December 21, 2010: Kaua'i - Waimea Canyon, Brief Sunshine, Luau

The rain persists, although we hear that Kaua'i will be free of this weather system sooner than the other islands - hopefully by tomorrow.

In the meantime, I suggested a drive out to Waimea Canyon - it seemed like the best way of getting to do some sightseeing while staying relatively dry. There's really only one small highway around the perimeter of Kaua'i - and it doesn't even form a complete circuit - the Na Pali cliffs on the north side make a road impossible. If you picture an inverse letter "C" our resort is at about the midway point, on the east side. Waimea Canyon is at the end of the road, on the opposite side of the road.

We passed in and out of non-rainy patches while circuiting the island - the weather was quite changeable, although largely wet. Our first view of the canyon, from a scenic pull-over, was pretty fantastic - it's called the Grand Canyon of Hawaii. Because Kaua'i is the oldest Hawai'ian island, there's been more erosion here than elsewhere. Kaua'i is also the wettest of the islands - the lush green vegetation in contrast to the vivid red earth is really dramatic.

Our next stop was in a little village, before beginning the ascent into the canyon. Because Anthony and Heather have a GPS system, we followed them (we've rented 2 cars for the 7 of us) - I'm not quite sure where it was that we stopped, but there were some tourist shops, a shave ice stand, and a path to the nearby beach. And there was also sunshine! It would turn out that this was really our only good dose of sunshine all day. We also saw some of the ubiquitous wild chickens, strutting about happy and free.

The drive up into the canyon was long and steep, with lots of hairpin curves. We passed through foggy and rainy patches, eventually reaching the first look-out. There wasn't much to see - the canyon was filled with fog, like a big bowl - you could practically see it lapping up at the edges. An interesting, eerie scene, but we couldn't get much sense of the canyon itself.

We had better luck at our next lookout - this one looks down to where the Kalalau trail (a famously challenging hike) runs - it's the only real connection from one end of the highway to the other. There was sunshine on the trees around us, and the clouds below parted to reveal misty clues about the shoreline - very green, beautiful blue water, and a rainbow.

As we retraced our route back down to the exit from the canyon, we stopped at a puzzling sight that we'd noticed on our way in - a pig on top of a car! And yes, it was a pig on top of a car - a small, dead pig (roadkill?) on top of an abandoned, beat up vehicle. Very odd - someone must have put the dead pig up there.

We circled back around the island to our resort, then hopped back in the cars again to drive to the other end of the island. We were going to a luau on the north shore, at the Mediterranean Gourmet. I had picked it because it's one of the smaller luaus on the island (only about 80 people, as compared to several hundred), and was said to have a more authentic family-style entertainment component. It also seemed appropriate to go out for a special event the night before our wedding - a rehearsal dinner of sorts (with no need to rehearse anything!).

We barely made it to dinner in time - although Google Maps thought it would be a 38 minute drive, they clearly hadn't accounted for the narrow winding roads and multiple one-lane bridges - in many ways a more challenging drive than Waimea Canyon. The mountains on the north shore come down very close to the water's edge in many places, so the road is as narrow as possible to skirt the edge.

Dinner was our first experience of traditionally prepared Hawaiian foods like taro - both in rolls and pounded into the paste poi - the purple colour of this sweet potato-like root turned both a blue-ish colour (not an entirely appetizing look, nor taste). There was also tender, smoky Kalua pork, and haupia (coconut) cake. The best item in the buffet was a delicious whitefish.

The entertainment was great - it really was a family affair - the father was the MC and main musician, and his three daughters earnestly performed traditional hula dances. At one point the band took a request for "Puff the Magic Dragon" - turns out that we were having dinner in the "land of Hanalei". The evening ended with the father's fire breathing routine - it might sound cheesy but it was pretty amazing to watch him in action.

 

Waimea Canyon

 

Welcome to Kaua'i

 

My family, through the fog 

 

Kalalau lookout

 

Mark on the jetty during a brief sunny interlude

 

 The luau (note the leis - shell necklaces - given to all of us)

 

Traditional Hawai'ian hula dance

 

Traditional Polynesian dance

 

Fire breathing

December 20, 2010: Oahu - License, Near Electrocution; Kaua'i - Family

Monday morning we set off to get our marriage license once again. This time we were successful! We were in and out in short order, since we had filled out our application ahead of time. What a relief.

We walked back to our hotel, rather than taking the bus. Along the way Mark pointed out the crazy Christmas decorations that he'd seen on the same route Friday - a giant blow-up Santa and his wife, chilling by the pool with soft drinks and diving penguins.

As Mark pressed one of the pedestrian cross buttons he let out a yelp. With all the recent heavy rain something must have gotten wet that wasn't supposed to, and touching the metal button gave Mark a good, strong shock. I may be exaggerating when I list "near electrocution" in this entry's title, but we'd just played around with a simulation of an electric eel shock at the San Francisco Academy of Sciences and Mark told me the shock he got here was much stronger. Fie on you Oahu - we're ready to get off this island!

We didn't do much the rest of the morning - just packed up. On the news we heard that Hanauma Bay was closed due to the heavy run-off - apparently the "brown water" attracts sharks.

I'd hoped to get a manicure/pedicure, but the spa at the hotel was all booked up, a nearby shop that I'd read about was closed for the day (even though their website said they were open Mondays), and the little place across the street hadn't opened up by 11:00, even though their sign said they open at 10:00. Fie on you again Oahu for denying me my pre-wedding indulgence. So I went and bought a cheap bottle of nail polish (from the ABC Store - where else?) to do it myself.

We flew mid-afternoon to Kaua'i, picked up our rental car, and found our resort, Kaha Lani, fairly easily - we missed our turn-off, but since the resort is on a loop road we encountered it without even trying after getting off at the next turn-off. Happily it's only about 10 minutes from the airport, so an easy drive. And it's also next to the ocean, in a fairly isolated spot, but with shopping a quick drive down the road.

Mark's sister, Sara, was already there, having flown in the night before from Vancouver. She'd had a bit of an adventure, getting in so late at night that her luggage wasn't available, then taking a taxi out to the resort to find that they weren't expecting her until the next day with the rest of us. Her friendly taxi driver, Darson, turned off the meter and stayed until someone showed up and found her a room.

Mark and I got settled in, did a grocery run with Sara, and started cooking a curry stir fry dinner for the three of us. Just then the rest of our families (Mark's father, John, my mother, Edith, my sister, Heather, and my brother-in-law, Anthony) showed up - they'd been booked on a later flight for the last leg of their journey from Oahu to Kaua'i, but luckily got spots on the earlier flight. So we threw on more food, briefly caught up on the travel stories, then headed to bed, with everyone but myself and Mark tired out from flying and disoriented by the time change.

Loving the sixties-era bureaucratic architecture!

Crazy mash-up of tropical setting and Christmas tradition.

December 19, 2010: Oahu - Rain, Snorkeling, More Rain, Indian Food

We woke to rain. In the middle of the night. It sounded like quite the storm - driving against the windows for hours, and it still hadn't let up by morning. I checked with the concierge - we wanted to go snorkeling at famous Hanauma Bay, and I wondered if it might be closed with all the rain, but she wasn't concerned. And we figured if we were already wet in the water, what's a little rain?

So we set off on our journey. I didn't pack a regular camera, since I wasn't sure how secure our belongings would be there, but we did take an underwater camera we'd bought the night before. Although I looked up the schedule for TheBus, either we just missed it, or the bus never came, so we waited for 40 min under the shelter (which wasn't very sheltery - still got kind of wet from the rain). But once we finally got on, it was an easy ride.

By the time we got there the rain was coming down even harder than before. The guy who sold us our entry tickets warned us that there were no refunds - looks like he was skeptical about snorkeling in the rain. We walked down the long, steep road to the beach and found that there were no more than a dozen people in the water. The place was deserted. You could see that it would be beautiful under sunny weather conditions - and probably crowded with thousands of tourists.

The rainy weather really wasn't much of a problem once we got in the water. It was my first time ever snorkeling, so Mark patiently coaxed me through learning to breathe all over again. The visibility probably would have been better with sunshine, but there were still hundreds of huge, colourful fish everywhere, which was amazing. Most of the coral reef itself was dead and white - whether this is due to the large number of tourists or to some other phenomenon seems to be a subject of debate.

No photos from our underwater adventure - the camera promptly swam out of Mark's pocket shortly after we got into the ocean. I comfort myself with the fact that we only lost $12.50 from our ABC Store purchase, rather than the $14.00 we would have lost if we'd purchased it on site when we got to the bay. That, and the water is so shallow and clear that some other fortunate tourist will pick it up and put it to good use.

When we finally got out of the water, the scene on the beach had changed. Whereas before it was a hard rain, now it was a torrential rain. There were rivers of dirty brown water streaming down the cliffs, across the sand and flooding the bay - it was only along the far sides that the water was still clear and blue. And there were even fewer people left in the water.

We walked back up the steep road to leave - now a channel for run-off and gushers of water springing back up out of drains that were too overloaded. We got a snack at the top, huddled under the meager roofed area, then headed out to the bus stop. No shelter there, but why bother - we were already completely soaked. Everyone waiting was laughing - it was ludicrous how strong the rain was and how wet we were. The ride back was crazy - I wouldn't have wanted to plow through that much water in anything but a giant bus - we tossed up a wake like we were a boat.

It may not have been ideal conditions, but it certainly was great to have the bay to ourselves instead of fending off thousands of other tourists. We judged it a crazy adventure, rather than a wash-out.

We had dinner at an Indian restaurant just across the street - we didn't want to venture far in the rain after managing to dry out in our hotel room. Great food and worth the long wait.

Whereas the typical visitor to Hanauma Bay may have seen a scene like this...

we saw something more like this... except less sunny.

December 18, 2010: Oahu - Valley of the Temples, Byodo Temple

Lessons learned today:
- Google Transit can't be relied on for accurate estimates of walking time or conditions
- TheBus can't be relied on for adhering to schedules in any real way
- black swans are not a myth 
- I must buy mosquito repellent before heading into the trees again
- Hawaii is the closest I've come yet to visiting Japan

I wanted to get out of the Honolulu area to see another part of the island, so I chose the Valley of the Temples, based on a beautiful photograph in a guidebook of Byodo Temple. Google Transit made it sound relatively manageable by transit - one bus, and then a 19 minute walk, half on a city street, and half along a highway. Turns out it was a 45 minute walk - ten minutes on the city street, and then 35 on the fairly narrow shoulder of a busy highway. Pretty dismal - felt like an endurance test. Actually started to doubt whether I was on the right route since I had been walking for so much longer than the estimate, but just as I was about to give up I crested a hill and saw my destination ahead.

Byodo Temple is a scale replica of a temple in Japan, and it's set in the Valley of the Temples, a large cemetery complex. It's a beautiful, quiet landscape, set against tall green mountains. At the temple itself were numerous koi fish (huge and eager to be fed from the coin vending machines), black swans (which I've never seen before - bright red beaks!), a nine-foot buddha (the largest outside Japan; his gold leaf was a bit worse for wear), and a large bell that visitors could ring. I was so tired and hot from my journey to get there that almost anything would have thrilled me, but it really was lovely. I sat down under the trees by the pond to eat the sandwich I had packed - by the time I finished I realized that I'd been mosquito-bitten on all of my exposed parts. I really need to find mosquito spray.

Not only was the temple Japanese, but so were many of the gravesites in the cemetery - I hadn't realized what an extensive history there was of the Japanese living in Hawaii. Couple this with the fact that Waikiki is a major Japanese tourist destination (signage everywhere is in both English and Japanese, and all the top restaurants are high-end sushi) and I'm as close as I've ever gotten to visiting Japan. It really doesn't feel like America anymore.

On the way home I endure the dreaded walk along the highway and get to my bus stop in time. Another fellow waiting there, who is a local, says that the last schedule bus (40 minutes earlier) never showed up. But luck is on my side, and the bus comes only a few minutes later. I get back to our hotel and jump into the pool to wipe away the grime of my hot, dusty trek.

Mark gave his talk at the conference today, so we met up after to relax with drinks with friends  (my first ever mai tai - strong, not so fabulous), then dinner at the Hula Grill - nice beachside location, good food, and improved meat to vegetable ratios.

Photos: the valley, the temple, the pond, a waterfall, some fish, a black swan, a bird (looks like a cardinal but the colouring is different), the buddha statue

December 17, 2010: Oahu - Bishop Museum, Chart House

This morning we attempted to get our marriage license at the Department of Health. But it turned out that they were closed - on furlough. We could, if we really needed to, call up the emergency official and go out to their house to get a license. But we've still got Monday to take care of it, so there was no need to waste our time today on a monumental transit/taxi journey. I am, however, still miffed that my careful planning was foiled.

So Mark headed back to the conference while I went on to Bishop Museum. The museum had been recommended to me by Margot Mackay, one of my medical art professors, so it was high on my list. I was not disappointed - it had a great collection of historical and cultural artifacts from Hawaii and from the rest of the Polynesian islands. There was also an extensive program of tours with some of the most knowledgeable and enthusiastic guides I've had yet at a museum - I went on three tours and attended one performance, and all were excellent.

One of the most useful things I learned was the pronunciation of Hawiian words: each vowel is generally pronounced separately (not combined together as in English) and has only one sound (also unlike English). Now I can tackle all the intimidatingly long street names.

Also interesting was the history of the islands: how they came to be united as one kingdom (warfare and truces amongst tribes), then annexed by the United States (hugely unpopular with the Hawaiians) and eventually became a US state (regarded as better than being in some sort of limbo, but not as good as being returned to independent nationhood). The more I learn about it the less Hawaii seems to be American.

The main Hawaiian building was gorgeous - apparently it was closed for extensive renovations, and just reopened recently. The Polynesian exhibits are clearly due for the same make-over - the mustard yellow felt backdrops and faded typed signage looked like relics of the 1970s, although that had its own charm, and the artifacts themselves were still amazing. The American Museum of Natural History in New York City also has a large collection of Polynesian artifacts, but this collection felt more cohesive to me - not sure if that's due to a larger size, or just better organization.

We had dinner at The Chart House with friends from the conference. I got the porkchops with asparagus. Two full-sized chops. Six spears of asparagus (and I may be generously misremembering - it might have been as little as four spears). Where's the option to trade in one of the porkchops for a little more asparagus?! Who needs this much meat?

The main museum hall. It's all native wood, but it had to be shipped to the mainland USA to be carved, then shipped back - expensive.

55-foot-long sperm whale skeleton, purchased from Rochester, NY, then taken cross-country and shipped to Hawaii in 1901 - quite the production at that time.

Kuka'ilimoku, a feathered ancestral deity, at least as old as the early 1800s. Many of the most valuable items in indigenous Hawaiian culture were made of thousands of tiny feathers, such as this figure and cloaks for royalty.

What do you do for weaponry on islands that have no metal? Make them using shark teeth!

Is it wrong that I find this painting on a shell beautiful rather than tacky? It is believed to have been painted by the founder of the museum, Bernice Pauahi Bishop.

My favourite item from the exhibition of botanical illustrations and herbarium specimens is this pressed specimen of a pineapple - ask yourself how you would dry and press flat a pineapple to glue onto a piece of paper?

I love the protest quilts made by Hawaiian women after annexation - flying the Hawaiian flag was made illegal, so they sewed them into quilts instead.

Kahili - a collection of the feather standards of royalty. Very elaborate arrangement of feathers, yet it's the poles that are actually the significant item - they were named, passed down through generations, acquired mystique - whereas the feathers could be replaced. I've never really seen anything like these.

A sweet potato god, from the older displays in the Polynesian hall. Isn't this the cutest scene ever? The mustard yellow felt, the hand-created signage with the rounded corners, and then the carving itself! I love out-dated museum displays.

Another amusing display in the Polynesian hall - the items may be gone, but their ghostly silhouettes remain behind on the faded felt backgrounds.

Carving of a leg - is it meant to represent tattooing? It isn't known for certain, but tattooing was a popular form of ornamentation.

Truly eerie masks and costumes for use in the tamate dance of Vanikoro. I can't imagine them being anything but frightening, but the dance is apparently comic entertainment.

December 16, 2010: Oahu - Lyon Arboretum, Manoa Falls, Side Street Inn

Today my goal was to get out of the city. Barbara had lent me Mike's book about hiking in Hawaii, and in it was a folded photocopy of a map of the Manoa Falls area and the schedule for TheBus route 5 to get there. So I headed out for the same area, enjoying the thought that I was re-treading some of the same ground as him, ten years later.

TheBus (yes, it's really all one word) website had been down since we'd arrived in Oahu, but luckily Google Transit had the same information available. It wasn't quite clear where to get off, but as with most tourist destinations all I had to do was hop off at the same time as just about everyone else, and sure enough they were going to the same place as me.

Lyon Arboretum, up in the hills behind Honolulu, was all rain forest: wet, huge trees, lush vegetation, wild chickens, and lots of mosquitoes whenever I stopped for a break. There was a small waterfall at the end of the trail - 'Aihualama Falls.  It was fairly fairly piddly (not much rain recently), but at least I got to contemplate it by myself - no crowds here. I also got to test out my new camera (the Canon Rebel T2i) - I'm able to get shots as long as 1/8 s without shaking, which make the water of the waterfall look nicely soft. Pretty amazing.

The trail to Manoa Falls was busier - it's the bigger waterfall. One pair of teenage girls were playing music on a cellphone as they walked, which would ordinarily be annoying, but the tunes were all mellow and seemed kind of island-appropriate. The mosquitoes weren't as bad at this waterfall, so I took longer to sit and enjoy the sight. The trail is well-travelled, so a pretty easy climb, but I could see how it could get slippery fast with rain turning the red dirt (which looks like clay, but I don't think it is) into mud.

For dinner I finally found us a decent meal at the Side Street Inn. I had seen it listed on a few sites as a favourite of the local chefs, and we were craving food that wasn't overprocessed and targeting hapless tourists. We never would have found it spontaneously - it was tucked in along a small street with no sidewalks - bordering on an alleyway. Once inside it was loud, shabby and cramped, but the food was tasty (especially Korean-style beef ribs) and inexpensive. Still not enough vegetables though...

Photos:  massive tree at Lyon Arboretum, 'Aihualama Falls, the view from Inspiration Point, a flower at the arboretum, Manoa Falls, walking through a bamboo forest

December 15, 2010: Oahu - Life in Waikiki - It's All About Shopping

My first full day on my own in Waikiki. I take the free shuttle from our hotel to the main "downtown" strip of Waikiki. It is all shopping, as far as the eye can see. After walking for a few hours it feels surreal - the same stores keep showing up over and over. Especially the ABC Stores, which are a corner store/tourist shop. They're like trail markers - you can always see the next one in the distance while standing at the door of the one you're leaving, although they don't lead you anywhere in particular.

I also discover that Waikiki is deeply pedestrian un-friendly. Most intersections only allow crossings on three of four sides - for instance, to get to the ABC store directly across from our hotel, on the other side of the road, it takes 5 minutes of crossing the other three sides of the intersection, and then the same again to return. You can't even run across the median as a shortcut because of the giant fence of impenetrable tropical plants. This city was built for cars and only cars.

But I found one interesting place - Origamido! This is an origami studio run by two biologists. One does the major design work, and the other creates papers to support them. Their work is primarily animals, and stunning. An alligator with hundreds of individual scales was folded from a six-foot-square piece of paper. They gave me a great tour around the studio, and I'm really looking forward to the documentary, "Between the Folds" that they're featured in. As luck would have it I'd already put in my hold request for it with the Toronto Library a few months ago while reading about another origami artist.