Greetings!

Hello from Honolulu.
It has been a while since the blog has been updated...you will notice a new (and more appropriate) title.

I would like to post some observations from our first few days on the island of O'Ahu.

1. Everything everyone said about Hawaii is true (including the painted silver man on the streets in Waikiki, but not the "all sand in Hawaii is black" thing); even the things that contradict.
For example, "it's really expensive to live there" and "you can get things really cheap there" both true, and yet, both false...more on the evils of Wal-Mart later.
Second, "The natives are so friendly, you'll love the Hawaiian culture." and "you'll be treated differently because you're haole" (how-lee, or white). Both true. My best comparison is to say that being white in Hawaii is much like being African American in suburban America about 25 years ago. A native Hawaiian patient refused to let JoAnna treat him because she was haole.

2. The most famous beach in the world IS all it's cracked up to be. (especially since I can see is from our hallway, and be on it in three minutes walk...see pic below)

3. Wal-Mart is an evil corporation...and they've got their hooks in me. For example, the price per gallon of milk @ Wal-Mart...$3.58, everywhere else in O'Ahu, $7.50...I can't afford not to sell my soul.

4. Real surfers ARE found on the North Shore. I don't know much about surfing, yet, but from what I saw today on Waikiki, I'm not impressed. But mostly, a local T.V. channel told me the above truth.

5. We've had it all backwards all along. It's white people who are the oohing, aaahing, camera-toting shutterbugs, and the Asians who are the sneering, bored, nine-to-five-ers. How could we have been so misled.

SIDENOTE: Today was my first full day in Hawaii, and I already found myself sneering "Tourists" at a forty-five year old couple (clear 25th anniversary vacationers) stopping to gawk at postcards... Too soon?

6. Weekly fireworks get old after exactly one week.

7. Adding a duck to a screenplay cannot convince me that the writer of "the Pacifier" (starring Vin Diesel) didn't watch "Suburban Commando" and "Mr Nanny" in one afternoon to get inspired. NOTE: Observation made while closest land mass was Hawaii, so it counts as a Hawaiian observation.

8. The statement: A small cramped apartment with no air conditioning, broken T.V., and perpetual heatwave is better than a spacious three bedroom house with a backyard and grapevines. Only proves true when preceeded by observation #2.


The pictures below are from the windows of our 21st floor condo...I will post more as I get more brave with the camera (I really don't want to look like a tourist).