Currently I am in Waikiki on the island of Oahu, as previously stated. I've been here for four days, and am able to give it a little better review than I did on the day I first landed in Hawaii.
This is a crowded mess of tall hotel buildings, so I was still right on the money with that. The beach is crowded with tourists, along with vendors hawking catamaran cruises, snorkeling trips and other activities. I feel sorry for the tourists, as they have little reason or inclination to venture past their hotel area. They spend all that money to lie on the beach and eat at the same bad restaurant for a few days, and they'll spend the rest of their lives talking about it. I get a tiny bit of glee when talking to them. They tell me where they're from, and ask where I'm from when they hear the Southern accent. I get to say "Maui".
I'm writing from my balcony, and it's a noisy place, with foodservice carts echoing over the flagstone walkways and dishes being shuffled. Much of this hotel is under construction, so the laundromat is out of service, which means I get to have a petty revenge against the Transportation Safety Administration when I go back....Let them rifle through my smelly, unwashed clothing!
The city streets are vibrant and clean, and I was pleased to find them peopled with hundreds of hot Japanese girls in light clothing. I don't remember any attractive Japanese women in North Carolina, but they sure are abundant here.
On my first night out wandering, the boss and I found a Korean BBQ steak house tucked back in an alleyway. "In business for over ten years!" they claimed, which is a good sign. Meals were served shabu shabu style: there's a round gas grill countersunk into the tabletop, and you cook the meat yourself. This is fun, and keeps the price way down. Sides were delicious as well, and though the portions appeared very small, I left very satisfied. Perhaps I will build my own Shabu table one day.
The next night I tried the same concept in a Japanese restaurant, but it wasn't quite up to par, as you had to cook your own vegetables as well, and they charged extra for those. I still came out cheap, but with hunger less than sated.
However, I was amused and taken aback momentarily when, while being shown to my table, the host yelled out loud something in Japanese, and all the staff looked at me and responded with a loud and boisterous "ArrooooooHAAA!!!"
The stereotype appears to be true...you'd think they could pronounce "aloha" by now.
I've been out and around the block a few times now, and it all starts to run together...the buildings and glass windows full of things which I have no interest in whatsoever. It's a giant mall surrounded by a giant mall and a few other smaller malls in between. I did stumble onto one mall that was interesting: the International Bazaar. Stuck in an alleyway between tall buildings, it was composed of a large group of kiosks piled under a gigantic banyan tree. The wares were uninteresting--apparently the vendors believe that there is a catastrophic costume jewelry shortage in the world--but the draw was the tree stuck in the middle of this concrete jungle. I absolutely love banyan trees, and made sure to get some pictures. They are an amazing species. A member of the common edible fig family, they have a unique ability to shoot roots out from their branches, allowing them to cover a large area. A banyan in the Lahaina Courthouse lawn on Maui covers nearly two-and-one-half acres. They look like something right out of an Indiana Jones adventure. The parks along the beach in Waikiki boast several of them, and I took great delight in inspecting the one pictured above up close.
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