Hawaii, within the first hour of being here, was one of my favourite destinations yet. Still a tad raw from the visceral dissapointment of Fiji, i had lowered my expectations of this, another tropical paradise, to such lows that had i been gunned down when i stepped from the plane i wouldnt have been surprised in the slightest. Fortunately, this was not the case.
The people here are, although ive only been to one state, the nicest people in America, if not the world. Everyone is polite in a sincere and humble way that truly rocks me even now, and ive been enjoying it for over a week. Everything is clean, prices are reasonable and standards are sky high even in the budget hotels Jo and i tend to lurk in. Although here, i dare say, we hold our heads high when we leave our budget hotel - its feet from Waikiki beach, private rooms for all, and at rock bottom prices. And food wise!! Weve eaten breakfast, lunch and dinner out every day for a month now, but the last week has seem a dramatic improvement in bang for our buck. (Even though the buck is at a heart stopping rate of exchange - this is the worst time financially to be visiting in America in about 5 years) ((DAMN IT ALL TO HELL)) Thank God for the sunshine!! Relentless, glorious, baking hot sunshine. All day, every day. Worth every penny.
Deeming this to be some sort of facade for the real Hawaii we booked a flight from "Ohau", the island on which we landed, to "Hawai'i" (the big island), to see if we could find the seedy underbelly of paradise. Not possible im afraid. On what i expected would be the dark underside of Hawaii is another glorious, totally different tropical wonderland covered in Volcanoes and dotted with small villages packed with welcoming locals and new and fantastic eateries.
Volcano spotting is one of the main draws to the island. The Volcano national park is, obviously, home to some Volcanoes. In fact, the one we visited is the most active Volcano in the world and as if to prove the point, we werent allowed to even get withing a mile of the damned thing, due to some extremely high levels of Carbon Somethingorother Gas. Not to worry, we worked our way round and took enough photos to last one hundred lifetimes, ranging from old lava floes, to lava tunnels to magma flowing in to the sea a creating some mega steam in the process. We stayed in a local town, imaginatively named 'Volcano', and ate at restaurants with Volcano or Lava or Magma in the title. To get around we hired a little car that had a, being generous, one horse power engine, and one horse is not enough to drag around two holiday makers with a thirst for Volcano hunting like we had. But it had to do. The villages we went to were quiet and cosy, but on our last night on the big island we happened upon a town festival called 'black and white nite' where everyone has to wear black and white. Crazy stuff. There were Jazz bands on every corner and dancing in the street. We even befriended a local gent who acted as a guide of sorts and showed us where the bar in town was and told us about the various locals in each band. A great time had by all, i must say.
Then it was back to the other more beach oriented side of paradise to eat more and drink more more and write more and more and more blogs. In 2 days we fly to San Francisco to meet up with Boloni and Lorna, then the following day Alan joins the fun. Its going to be awesome, and if i werent in Hawaii heaven im sure id be too excited to sleep. Also i have a new ipod touch thats literally hours of entertainment in itself, so that helps too.
Tomorrow Jo is getting her nails done, and imgoing to a shooting range. For $80 theyre going to let me fire an AK-47, an M16, an Uzi, a .44 Magnum and a range of other hand guns and rifles that have numbers for names and all sorts of legal blocks to stop people like me using them. I CANT WAIT!!!!!!!!
Hawaii is better than i can say, and the people, despite the major character flaw of being American, are great. The day after we arrived was the election and the cheering at Obamas win went on loudly for hours in such an unreserved way i knew i was going to enjoy it here. Everyones so totally, in-your-face, over the top, loud-and-proud American that it simply has to be fake. But it isnt, and its so so refreshing.
Well, that enough bigging up these fat yanks. Theyve still got 5 weeks to let me down.
Best get out there and give them a chance.
Jo is 23 on the 11th. We'll be in San Francisco, and i think were going to go to Alcatraz.
