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 For many first time visitors to the Hawaiian island
of Oahu, their first view of the capital city Honolulu comes as a
shock. Years of endless promotional campaigns, movies, television shows
and books featuring golden beaches, verdant rainforests, dazzling
sunsets and grass-skirted hula dancers have inevitably created the
impression that the islands are an idyllic tropical Eden. Unfortunately,
such misty-eyed romanticizing gets a rude jolt when it meets reality.
Honolulu is no sleepy tropical settlement, lazing quietly by the beach —
it's a big, thoroughly modern city, bustling with life and noise, its skyline jagged with
gleaming high rises and roads busy with traffic.
For some people, the disillusionment is too much. The whole city — maybe
even the whole island — is dismissed as a cardboard tourist trap, to be
left as quickly as possible in search of ‘The Real Hawaii’. For those
who are willing to look past their visions of an untouched Eden,
however, Honolulu offers many beguiling possibilities. Despite its ugly
urban sprawl, the city still exudes a captivating sense of warmth and
character, its people fascinatingly varied but joined by a common love
of the island, its laidback culture thriving and embracing everyone in a
generosity of spirit that is wonderfully, characteristically Hawaiian.
The great foods of
Hawaii
There are many things to do in Honolulu — going shopping, relaxing on the beaches, visiting the
attractions like Bishop Museum or the Hawaii Plantation Village, the
beaches again, and of course, watching the hula dances. There are countless ways
to empty your wallet, but probably the most interesting way to do it
would be to eat.
There’s an amazing number of eateries in Honolulu and
even on a month long stay, you could eat at a different spot every meal
for your entire stay without repeating yourself. There are all the usual
fine dining spots of course, and Hawaii has a well-deserved reputation
for showcasing some of the most exquisite cooking in the world.
Unfortunately, its extremely unlike that the average visitor will have
pockets deep enough to enjoy an extravagant fine dining spree, but
fear not - there are even more eateries offering reasonably priced meals.
In fact, its more of an adventure doing things the local way in between all your other activities: grabbing a
lunch served on paper plates from one of the numerous lunch wagons
making their rounds, and finding a spot to sit and devour it. A chair on
the sidewalk will do, but for added ambience, you can carry your meal
onto the nearest beach. Or for more ethnic fare, there’s places like
Kozo Sushi, a take away restaurant so authentic you’ll have an easier
time ordering in Japanese, or Pho An, a Vietnamese restaurant that’s
popular for its beef noodle soup. It being Hawaii, probably two
restaurants in five will be serving Asian cuisine, but almost all diners
will offer fusion cuisine, Hawaiian style — burritos with mahimahi, puff
pastries with guava custard fillings, and an assortment of other
delicious dishes which let you know, emphatically, that you’re in
Hawaii.
Doing the Beach Thing and Living the Aloha Way
Once stuffed beyond the restraining limits of your belt buckle, its time
to hit the beaches, and there’s plenty to choose from. Most people will
head to the Waikiki Beach. Touristy, packed with busloads of tourists
and hardly the deserted island beach of anyone’s dreams, it is
nevertheless THE beach to visit while you’re in Honolulu, at least once.
Around sunset, the beach hosts a not-so-traditional hula dance
performance, which is quite popular. Speaking of sunsets, the end of the
day is euphemistically known as ‘feeding time’ and it would probably not
be a good idea to swim in the ocean when the sun is sinking. Still, as
long as you’re sensible and take the usual precautions associated with
going to the beach, there’s certainly no reason to avoid the water.
Other places like Hanauma Bay are also popular spots to enjoy the beach
life.
Honolulu offers plenty of distractions, but if the
hunger for some of that idyllic tropical experience is still gnawing,
then heading out to the Oahu countryside might just be the way to
satisfy the craving. The countryside is a whole other world, one of
quiet roads and colourful fruit stands, empty beaches and cozy wooden
beachfront homes. If you don’t have car, the bus takes you around the
island for a whole two dollars. Its an easy, lazy way to see the
beauties of the island.
There’s plenty of places to stop off and explore, but most people will
head directly to the North Shore, where the biggest town is Haleiwa,
favourite haunt of the surfers who make the North Shore their first
destination on their pilgrimage for the best waves. Places like Waimea
Bay and Sunset Beach are famous for their almost perfect waves, which can
reach 20 feet. There are plenty of surf competitions going on almost
every week, and reserving a spot on the sands is the only price to pay
for watching the show. Joining in can also be a blast, as long as you
don’t encroach on the pros, and make a sensible estimate of your actual
abilities. Most people wisely admit their ineptitude on the surfboard
and cheerfully leave North Shore’s challenging waves to the surfers.
While making the rounds of the attractions and beaches in Oahu, one word likely to be heard over and over again is Aloha. Most people know it through movies and cheesy brochures, but in Hawaii, Aloha is much more than just a greeting - in many ways it is a whole way of life.
Living the Aloha way is about being warm and tolerant and gentle, about
showing respect and consideration to others, about valuing relationships and the
land. It is the working philosophy of the Hawaiians, their own Golden
Rule, adopted by all who come to the islands as the best and only way to
live.
The Aloha spirit manifests in a myriad of ways. It is there in the way
the locals will smile at total strangers, just to see a smile in return.
It is there in the countless sunset barbecues, when friends and family
gather to reaffirm their ties and have a good time. It is even there on
the roads, when even in a traffic jam the cars keep considerately to
their lanes and refrain from honking, so that they don’t inconvenience
and irritate other drivers. Even in the middle of the crowded city, the
warm spirit remembered from the Hawaii of yesteryear still holds sway.
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