The Pit of Pat

Aloha. I’m quickly finding out why Hawai’i is the Aloha state. Mostly because every second word around here is aloha. It’s part of the Aloha Sprit, a sort of unofficial outlook of the people here. The Aloha Spirit is often described as a sense of care and hospitality to those around, even in the face of stressing environments, occasions or people - according to Wikipedia. It’s pretty fitting, since the laid back nature of the folks here would make Scott Fletcher feel right at home. When I arrived in the Aloha state, I was anything but relaxed.

After boarding my plane and being seated, I discovered I was sitting next to two decaying, dessicated corpses - both over twelve decades old. If the visual cues weren’t enough, the smell of their breath certainly drove the point home. I tried not to notice, turning away and having a little nappy. When I woke up, it was movie time - Charlie & the Chocolate Factory. Definitely worth a second viewing so I procured some free headphones and tuned in. The breakfast arrived - raspberry crepes with apples and fruit salad - quite good for airline food. After Charlie was over and I was thoroughly satisfied that Johnny Depp deserves some sort of meta-Oscar for his past decades work, they went straight into Must Love Dogs, a clever-ish romance for the divorce scene. I thought some of the dialogue looked relatively sharp in the trailer, and it turned out to be an okay movie, but I was certainly riled up by the ending.

Right before the climax of the film, when our heroine dives into the water to declare her love for a still-playing-the-same-guy-after-all-these-years John Cusack the turbulence kicked in. And I mean tur-bu-lence. O M G kind of turbulence which made my palms a bit sweaty, even as a seasoned flier it’s not a fun experience. A lady a few seats over and ahead a bit started to freak the fuck out though. Wailing, pulling out her hair and going nuts when the turbulence didn’t stop. It probably lasted a good thirty-forty minutes which was pretty intense. One of the air marshalls decloaked, which was funny because I had pegged her for one - mostly because the flight crew seemed familiar with her. Anyway the Harmony Airways crew did their best to chill this woman out, and really did a good job. One of the hostesses sat with her for the duration of the turbulence and did her best to reassure her. It was pretty well done, much like the Harmony Airways service in general. We touched down quite rockily less than an hour later, and I was officially in Hawai’i.

I didn’t really find it too hot, even though it was 29′C - I guess the nice cool island breeze was helping me out. My backpack arrived after a long, nervous wait at the baggage carousel and I inquired as to where I could cash my traveller’s cheques to get a cab downtown. The near-comatose-I’m-so-relaxed Hawai’ian info guide directed me to the exchange counter in ‘the place where all the Japanese hang out’ and she wasn’t kidding. The signs suddenly morphed from English to English + Japanese to Japanese onry, and I found myself walking through JP central. The exchange counter was closed, and having only a couple US bucks to my name, I decided I’d take the bus downtown. As a note, the HNL airport has walls - it just has lots of wall-less walkways where you can feel the breeze and see the island. Sweaty now - but being blown away by the lush green mountains in the distance and the palm trees - I grabbed a map and waited for my bus. I managed to get dropped off on the Parks Department Street, right in downtown Honolulu and trudged with Madame Heavy on my back up to the gov’t building. I trudged upstairs, had a very I Heart Huckabees moment as I went around and around a very tiny corridor looking for room 310. I eventually got sent on my way - it was through what they called breezethroughs or something - and found myself in the office of the state department for parks and recreation. I was worried that there wouldn’t be any camp sites at Sand Island Beach, it being early afternoon by this point. I certainly didn’t have to worry about that.

Turns out Sand Island Beach, like the majority of beaches on Oahu, is only open Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Nowhere does it say this on the site, although my memory seems to recall a note which said ‘Park hours see *’ with no accompanying asterisk. If they had picked up the phone when I had called for three days last week, I’d have been told in advance, but since they didn’t, I was - as the locals say - ku’inaui’pwn’ed. I trudged back to the bus stop, located the Seaside Hawaiian Hostel on the map - quite a distance away in extremely touristy Waikiki - and got on a bus. When I got to the hostel, I was greeted warmly by a nice, relaxed and warm dude named Mark who took care of me and got everything straightened away. My room is a 6 bunk male room w/shower and bathroom and is pretty nice in all regards. Plenty of storage space and ideally located in Waikiki. I met a few of my roommates, surfers from California mostly who were nice enough but don’t really have a lot in common with me otherwise. I took a shower, changed into my new lightweight synthetic t-shirt and Crocs, put on some sunscreen and went for a walk along the north end of the area I’m staying in.

Walking along in the sun, passing all sorts of trees and plants I’ve never seen and checking out the crazy birdlife, I was pretty taken in to Oahu’s beauty. It rained a few times, but it’s like this: by the time you realize the warm drops are rain, they’re gone and evaporated off you. It’s kinda refreshing actually. I walked for quite some time, past the Zoo and into a small park with some absolutely stunning, serpentine trees of Indian origin if memory serves correctly. As I started walking the return path on the south side of my loop, I could see the beach and so crossed the street and got my feet wet in the Pacific. I was at first a little bit surprised at how cool the water was, but it soon became apparent that it was simply the difference between it and the air’s temperature. The water is probably 17′C plus or so, impossibly clear and very, very wavy. The sand is another story. The white sand is much like our sand, maybe a bit finer. The wet, coarse sand, well it reminded me of kitty litter or uncooked oatmeal or something. Very coarse and kinda hard to walk on as you can sink in it quite readily. They have a couple sectioned off areas of the beach where breakwaters are installed and the sand is either replaced or is naturally finer, and much more condusive to walking. I tell you, warm water, sun gently smiling on you, a cool island breeze and just the right amount of beach babes - the trip almost ended in Oahu. After a walk on the beach though, the reality of the overly touristy Waikiki surroundings kinda hit home as I felt like I was in a combination of Las Vegas and Florida. It’s not bad if you aren’t afraid to do some exploring. I found the lone grocery store and discovered soy milk is about CDN$8 a L here :O but lots of other things are reasonably priced. Grabbed some Hawaiian made lime drink and continued on my walk.

I’ve been getting some blisters - the first one was my fault as I wore regular socks on my trip from Ash’s to Victoria Central Station. It’s not too bad but it’s kind of a pain in the ass to sort of avoid worsening it. The other one is fresh from last night, and is more of a rubbed-gash kind of deal where my crocs stop and my skin rubs against the edge of it on the other foot. I’m going to try and take care of them as best I can. I found an absolutely amazing curio shop, filled with everything from original vintage Pac-Man merchandise to old Superman stuff to original GI Joe’s and Japanese Ultraman and Speed Racer records and basically everything in between. Lots of neato stuff to check out, unfortunately priced what its worth and impossible to get home. I was starting to get hungry, so I decided to look for a place to eat. Partially to tease Andrea and partially because it sounded pretty good, I went to Waikiki’s only Irish pub - about 600m from the beach, of course.

Other than the harp on the door, and the Guinness I suppose, there was nothing much Irish about this pub. It had a garden burger though, and a waitress that was used to getting people to upsize finally got around to serving it to me about an hour after I ordered. Didn’t mind though, as it was tasty and I enjoyed the local paper while waiting - and a cider I’d never tried before - Hornsby’s maybe? It was pretty good, but no Strongbow I’m afraid. I walked back to the hostel, grabbed a shower and went to bed. Long freaking day, time differences and all concerned, and I was looking forward to catching some zzz’s.

But that wasn’t enough was it Rudy? My surfer friends of course were not going to be turning in until much later, and one of them was very considerate about the light - he’d turn it on to find something and turn it off immediately. Another one was not. He turned the light on the moment he got in (1:00 AM) went into the washroom (a separate room with its own light) did his thing, came out, rustled around a bit and about twenty minutes later turned off the light. That’s when I found out about their plan to get up at 4:00 and head to some beach or something, and I shuddered and went to bed. At 4:00 the alarms started, and the dude with the alarm clock pulled a K-Man and slept right through it. Every ten minutes it went off again, and the other guys got up and got ready, but this dude kept on zzzz’ing. Eventually, around 4:30 I heard “Kyle, wake up man, it’s 4:30″. I simultaneously gritted my teeth and chuckled to myself. This continued for another twenty minutes until they were finally all gone, and I got some more sleep. Warm, but with a nice breeze turned into breezy mcbreeze as it cooled off in the early morning and was overcast and freaking windy, blowing shit around and such.

The guys came back a few hours later, near 8:00, having met with unsuccess. They finally stopped talking about it and left and I got one more thirty minute stretch of sleep before resolving to get up and shower at 9:15. It’s starting to get sunny here now, and I think I might do some more exploring, print off my tickets again and get something to eat. Definitely hit the beach again. Aloha.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 3rd, 2005 at 5:23 pm and is filed under Archived. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.