off the beaten path, but my GPS got me there and there was a snack bar at the entry. I had a hot dog and got another bottle of water and set off up the path to the falls. This is a good hike to do in the afternoon because it's mostly shaded, and so not as hot as the other trails I had done. And, some of the tree formations are interesting. This was a lot more lush, as promised by those I had met at Makapu'u.
It is also unpaved, so slightly more treacherous, especially near the top where the ground is slick (and, of course, pretty steeply uphill). The trail itself looks like this.
At the top is the waterfall.
The signs warn of the danger of climbing over the rocks or swimming; people ignored them.
Some of the people who went up while I was eating my hot dog had asked if swimming was allowed at the falls, to which the guy watching the parking lot responded that there were signs that warned against it but pretty much everyone ignored them, which seemed to me (and, to them) like tacit permission. I probably would have done it too, except that I didn't have a bathing suit with me.
I hiked down from the falls (down still being easier, though it's also pretty easy to slip on this particular trail) and went to my car. My initial intent for the end of the day had been to go to Ala Moana Shopping Center (an open-air mall) and wander for a little bit before going to Alan Wong's Pineapple Room (somewhat oddly located on the 3rd floor of the Macy's) for dinner. Alan Wong is a famous Hawaiian chef who is largely credited with bringing attention to what Hawaiian cuisine is and elevating it; the Pineapple Room is the least expensive of his restaurants (his flagship restaurant is incredibly expensive) and several people had mentioned it-- Robin and Krystal had mentioned it several times on the Food Tour. However, by this time I was tired and felt really sweaty and dirty and I couldn't muster the energy to do much else. So, instead, I decided that the culinary treat I should try was Hawaiian Shaved Ice. I went to Ailana, a small shop near the mall, and ordered a shaved ice with a pineapple, passion fruit, and li hing flavor trio.
Shaved ice is a little different from a snow cone though it might be hard to tell from the picture. The ice is shaved a lot thinner than in a traditional snow cone so the flavored syrup doesn't sink through the ice and to the bottom. And, it's very refreshing after hiking 3 trails in one day.
I went back to the hotel (which meant returning the rental car since, even though I could have kept it for 24 hours, there was nowhere to park it), showered and took a brief nap. I had been in the mood for "Hawaiian" food since I had intended to go to the Pineapple Room, so I found a restaurant nearby that was listed as Hawaiian. I'm sure it wasn't as good, but it did have a hibiscus sangria
and Kahlua Pork quesadillas (it's the way of preparing the pork that makes that Hawaiian in nature).
And, by that point, I was so hungry and tired, it was a stretch to have even made that much of a decision about where to go or what to order. On the way home, I decided that my day of exercise merited more mochi ice cream, so I stopped off at the grocery store for a few more pieces and then headed back to go to sleep.
Friday at Pearl Harbor
I figured if you make it all the way to Honolulu, you have to go to Pearl Harbor so this is what I planned to spend my last day in Hawaii doing. It's not easy to get public transportation to it, though. I had looked up how to take a bus there and, according to Google, using public transport was going to take me more than 2 hours in each direction, which seemed like a lot of time (and felt extremely complicated considering Pearl Harbor was only about 11 miles from where I was staying). So, I booked a tour to Pearl Harbor instead; it costs a little more to do it this way, but it included easy transportation. It also included a somewhat odd tour of the city that seemed intended to take up time more than anything. The basic tour of Pearl Harbor included the Arizona Memorial. However, some of the people on the Pearl Harbor Tour (which included the Australian couple from the Food Tour I had taken on Wednesday) had paid extra to also visit the Missouri. Those people were dropped off at Pearl Harbor early; the rest of us were shuttled around for a while on the city tour before returning to join those who had gone to the Missouri so that we could all visit the Arizona Memorial.
The city tour was largely a driving tour, which was okay since this was the one day that was overcast and a bit rainy (though, the misty drizzle didn't really merit needing an umbrella by anyone other than those who rarely see rain). It went through the Puowaina, or Punchbowl, Crater where the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, a cemetery for veterans, is located (I ended up taking video of it because we weren't allowed to stop; there is some rule that tour vehicles can't stop or let their passengers out, though you can drive up in a car on your own and explore. I guess they don't want large crowds tromping through.).
There is also a memorial building with a statue of Lady Columbia, also known as Lady Liberty and who is supposed to represent all grieving others, which was built in 1964 in honor of the American armed forces of the Pacific from WWII and the Korean War. In 1980, it was expanded to include those who died in the Vietnam war.
There are really great views of Waikiki and Honolulu from here, including a great view of Diamond Head, but it was difficult to get pictures because we never stopped. But there's a small sense of it in shaky video (this isn't my best-- but the van was moving pretty fast). Diamond Head is to the right at the beginning.
From Punchbowl, we headed into downtown Honolulu. The guide of the city seemed a little odd in structure, but our driver/guide was really informative. I did learn a lot about Hawaiian history, especially the royalty of Hawaii. We stopped to look at two buildings, both of which seem better known for their appearances in Hawaii Five-O than for their actual functions.
We stopped next to Aliiolani Hale, where there is a statue of Kamehameha I, a beloved leader of the 18th century.
This is actually the second statue of him that was cast; the first one, which was more colorful, was lost at sea. (It was eventually recovered and is now on the Big Island in Kapaau.) The building itself was originally built to be a palace but now serves as the home of the State Supreme Court. On TV, it's the facade of the Hawaii Five-O headquarters.
Across the street from Aliiolani Hale is Iolani Palace. It's currently undergoing some kind of renovation (which you can tell from the crane in the right of the picture-- this was the only picture I could get that minimized the influence of the construction. I have more close-up shots, but the construction dominates them.), so visitation is by special appointment only. This was a bit disappointing for me since I love a palace and this is the only palace on US soil.
Iolani Palace was built in 1882. Eleven years later, Queen Liliuokalani was imprisoned in the palace after a government overthrow. The palace notably had both phone lines and electricity before the White House (Thomas Edison apparently visited to do installation). Iolani Palace was also the facade for the Hawaii Five-O headquarters in the original series.
After this tour through downtown which really for me was better for the brief history of the royal rule of Hawaii than the sites, we returned to Pearl Harbor for our tour. The weather seemed appropriately moody and austere.
The trip to the Arizona Memorial begins with a 45 minute film about Pearl Harbor and the attack by the Japanese. The attack lasted approximately 2 hours and did a lot of damage to the Oahu airfields (where planes had been stored) and the battleships in the harbor and, obviously, killed many. However, the Japanese missed hitting the aircraft carrier ships and the fuel tanks which meant that the blow was horrible but not crippling to the Pacific Fleet. (There is a lot of recounting of both the tragedy and the Japanese tactical mistake which contributed to our victory in WWII.) After the movie, visitors take a ferry to the Arizona Memorial.
The Arizona Memorial itself was erected directly above the sunken ship.
In the back of the memorial is a wall with the names of all those who died on the Arizona as well as the names of those who survived the attack but have since died and been returned to the waters.
Bits of the ship are out of the water which makes this both somber and a little bit creepy because, if it were allowed, you could reach down and touch the boat-- which means that the remains of the soldiers who died aren't terribly far away from visitors.
The Arizona is steadily leaking fuel at a few gallons a day and you can see the oil on the water; years ago, divers went down to try to figure out if they could remove the fuel from the ship but the ship is so corroded that it was decided that it was safer to leave the fuel on the boat and let it leak slowly than to risk it all spilling at once into the harbor while trying to remove it. You can sort of see it "glimmering" on the water here.
Visitors to the Arizona spend about 30 minutes at the memorial and then the ferry returns with new visitors and takes the previous group back to shore.
At Pearl Harbor, there is a museum which is mostly dedicated to telling the story of the attack in great detail. There is also some space dedicated to the technology of the day like this oscilloscope which would have been used to detect vessels in the water.
There are artifacts on display, like the Arizona's anchor and small planes
and on-shore memorials like the Waterfront Submarine Memorial.
You can also see the USS Bowfin from the waterfront (which can be toured, though I didn't).
It's somber, but in general, quite lovely.
After a couple of hours, the tour guide returned to take us back to our hotels-- and that was the end of my last day in Hawaii. For dinner, I decided to go back to Asian influences, this time opting to try ramen noodles (instead of udon). I went to a small place called Gyoza.
I once again ordered too much food; the soup (ramen with char sui-- I've never had so much pork as I did in one week in Hawaii) was really large, but I had wanted to try the namesake dumpling appetizer which were unique because they had cheese in them (I've never had Asian food with cheese before). This wasn't at all like the cheap, dehydrated ramen noodles packaged with a "flavor packet". It's what ramen is supposed to be.
I completely missed the Friday night fireworks (which the Pearl Harbor tour guide had told everyone about, overselling them like everyone else who had mentioned the fireworks). Waikiki is pretty lively on a Friday night, like every other night, since stores and restaurants stay open late and street entertainers flood the corners. But, I bypassed a lot of this to go back to my hotel since I had to be up at 4:45 in the morning to catch the shuttle to the airport.
A long weekend in California
I didn't go straight home from Hawaii; I stopped off in Long Beach for a few days to visit my best friend, Anne-Marie, and her family-- not only was this great because it's been a while since I've seen her, but this also served to break up the horrendously long flight between Hawaii and North Carolina making that feel a bit more tolerable. Mostly, being in Long Beach involved hanging out with her and her kids and husband, but there were a few highlights (there are actually a lot of highlights, like reading books to Aaron and the lamb that David, Anne-Marie's husband, cooked-- but it's harder to archive without photos.). I was deemed a hero and "the best" because I managed to construct this marble run for Aaron.
And, I got to meet Hazel (who is now 15 months).
The "touristy" highlight was the South Coast Botanic Garden which, for being winter, was still quite lovely.
And, I was introduced to the Great British Baking Show (it's on PBS) which totally baffles me because I don't understand why the entire competition takes place in an outdoor, tented kitchen (I was especially perplexed by the episode I saw which required the bakers to make ice cream-- who makes ice cream outside in 80 degree temperatures? Why? The show offers no explanation for why it is staged outdoors.).
After a few days of kid and friend time, I took a red-eye back to North Carolina (and cold and rain that I'm sure seemed much worse than it was after nearly two weeks in paradise-like weather).
No comments:
Post a Comment