If you believe Paradise is a botanical revelation where angels - shimmering in pearls and gold - drift like moonlight among emerald and sapphire seas, don't wait for Kevorkian! Grab the phone and book the next flight to Hawaii!
Dead of winter, or mid-summer night, Hawaii is a T-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops paradise. You'll need a jacket for the frozen food section of a grocery store, or any government office where those strange little devils dress in suits and ties pretending they really work in the Oval Office, or on Wall Street!
To arrive in Paradise looking like Kama'aina, get your Hawaiian flip-flops from Scott Hawaii (1-800-726-8828), shorts, shirts, or mu'u mu'u from Hilo Hattie (1-900-272-5282), gold from Hawaiian Heirloom Jewelry Factory (1-800-548-2616) or pearls and coral from Maui Divers of Hawaii, Ltd. (1-800-462-4454).
After you arrive, you will hear the most common tourist complaint: "I came to Hawaii to lie on the beach and soak up the sun, but I've been here X-days and done everything but go to the beach!"
Everyone knows the beach will be there tomorrow, but today's events are only for today, which is exactly what our business people want you to believe.
Every day is jam-packed with events intended to attract happy souls from around the world: athletic competitions, beauty contests, food competitions, cultural parades and festivals, about 3,500 international hula dancers stretched along Waikiki beaches to shake the Guinness Book of Records, hiking up to see endangered species and/or petroglyphs and archaeological wonders, whale watching, or (under S) Sailing, Scuba diving, Sea fishing, Sky diving, Snorkeling, Scenic submarine cruises and, most important to Hawaiians: Surfing!
All of these activites burn calories, so food is a consuming interest with a very international flavor; Polynesian, Oriental, European, Middle Eastern or McDonald's fare may be as close as the next table. After a divine meal, it is heavenly to walk in a natural rain forest without becoming a meal for snakes, spiders, creepy-crawlies, or furry things with sharp teeth!
On an island paradise, people are not the only imports, so everything is expensive. An hotel, or fast-food worker must work one full-time job to afford a tiny studio apartment, and another full-time job to afford to eat (it takes half-a-day on minimum wage to put a box of cornflakes and a jug of milk on the table), so join the crowd in search of a bargain!
Everything looks wonderful on a postcard, yet many people come to Waikiki to go shopping. You could shop London, Paris, Rome, or Tokyo, but their brand-name stores are also in Waikiki, where our weather makes shopping such a pleasure. The grapevine reports that Elvis goes shoppping in Waikiki every night of the week!
MOLEHU I WAIKIKI - A free hula show every Saturday and Sunday at sunset right on the beach between the banyon tree and the ocean. It is one of the few opportunities for tourists to see native people hula in traditional natural-fiber attire which the dancers personally collect and craft as part of their hula training. This is the only authentic Hawaiian hula show on Waikiki Beach.
THE BUS. Want to visit the islands of the Polynesian Cultural Center? Sea Life Park? Bishop Museum? Honolulu Academy of Arts? Aloha Tower? Waimea Valley? Watch the Really Great Ones surf the Really Big Ones off the North Shore? It costs only TWO dollars to ride The Bus on Oahu! Some tourists spend a day just riding the "Circle Island" bus around Oahu because it only costs two dollars to see all the sights and meet local people.
Certainly not a financial bargain, but if you believe Paradise is where everything you want is at your fingertips, just about anything you could want is either at the Hilton Hawaiian Village, will come to your doorstep, or is within easy walking distance. It is very popular for champagne and sunset swims, but the really spectacular rainbows and sunsets are best seen just across the yacht harbor, at Magic Island.
With every list of "Do's", there must be some "Don'ts". Don't bring your checkbook to Hawaii. It takes 2-3 weeks for a stateside check to clear, unless you are willing to pay $35.00 per $100 for the "convenience" of cashing a check!
Don't bring cherished possessions with you because they'll slip right off and, even with a metal detector, you won't find them in surf, sea, or sand. Ask anyone!
Don't plan a trip to the beach from the seventh to the tenth day after a full moon because that is when jellyfish go berserk over their monthly mating game and the tides wash their exhausted little bodies ashore. See jellyfish at the Waikiki Aquarium, where they are beautiful, instead of painful.
Where there are whales and dolphins and rare turtles, there will also be sharks, but the chance of being nipped by a shark in Hawaiian waters is one in millions. If that is the adventure you crave, your best bet is to go surfing alone, a long way from the shore. The joy of Hawaii is - despite the Industrial Age - our water is so clear that when you see an hammerhead shark, you'll probably think you've discovered a Disney toy some child has lost.
In Paradise, everything is revealed in its natural beauty. You can hear its song in the wind and sea. You can see it, smell it, touch it, taste it, and feel your own heart beat to the rhythm of "Aloha".
You could wait for Kevorkian. You could spend another morning scraping the ice off your windshield. You could let a few more precious moments of your life slip away while you compete for that parking space among rush hour traffic, or you could holoholo in Hawaii.
By all accounts, Paradise is the most successful remedy for stress - especially when YOU make the reservation!
Photographs are like bubbles in the surf, capturing one special moment in rainbow hues before the bubble bursts and life resumes its flow.
| Seashells on Waikiki Beach |
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| Sharks in Hawaii |
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| Hanauma Bay |
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| Waimea Valley |
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| The Honolulu Zoo |
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| The Polynesian Cultural Center |
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| The Hawaiian Islands: |
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| Hawaiian Volcanoes |
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| Hawaiian gods and goddesses |
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| The Hawaiian Lei |
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| The Hawaiian Monarchy |
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| Defining Aloha |
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| Hawaiian pearls and gold. |
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| Other Rico Leffanta web sites |
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