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chronovoreFor the last two weeks, we were in Hawaii visiting Oahu, Maui, and The Big Island. It was fantastic.
The whole trip was a real-life, media free bunch of downtime. I didn't turn on my iPod until the flight back. I didn't turn on my PSP until the layover on the return trip, and didn't turn on my Nintendo DS at all. We brought our netbook and did a little email the first couple days when we had free wi-fi, but thankfully the next places had pay-to-play wi-fi and I just avoided the 'net entirely. I also loaded up a USB drive with work-related video that I've been meaning to watch (UFC footage), but managed to accidentally forget it (seriously) so I didn't watch any of that.
In Hawaii there are a lot of interracial couples, mixed race marriages, so it was nice to be in a place where my wife and I don't stand out. Sometimes it's nice to fade into the scenery, and I don't really get that opportunity in public in Japan. Anywhere.
In Japan our kids' ethnicity is referred to as "haafu" (half, after "half-Japanese") which could be considered derogatory except that most of Japan is koo-koo for Cocopuffs crazy about the whole aesthetic of it. They tend to put haafu people on a pedestal, even as they are considered outside the Japanese ideal of "normal." In Hawaii, the same mixed-race concept is referred to "hapa," which is apparently also based on the English word "half," but is considered to be ultimately normal in modern Hawaii or (like Japan) even preferable. But there are so many hapa in Hawaii that our kids are pretty much seen as locals. And after a couple days in the sun, with the genetic advantage of their mom's skin (not DNA from my side, no doubt) they were a lovely, toasty brown color like tea with milk in it. I am so jealous of their ability to get tanned instead of burned.
On to the trip: we hit three of the islands, so including the trips to-and-from KIX to HNL we had six flights. Hawaiian Air flew on-time and had counter staff as friendly as JAL's. I approach the idea of air travel after returning to the mainland USA with the kind of fear and trepidation only the traumatized and then pampered can know.
The general plan is the whole family would descend on The Big Island for a week of vacation. My Mom and her husband came in from Eagle, Idaho; my sister and her husband and daughter came in from San Jose, California. We flew in from Kishiwada, Osaka. It's more-or-less in the middle of our various locations, and my Mom had some timeshare rights in Kona. But I'll get to each, in the order we visited them.
I think Maui is my favorite island. That's where we honeymooned, and it's the place I've most enjoyed being, just as a place. It's not as crowded as Oahu, idyllic and serene as Kauai, nor as empty, hot, and humid as The Big Island. Maui is where we went first, visiting friends of ours who have a timeshare. They were additionally hosting a UK family with a 5 year old boy, and a dad who works in the British counterterrorism community. We roasted by the condo's poolside and enjoyed a lot of talk and meals.
Unfortunately or possibly with great fortune, I managed to burn myself up on Day 1. Unfortunate, in that I got burned and had some tingly skin for a couple days but, on the other hand, it was not a terrible burn and I did NOT forget to put on sunblock at all during the rest of the trip. Hell, I was even rubbing it into the areas where my hair is thinning. I'd rather look uncool than be in pain. Even so, as the trip wore on, even with SPF 50 I was feeling the sun on my arms even within a few seconds. By the end of the trip, just to cover my arms and neck I had to borrow a windbreaker even with the heat. The sun is really, overbearingly strong.
Oahu: it's lovely, but the area around Waikiki and Honolulu is just about the same as any city, anywhere. Honolulu is dirty and scary. Waikiki is a well-maintained, ocean-front mall. It's crowded and loud. Even so, the water's nicer than the beach towns where I grew up, and the crowds are consistently full of people intent on having fun.
I miss American breakfasts. Yes, I know I'm touting smaller portions and healthier foods, but if there is one meal for which I'm willing to behave like a health heretic, it's breakfast. But restaurants were alway showing "Breakfast until 10:30," "until 10:30," "until 10:30..." What is the deal with this? If I weren't jetlagged so badly, this would not have been an issue, but MAN I totally wanted to get my US greasy-breakfast on at McD's (BISCUITS) and Zippy's (Portuguese sausage and eggs, wif pancakes!) but just about every morning on our own we would not get to the restaurant until after 10:50. I finally got my biscuit, but I need to research more "breakfast all day" places next time.
Though a good portion of Oahu time was shopping for gifts and stuff we can't get in Japan, the most memorable part is where we "circled the island." We went up the west coast and visited the Dole plantation for some fresh mango and pineapple, had a plate full of barbecue, then continued across the North Shore. We stopped in a small purse of a beach where the kids played in lovely white sand and clear blue waters. On the way across the northeast corner, we stopped for one of the shrimp trucks that gets fresh shrimp from the farms out that way, and I plowed a dozen jumbo shrimp, scampi style. So. Good. We continued down the coast until sunset, driving through older seaside suburbs, watching the dramatic, steep slopes on our right, with a placid, pearlescent seaside just barely off to the left.
Once my family arrived in Hawaii, we all converged on The Big Island. For my whole family, it was a lovely, relaxing trip with lots of time to catch up and relax with each other in a home-y setting. We had two apartments with plenty of room for all, an excess of beds, and a great living/dining/kitchen space which allowed us all to be in one spot and talk, talk, talk.
We did get out of the apartment for long stretches of time. Pretty much every day had a trip to the complex's pool area for a couple hours, and we also visited a beach each day as well. This island makes it tricky though; as the youngest island, there aren't a lot of white sandy beaches. Most of the coast appears to be lava rock, esp. on Kona-side. I got cut up a lot while rock climbing. Mostly just scrapes, but I managed to lay open my thumb after being knocked over by a wave and grappling to regain balance. All of them are kind of badges, a reminder of "oh, yeah... that beach was fun." The thumb thing happened at Waikoloa, where the hotels had imported a whole beach worth of white sand, which was pretty fabulous. As soon as you get away from the shoreline, it's all lava rock, shoals full of tiny silver fish, and sea turtles. My daughter was swimming just a few meters off shore and was visited by the turtles several times, though she was entirely oblivious to their presence. Every time we informed her that they were getting close, she'd freak out, squeal, and begin thrashing toward shore, so it's best that she didn't know how many times they got close. I think maybe they were teasing her.
I was worried that, with as much time and in as close a quarters as we were sharing, there would be some big blowout in the family. Maybe someone would get angry that we've been in Japan too long. Maybe alcohol would be the source of some tiff. Would there be a scene about who paid for what? In the end, there weren't any fights at all; much like the TROPICAL STORM! HURRICANE! that threatened to hit Hawaii during our stay, the whole thing was a bunch of worry for nothing.
The whole trip was a real-life, media free bunch of downtime. I didn't turn on my iPod until the flight back. I didn't turn on my PSP until the layover on the return trip, and didn't turn on my Nintendo DS at all. We brought our netbook and did a little email the first couple days when we had free wi-fi, but thankfully the next places had pay-to-play wi-fi and I just avoided the 'net entirely. I also loaded up a USB drive with work-related video that I've been meaning to watch (UFC footage), but managed to accidentally forget it (seriously) so I didn't watch any of that.
In Hawaii there are a lot of interracial couples, mixed race marriages, so it was nice to be in a place where my wife and I don't stand out. Sometimes it's nice to fade into the scenery, and I don't really get that opportunity in public in Japan. Anywhere.
In Japan our kids' ethnicity is referred to as "haafu" (half, after "half-Japanese") which could be considered derogatory except that most of Japan is koo-koo for Cocopuffs crazy about the whole aesthetic of it. They tend to put haafu people on a pedestal, even as they are considered outside the Japanese ideal of "normal." In Hawaii, the same mixed-race concept is referred to "hapa," which is apparently also based on the English word "half," but is considered to be ultimately normal in modern Hawaii or (like Japan) even preferable. But there are so many hapa in Hawaii that our kids are pretty much seen as locals. And after a couple days in the sun, with the genetic advantage of their mom's skin (not DNA from my side, no doubt) they were a lovely, toasty brown color like tea with milk in it. I am so jealous of their ability to get tanned instead of burned.
On to the trip: we hit three of the islands, so including the trips to-and-from KIX to HNL we had six flights. Hawaiian Air flew on-time and had counter staff as friendly as JAL's. I approach the idea of air travel after returning to the mainland USA with the kind of fear and trepidation only the traumatized and then pampered can know.
The general plan is the whole family would descend on The Big Island for a week of vacation. My Mom and her husband came in from Eagle, Idaho; my sister and her husband and daughter came in from San Jose, California. We flew in from Kishiwada, Osaka. It's more-or-less in the middle of our various locations, and my Mom had some timeshare rights in Kona. But I'll get to each, in the order we visited them.
I think Maui is my favorite island. That's where we honeymooned, and it's the place I've most enjoyed being, just as a place. It's not as crowded as Oahu, idyllic and serene as Kauai, nor as empty, hot, and humid as The Big Island. Maui is where we went first, visiting friends of ours who have a timeshare. They were additionally hosting a UK family with a 5 year old boy, and a dad who works in the British counterterrorism community. We roasted by the condo's poolside and enjoyed a lot of talk and meals.
Unfortunately or possibly with great fortune, I managed to burn myself up on Day 1. Unfortunate, in that I got burned and had some tingly skin for a couple days but, on the other hand, it was not a terrible burn and I did NOT forget to put on sunblock at all during the rest of the trip. Hell, I was even rubbing it into the areas where my hair is thinning. I'd rather look uncool than be in pain. Even so, as the trip wore on, even with SPF 50 I was feeling the sun on my arms even within a few seconds. By the end of the trip, just to cover my arms and neck I had to borrow a windbreaker even with the heat. The sun is really, overbearingly strong.
Oahu: it's lovely, but the area around Waikiki and Honolulu is just about the same as any city, anywhere. Honolulu is dirty and scary. Waikiki is a well-maintained, ocean-front mall. It's crowded and loud. Even so, the water's nicer than the beach towns where I grew up, and the crowds are consistently full of people intent on having fun.
I miss American breakfasts. Yes, I know I'm touting smaller portions and healthier foods, but if there is one meal for which I'm willing to behave like a health heretic, it's breakfast. But restaurants were alway showing "Breakfast until 10:30," "until 10:30," "until 10:30..." What is the deal with this? If I weren't jetlagged so badly, this would not have been an issue, but MAN I totally wanted to get my US greasy-breakfast on at McD's (BISCUITS) and Zippy's (Portuguese sausage and eggs, wif pancakes!) but just about every morning on our own we would not get to the restaurant until after 10:50. I finally got my biscuit, but I need to research more "breakfast all day" places next time.
Though a good portion of Oahu time was shopping for gifts and stuff we can't get in Japan, the most memorable part is where we "circled the island." We went up the west coast and visited the Dole plantation for some fresh mango and pineapple, had a plate full of barbecue, then continued across the North Shore. We stopped in a small purse of a beach where the kids played in lovely white sand and clear blue waters. On the way across the northeast corner, we stopped for one of the shrimp trucks that gets fresh shrimp from the farms out that way, and I plowed a dozen jumbo shrimp, scampi style. So. Good. We continued down the coast until sunset, driving through older seaside suburbs, watching the dramatic, steep slopes on our right, with a placid, pearlescent seaside just barely off to the left.
Once my family arrived in Hawaii, we all converged on The Big Island. For my whole family, it was a lovely, relaxing trip with lots of time to catch up and relax with each other in a home-y setting. We had two apartments with plenty of room for all, an excess of beds, and a great living/dining/kitchen space which allowed us all to be in one spot and talk, talk, talk.
We did get out of the apartment for long stretches of time. Pretty much every day had a trip to the complex's pool area for a couple hours, and we also visited a beach each day as well. This island makes it tricky though; as the youngest island, there aren't a lot of white sandy beaches. Most of the coast appears to be lava rock, esp. on Kona-side. I got cut up a lot while rock climbing. Mostly just scrapes, but I managed to lay open my thumb after being knocked over by a wave and grappling to regain balance. All of them are kind of badges, a reminder of "oh, yeah... that beach was fun." The thumb thing happened at Waikoloa, where the hotels had imported a whole beach worth of white sand, which was pretty fabulous. As soon as you get away from the shoreline, it's all lava rock, shoals full of tiny silver fish, and sea turtles. My daughter was swimming just a few meters off shore and was visited by the turtles several times, though she was entirely oblivious to their presence. Every time we informed her that they were getting close, she'd freak out, squeal, and begin thrashing toward shore, so it's best that she didn't know how many times they got close. I think maybe they were teasing her.
I was worried that, with as much time and in as close a quarters as we were sharing, there would be some big blowout in the family. Maybe someone would get angry that we've been in Japan too long. Maybe alcohol would be the source of some tiff. Would there be a scene about who paid for what? In the end, there weren't any fights at all; much like the TROPICAL STORM! HURRICANE! that threatened to hit Hawaii during our stay, the whole thing was a bunch of worry for nothing.
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