Weekend in Waikiki
or
The Tourist Trap
I spent three months
on Maui in 1975, but never been to Honolulu. Cheap fares and my quest for platinum elite frequent flier
status draws me out for a weekend.
Leave Jax Fri AM,
scheduled arrival is late afternoon. The long flight is spozed to be nonstop from Newark, but it doesn't work
out that way. After a few hours a
medical emergency cause us to divert to Los Angeles. Some guy on his honeymoon has abdominal pains, diagnosed as
appendicitis, gall bladder, or kidney stones. This event is a first for me, and this one cost the airline
a bunch: they had to dump the fuel, recater the plane, and then refuel. Plus, the airline had to provide hotels
for all the people who missed their connections.
No big deal for
me. My Hawaii visit is 3 days +
5 hours. The delay means that I am
able to return the car closer to the time of my flight without paying for a
fourth day.
The car is
$20/day. I found a hotel room on
Waikiki beachfront for $38 (okay, my room faces the Marriott next door, not
Diamond Head). But arriving late
means that I am unable to survey the free parking situation in daylight so I
get nicked $10/day for hotel parking.
I check in around 7
PM and head out to the strip. Plenty of people. And
hotels. And stores. And
restaurants. And food courts. Waikiki is one giant outdoor shopping
center. An hour is enough for
me. With the 5 hour time
difference, I am tired.
Saturday morning I do
downtown. Iolani Palace is good if
pricey ($20 admission). As I will
discover, EVERYTHING is pricey. A walking
tour of downtown reveals nothing. Looks like LA. Then, the
Bishop Museum, which is good. All
the original royal stuff there. Spend a few hours there. Then the Punchbowl, site of the National Cometary of the Pacific. Good scenic lookout. By now it's getting dark (the earth is
approaching the solstice) so back to home base.
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On the beach is a
free hula show. What a
disappointment. It's authentic,
i.e., fat chicks all covered up wiggling their hands and keeping the rhythm
with their feet. Further down at a
shopping center is a hula more to my liking: grass skirts about six inches
below the navel, coconut shell bras, and hips gyrating like a paint
shaker. (The tourist hula was
invented for cruise ship passengers in the 1920's; grass skirts arrived via the
Gilbert Islands.) Observing many hula performers over three days I can group
them into three categories: the pros; amateurs (usually overweight) with a
smidgen of Hawaiian blood looking to recapture their heritage; and haoles who
like to dance.
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Sunday morning I
drive to Pearl Harbor. Pretty well
done. Lots of Japs there too. Nearby is the Battleship Missouri,
where the surrender ceremony was held (not so many Japs). Also a submarine museum.
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In the afternoon I
drive to the North Shore, home of the big waves. I go to Waimea Falls Park. Wouldn't have gone but for the free coupon. (With the rental car comes a book of
coupons good for one admission to various attractions. Guess they figure most tourists come in
pairs or better.) Looks great from
the road, but a big ho-hum on the inside. Would have been really pissed had I paid the $27 admission charge. I didn't even stay for the cliff diving
show.
I continue my drive
on the North Shore. The weather is
pretty crummy, so I don't even get out of the car. On the way back, I stop at the Dole Plantation. Another tourist trap: a big gift shop
with a maze and a tourist train. Even though I have a coupon, I skip the maze ($5). No coupon for the train. I buy a pineapple juice (probably from
a can). I do not buy a pineapple
($4 each, 2 for $9; must be graduates of public school math).
Evening is more
people-watching at Waikiki.
Monday. I start out by climbing Diamond
Head. The view from the beach is
the face of the volcanic cone. The
inside is a perfect circular crater that is a park. There used to be a coastal defense spotting post at the top
which is now open to tourists.
Out of shape America
dept.: The climb to the lookout is all of 775 feet on a concrete path and
stairs. Warning signs
caution hikers to allow at least 1 and one half hours and to carry 3 days of
water and provisions. People are
huffing and puffing and dying all along the way. At the top, they will engrave a certificate commemorating
your achievement. I take a
leisurely stroll up, dawdle at the top, and come down. Total time elapsed: 45 minutes. I forego the opportunity to buy a "I
survived the Diamond Head Death Climb" T-shirt.
I have another coupon
for Seaside Park on the eastern shore. I drive all the way up to find that the road has been blocked by a
landslide. The detour is back through
the center of the island, which takes me by Queen Emma's Summer Palace (another
coupon). Small, good. The route also takes me through the
Pali lookout, also good (free).
Seaside Park is like
Marineland, Hawaiian version. Big
reef tank, dolphin shows. Free (I have a coupon) is
worth it; $24 (without) is not.
Then, the Polynesian
Cultural Center. The Mormon were
the third set of missionaries to come to Hawaii (Congregationalists first,
Catholics second). They bought a
former sugar plantation on the north shore and built a campus of Brigham Young
University. They also built a
Temple, and next door, the Polynesian Cultural Center. It's a theme park built like Epcot,
only different islands. It actually
is somewhat authentic. The Mormons
are big throughout Polynesia. Students come from the various islands to enroll at BYU. For part time jobs they dress up in
native costume and do shows for the tourists. It's better than it sounds because they are fresh,
enthusiastic youth full of religious zeal rather than jaded Filipino or Puerto
Rican transplants from Los Angeles or Newark. Admission is a steep $39, but I have a coupon for that too. The cost would be even higher except
the land was free, the place was built with volunteer labor, and much of the
help are Mormon missionaries (called "volunteers"). A pleasant afternoon.
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Coming back I take
H-3, the interstate equivalent. That completes my circuit: I have driven all of H-1, H-2, and H-3 plus
circled and bisected the island in three days travel. Good thing I don't live here; I would have Island Fever by
day four. My conclusion: driving
around Honolulu is almost indistinguishable from driving around LA: the buildings, roads, and freeways are
pretty much the same, but there are more classic cars and
fewer Mexicans.
That's it. I've done Oahu. To the airport. Overnight flight and home.
Trip date:
December 2002