Hit this to make it bigger, and you'll see one exhausted beach walker. However, he hadn't walked far. I think it was the night before that exhausted him. I took the picture while walking down the lighthouse trail.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Life on O'ahu
I didn’t see the big moon rise on March 19. I went out on the stone jetty at Sans Soucis Beach and saw a pretty good sunset, blocked only be a pair of young lovers at the far end. He was taking romantic shots of her in pseudo hula poses against a backdrop of the sea, ships and sunset. The moon rose in the opposite direction, behind the hills and the heavy cloud that hung there, so I didn’t see it until later from the condo balcony.
On Sunday I made the mistake of visiting downtown Honolulu. There were some beautiful Victorian and modern buildings to look at, but all were shut, nobody was around and eventually I had to leave in search of a washroom. I found plenty of activity in Chinatown, the widest variety of Oriental physiognomies, fruits, vegetables, fish, fowl and seafood I’ve ever seen. Many of the buildings are old and worn. I was tempted to take a picture of a homeless man asleep on his rags under a faded sign for a bar, ‘Paradise Lost’, but decided against it. It seemed callous to snap a shot. What struck me as being sadly symbolic was his place of rest. I was so overwhelmed by the sights that I forgot my quest for a toilet. I eventually did get hungry; however, and contemplated eating at one of the many food stalls. Everything looked and smelled tempting, well, everything but the tripe, but the memory of being sick in Mexico made me hesitate until it was too late and I just jumped on a bus and went home for a fried egg sandwich. Writing this makes me disappointed in myself and tempted to return to Chinatown on Tuesday to eat there before I leave Honolulu.
On Monday, I took a long ride on The Bus 11 past rows of homeless people living under tarps tied to fences along the sidewalks, their loaded shopping carts marking the outer limit of their space and acting as second tie up for the tarp. I was going to hike around the Aiea Loop Trail. I faced a lot of walking that day, over a mile from the bus stop up the road to the park where the trail begins and then up and around the five mile loop and back down to the bus. Fortunately, on my way back down the road to get the bus home, a nice guy who was driving friends to the airport offered me a ride to the airport bus stop. It turned out that the best view of Pearl Harbor was from the top of his road, not from the loop; although, the loop did provide some excitement. The path was mostly volcanic rock and red dirt (Hawaii has as much red dirt as P.E.I.), some of which was slippery after rain the previous night and parts of it were narrow ledges with steep sides. At one point it dropped almost straight down to a 4 lane highway far below, and I could only look for a moment.
On Tuesday and Wednesday I took The Bus to Makapu’u Point. I wanted to climb to the lighthouse there, but the first day I didn’t because I started talking on the bus with a couple. He turned out to be from Thunder Bay and to have worked for about 2 years at Richardson’s Elevator with Bill; she was a much younger Japanese woman on holiday in O’ahu for ten days. I think they had just met and were having a bit of a fling. She didn’t speak much English. We talked until we arrived at Makapu’u, by which time he had told me that I’d never make it to the lighthouse and back in time to meet Sally’s friend for tea at 2:00 at a hotel on Waikiki, which I had arranged to do, so I walked with them along the beach, looked at some seals in Sea World and got on the bus again. The next day I did take the hike and it was great, really, really windy but great.
As one of the many constants of this trip has been wind, it is in keeping that I was not able to take the ferry to the Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor the next day because of the wind. I got up before seven to get there early and miss the rush, which I did. Plus a nice man at the ticket wicket gave me an entry for the 9:35a.m.show and ride when they were supposed to have been filled up for that one. But in spite of all that, our ferry was cancelled, as were all the others for the day, because of 40 to 50 knot winds on the harbor. They were wild, and although there was a murmur of discontent when the announcement was made, it didn’t amount to much because nobody wanted to end up joining the poor men, 1117 of them, whose bodies were left where they died, on the Arizona, as the U.S.A. went to war.
On Thursday I walked through the pink Royal Hawaiian Hotel, Joni Mitchel’s ‘pink hotel’, and along Waikiki Beach. After all my hikes, I see clearly what she meant by ‘pave paradise, put up a parking lot.’ And for that and other reasons, the lines, ’you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone,’ have been on my mind lately. Waikiki beach is splendid, but the buildings, to paraphrase the Saskatchewan farmer whose comment about the Rockies has always made me laugh, ‘sure do block the view.’ I took the bus to Kailua and joined Caroline, Mara and Sharon, Caroline’s niece, for a girls’ night out. We had dinner out and slept over at Sharon’s place. We got up before six to climb to ‘The Pillboxes’ to watch the sunrise. The view was wonderful. There were lots of young people including a group of cadets at the top. Except for Manoa Falls, every hike I’ve taken on O’ahu has been connected with the military and most have ended with a pillbox. With all the looking out that was being done, it really is amazing that there was no warning of the Japanese invasion on Dec.7, 1941. But the film at Pearl Harbor largely explained that. Even the Japanese were surprised by the fact that their mission was such a complete success.
I have had a very good introduction to Hawaii thanks to the Pollock, Shepherd and Gouveia families with whom I have eaten, slept, hiked, swum, talked, worked, gardened, shopped and generally lived as one of the family and to Sally and Mario who gave me their condo and left me guidebooks without which I would never have found some of the natural sights I have seen.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
More pictures from Hawaii
From the descriptions that Jay has given me of hiking in Korea, I think I approached the experience when I joined the hoard of sweating tourists climbing up to the rim of Diamond Head.
The climb to Manoa Falls was also a Korean experience. I read that Pres. Obama likes to imagine he's back at this falls when the pressures of governing are overwhelming. It must have been a quieter place when he was young and living near there.
Hawaii continued
Al, Caroline, et al came to the condo around 4:30 p.m. on Sunday, March 13. We were all dressed up, and after a drink here we left to watch the Hawaiian Festival parade. As happens often on our outings, by the time we were all together, dressed, fed, watered, washroomed and ready, we ended up being a bit late. But we caught the last 3 floats, which were extravagant. Then we wandered in the Waikiki area, down Kalakaua Ave., taking in all the street acts and people until we were hungry. Of course the restaurants were crowded, but we got into a seafood place with no wait. I had a terrific ahi tuna salad, a change from the fried diet I’ve enjoyed lately. The main attraction of the evening was to have been a fireworks display put on by a professional Japanese group, but out of respect for the people of Japan who are suffering through earthquakes, tsunamis and nuclear plant explosions, it was understandably cancelled. We strolled back to the condo, where the gang left me and drove home to Kailua.
On Monday, I had a good walk to Diamond Head, up the crater and back. On Tuesday, I caught The Bus # 5 and took it to the end of the line. From there it’s an easy walk to the trailhead for the hike to Manoa Falls. It’s a short uphill trail along a cool stream to a high,100ft., falls with just a trickle of water dropping down it. Not far from the falls, the Aihualama Trail leads through wonderful country to another path that goes to the Nu’uanu Valley Lookout. When you’re used to paths strewn with pine needles and poplar leaves, it’s exotic to be walking on bamboo leaves listening to the hollow sound of bamboos blowing against each other in the wind. There were also orchids and huge old banyan trees along the route. The wind at the lookout was wild. Two of the many things that have impressed me about O’ahu are the glorious winds and the Hawaiian words that are so repetitive and riddled with vowels that I can hardly pronounce them. When I had to ask for a transfer at the Ala Moana Center to catch the # 5 bus to Manoa Falls, my tongue got so tied up in Moana and Manoa that I almost couldn’t make myself understood to the driver. And those are nothing compared to Kapi’olani and Ke’eaumoku Streets. And the winds blow so fiercely around Sally’s 19th floor condo on Ala Wai Blvd. that when I partially close the jalousies, their whistling reminds me of listening to a winter storm outside when I lived in Thunder Bay. Have I said that before? On Thursday, we all drove to the North Shore and walked out to Ka’ena Point, on a path/ very bumpy mud road between the shoreline and the foot of the lush Wai’anae Range. We had lunch under a sacred rock, the jumping off spot for spirits. We were informed of this by a young native of O’ahu who was one of several young people we talked to who are working in the area, trying to restore its indigenous vegetation and wildlife by trapping and killing the invading mice and rats. They are also building a fence barrier to keep the rodents out, like the one set up around Queensland, Australia to try to keep out the rabbits. Their motto is, feathers good, fur bad. We saw many soaring osprey and one young one.
Last night Albert and Caroline presented me with another of the impressive Hawaiian things, a sweet-smelling pikake (jasmine) lei. I was lucky they didn’t strangle me with it because we had agreed to meet at the cathedral at 6:00p.m. Although I swear it had nothing to do with the fact that I had a Protestant and they had a Catholic upbringing, I waited in front of St. Andrew’s Episcopalian Cathedral Church while they were nearby waiting for me at the ‘other’ cathedral. Fortunately, I asked a woman if there was ‘another’ and she directed me to where they all were. Meanwhile, Ella and Sadie had run themselves hot and ragged; not really, they were beautifully dressed. We all carried on to the ‘Empty Bowl Hawaii’ dinner in Chinatown. I went with my brother to an ‘Empty Bowl Thunder Bay’ dinner the last time I visited him and I thought it was an event unique to T. Bay. I guess George the Porter is the only thing unique to Thunder Bay. We ended the evening at the bar in the Hilton Hawaiian Village drinking mai tais and listening to a musician Caroline and Albert had listened to many years ago at a different hotel. His group has changed too, but the music’s still good and as with the dinner, it was better because we were outside with a warm breeze blowing around us and the smell of pikake in the air.
Tonight I’m going to find a spot on Waikiki Beach where I can see the sun set and the full moon rise at 6:42p.m. I heard on the radio that it’s going to be a big moon tonight. It should be something to see if the clouds open up. It’s been cloudy with off and on rain all day.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Pictures from Kelowna to Hawaii
Hawaii and Jim
I’m in Hawaii. It’s wonderful how an exotic place can be both strange and not. I was met at the airport by Caroline, Mara and the girls, who ran to hug me, their faces as bright as the sun coming up in the morning. The air was warm and humid and the breeze was lovely. It certainly wasn’t Canada, but driving to Ron’s (Caroline’s brother-in-law) in the van with them, I felt quite at home. We’re all living in Ron’s house with him and his son Jonathan. From the outside, the place looks small at first glance, but it has rooms that lead into rooms and allow seven of us to move around quite easily. Hawaiian homes are like Canadian summer cottages. They have no basement and are ranch style. They have no insulation, the windows are ‘jalousies’ which look like Venetian blinds made from angled, parallel, glass slats and the roof is a material like plywood, but it’s compressed sugar cane fiber that’s covered with a rubberized substance. When it rains, which it has done quite a bit since I arrived, I am reminded of summers at camp in Thunder Bay, especially at night. The rain is loud and it feels so snug to be covered up in bed listening to it pounding on the roof. The difference is that you would never cover up with anything more than one thin sheet because its very warm. One night it was raining and the wind was so strong that a fine spray came through the ‘jealousies’. In spite of the rain, we’ve been at the beach every day but one, walking on the sand, collecting hermit crabs in the pools of sea water that pock the volcanic rocks and swimming.
Days have gone by since I began this entry. Time passes quickly, filled with meals, games, drives, arguments, laughs, tears, t.v, tooth brushing and bed, when you travel with young girls. It’s been fun and certainly made the anniversary of Jim’s death on March 11, 2010 easier for me to face. I’ve been helped through this whole year by family and friends, for which I’m very thankful. Jay and I exchanged letters on the eleventh, and reading his to me was the most moving part of the day. His thoughts and feelings were consoling and very well expressed. Jim accepted his death bravely. He didn’t burden us with his fears. We talked of death but tried to live what time was left as well as we could. Of course there are things I wish I had said and done, but I’m beginning to believe that that would always have been the case no matter what and that the things I think about now would never have been said or done given who we were. Jay and I loved him, and he loved us. We all did our best and now I hope he rests in peace. We will always remember him as we continue our own lives strengthened by having shared so much of them with him.
Caroline, Mara, the girls and I spent a couple of nights in Mela’s sister’s condo in Honolulu, going to the zoo and aquatic centre and swimming on Waikiki Beach. We had a late dinner in a restaurant on Thursday, March 10, and our first inkling of the horrible earthquake in Japan was as we drove home to Ron’s around 9:30 p.m. There were long lines at the gas stations, and we almost joined one of them because the van was almost out of gas and we thought there must have been some catastrophe in the Middle East and gas prices were going to skyrocket by morning. Thank goodness we didn’t. When we arrived at home, Ron was lost in his Kindle and knew nothing either. We turned on tv to hear about the quake. Hawaii was taking it very seriously, of course, because of the fear of a tsunami. We did not have to evacuate because Ron’s house is just outside the designated area, so we just stayed up watching the tv. We slept on and off, but finally went to bed around 3:30 when the wave hit the first island and was reported to be much less devastating than expected. The next day we got in the van and drove around much of the coast of O’ahu. The damage was minimal; the Big Island was the hardest hit and even that was not really bad. You could see where the water had been high, and the waves were still big in some areas. People were not supposed to be swimming, but some big guys were fooling in the breakers and dislocating their shoulders anyway. We just observed from the beach.
Albert and Thomas arrived yesterday and after meeting them we drove to Sally’s condo to drop me off. I am happily catching up on stuff and enjoying the peace and quiet of the condo, especially as I know that the gang will soon be here and I will be back in the maelstrom. We are going to go to Waikiki to see the parade for the Asian Festival.
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