Hawaii Food Tour – Day 1- Blown Away In Paradise

That’s right – we said “Hawaii Food Tour”.  We’re spending a week in Honolulu, on the island of O’ahu.  When we first moved to Indiana, twenty years ago, we began taking February vacations – to go someplace warm in the middle of winter.  Somehow, we fell out of the habit over the last ten years, but decided that in 2019 we would start again. So here we are, back in Hawaii.  We’re looking for places that are off the tourist maps, where the locals go, that let us eat well without costing a Hawaiian king’s ransom.

We’re going to do a series of quick posts to report on what we’ve seen, smelled and tasted.  So, “Aloha” – here we go!

Day 1 – Off to a windy start

On Sunday, our first day in Honolulu, we got up early, after about 10 hours of catch up sleep. (Saturday had been a lonngggg travel day.).  Mary looked at Facebook first thing and giggled about the snow falling back in Indiana. We had several friends wishing us well, saying “Have fun in the sun!” and things like that.

But outside our 10th floor window, the wind was howling, the palm trees down below were bent sideways, and we could see the surf churning at the beach.  It was chilly outside! (Out of respect for our friends back home, I won’t say it was “cold” outside. It was still about 60 degrees!). But we had packed for 70 degree weather, and sunshine.  We needed an extra layer!

Mary bought a blue hoodie with “Hawaii” written in white letters across the front in the “ABC” store on the first floor of the hotel complex.  ABC is a chain of convenience stores that are more numerous here than Starbucks outlets. There are three or four in every block! They sell a surprising array of merchandise – chips and snacks, sodas, beer, wine, prepared food, souvenirs, toys and, luckily enough, sweatshirts.

For the rest of the week we’ve been laughing whenever we see someone else wearing the same sweatshirt.  It’s tempting to stop them and ask, “So you didn’t pack a jacket, either, did you? Bet that’s the best $30 you’ve spent here!”

We spent the morning exploring Waikiki and dodging raindrops.  Walking is one of our primary methods of transportation this week.  We decided not to rent a car, since everything we read said Waikiki is very walkable and not driver friendly.  There’s a local bus system that we didn’t try to navigate for a couple days. We’ve also seen rental bikes (“Biki”) everywhere.

One of our first stops was the statue of Duke Kahanamoku, a block down Kalakaua Avenue from our hotel.  Duke was a native Hawaiian, and a champion swimmer in the early 1900’s. He won five Olympic medals. He also popularized the sport of surfing.  It’s considered good luck to leave a lei at the statue. We’d each been given one at the airport yesterday, so we had some to give.

From there, we continued west on Kalakaua.  This is the epicenter of the tourist area, and it didn’t take long for us to realize how out of place we were.  Mary had purchased a travel guide to Oahu several months ago.  The author describes Waikiki as “a square mile with 30,000 hotel rooms”.  There are times when it seems that the inhabitants of those rooms are all on the street at once, bumping into each other as they race to spend money in the boutiques and high-end shops that line the street.  We share the sidewalk with them, but do not share their primal urge to wear out our Visa cards.

The good news is that much of what we want to see, and taste, is found off Waikiki.

We wanted to see the harbor, which is off Waikiki to the west.  But on this morning, it was almost impossible to get there on foot.  Several times we had to seek shelter, once in a parking garage, to escape sudden downpours.  Luckily, they didn’t last long. But even when the sun was shining, the wind made movement difficult.  The gusts coming off the ocean were 40 mph and higher. We had to lean into the wind to move forward, occasionally stopping behind a building to get out of the wind.

We made it to the harbor and walked along it for several hundred yards, looking at boats of all sizes and vintages.  Randy, the bus driver who brought us from the airport on Saturday, had told the group that this harbor was where the opening scene for “Gilligan’s Island” was filmed – the spot where they started on their “three hour tour”.  It was an interesting anecdote, but Mary later read that the scene was actually shot at Alamitas Bay Marina in Long Beach, California. I was really disappointed to hear that Randy hadn’t told us the truth. In a world of alternative facts and fake news, if you can’t trust your bus driver to tell you the truth, who can you trust?

I bet his name wasn’t even Randy.

Later in the day, we tried walking along the beach in front of our hotel.  The wind was so strong that it blew a fine spray of water and sand, stinging our legs and getting sand in our eyes.  We turned away from the beach and headed inland.  Many of the shops on Kalakaua Avenue that faced the ocean had their doors closed.  When we returned to the hotel later in the afternoon, we found a note from the hotel manager informing all guests that there was a gale-force wind warning in effect throughout the evening, with winds expected to be 35 knots (~ 40 mph).  We believed it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We’ll be back shortly with another update from O’ahu.  Mahalo (thank you) for coming along for the ride.

Next post in this series:  Hawaii Food Tour – Lunch at the Rainbow Drive In