Camping at Malaekahana

We went camping on the east shore of O'ahu this weekend at a delightful campground just steps from the beach. It was perfect camping weather. Days were about 77ºF(25ºC) and nights were down to 65ºF(18ºC). Not too hot and not too cold. The mornings were a little chilly but as soon as the sun came out, it was perfect for a morning walk on feet sinking sands. Took us an hour to drive out there. We pitched our tent on site 2B in 20 minutes and walked ten steps to the beach just in time to watch the sunset. 


We pretty much just laid on the beach all weekend, reading, swimming, eating, drinking and sleeping. There was a sink to wash the dirty dishes and shower stalls with hot water. I felt so spoilt. 


There's plenty of Shrimp Shacks along the Kamehameha Highway which is the only road that hugs the shoreline. These are fresh water shrimp stalls that farm the shrimp in pools right along the highway. They're sweet and quite reasonable. A plate of shrimp cooked in your choice of 10 different ways with two large scoops of rice and a side of salad costs $12. We just bought a pound of fresh shrimp (a bag of about 22 shrimps) for $8 and fried them up with garlic on our portable stovetop. Meal of champions!

Ran barefoot all the way to the other end of this bay. Saturday 8am

 Passed this camper prepping a body board while his daughters swung on the tree and played with paddles on the beach

Passed these colorful old fishing nets on my morning run

I like these crooked beach trees 

Giovanni's Shrimp Shack - one of the local favorites for a good shrimp plate for approx

The old original van with years of graffiti from fans who keep coming back for more 

Another Shrimp Shack along the road with a cute name sounding like 'Undercover'. Kava is a local Hawaiian delicacy here.

Romy's is regarded among the locals as the original Shrimp Shack 

We took a couple breaks from our campsite paradise. Drove out to neighboring Kahuku, north of Malaekahana to this roadside stall called Kahuku Land Farms for fresh coconut water. When we were done, we had the Filipino lady chop it open so we could eat the fresh coconut meat. Once, they even had ciku! That's a sweet brown fruit in the shape of a lemon which I think is the sweetest fruit on earth. In fact, it smelled so sweet, Elton suspected it was putrid! Once he tasted it though, he liked it.

We favored this road side fruit stall for their reasonably priced fresh coconut water owned by some Filipinos.

Made another little stop at the Kahuku Superette. They call little tuck shops/ convenience stores superettes. They're like a super 7Elevens where we got more ice for our cooler, butter to cook our freshly bought Kahuku shrimps and my new favorite Korean melona ice cream. Back to the camp!

The unassuming looking Kahuku Superette - a typical little surfer's supermarket
 which had everything we needed inside

I pretty much sat in our hammock and read my book The Shack for the most part and finished it in a day and a half. I cried many tears of joy reading this book, remembering a beautiful relationship I once had in my younger days and am now rekindling again. At one point, I knelt on the beach for what felt like hours, humbled by the beauty that surrounded me, just being thankful for my relationship with my maker and a humble request for him to help me cultivate an even deeper relationship that makes the rest of my short life here on earth meaningful.

Go-Kart Racing

If you have never Go-Kart Raced before or know nothing about the technique to race a car, don't go racing with a bunch of people who love race cars or worse, a bunch of people who actually engineered and built a formula style car to race...you will lose face. That is in fact what I did last night. 
Elton had a reunion with his friends from his college days at University of Hawaii. We had a nice mellow dinner then adjourned to the Podium Raceway to do some indoor go-kart racing. I figured it could be fun so I hopped on the bandwagon. I was completely deceived by these laid back, unassuming, good natured looking friends I just made. Once we got into the cars, they turned into killing machines on the race track; natural born drivers who calculated the risk and speed as they approached every turn; concocting the perfect slide then gunning it to the next turn. They smoked me! Next time, I'm going with non-experts! 


There's no denying the exhilaration one feels behind the wheel, trying to control the car, feeling the shuddering of the steering wheels with each turns and seeing the other cars from the ground level. Not to mention putting on the race helmet and feeling like Nicole Kidman in Days of Thunder when I pull it off! I couldn't help feeling proud to see the girls holding their own so well against the guys. After it was over, they eagerly anticipated the printout of the breakdown of best laps everyone did and the overall winner. I think I heard, "Whoa that was so cool!" about 10 times. If there wasn't a 1 hour wait, I think they would've raced 5 more times!
I saw another side of my beau tonight - the dare devil when he's behind the wheels of a devilish race engine. It was sexy. It's like he came alive for one moment that empowered him in a way only a super charged adrenalin rush can. Later he told me, "I'll teach you." 

Great Aloha Run

I ran an 8mile (13K) Great Aloha Run today together with over 23,000 people. It was fun running beside people of all ages, color and size, though I had not trained for it. There were even people with wheelchairs, baby strollers and walkers. The left side were all for the different military divisions. I'd never seen so many military men. I keep forgetting Hawaii is a strategic military post for its location. It was cool hearing their low toned chants as they ran in unison. The best was watching the mothers pushing twin strollers or fathers running alongside their sons. I liked passing those with T-shirts which wrote Pain is Weakness leaving the Body. As much as I think that is not true, it pushed me onwards towards that elusive finish line! For some reason, running among a pack of people all heading towards a finish line felt empowering even though my feet felt like they were on fire after the 4th mile. Something about being with a bunch of people with a common goal. Makes the activity less burdensome somehow...and much more enjoyable. I think when pain is shared, it feels less painful and pushes one's body to go beyond itself...albeit for the moment. Loved gorging on all the free bananas and sugar drinks afterwards. They could learn lot from all the freebies, sports giveaways and even free beer booths we have in Chicago though...    

North Shore of O'ahu

The north shore route on O'ahu highlighted in yellow

I did a drive around the famous northshore which is the major surfing area on O'ahu. The journey up through the middle of the island sucked because of heavy traffic. From the south side of the island, it took us about 1 hr to get to the north beach. The beautiful surf beaches are on the north side, so there's a lot of tourists. And many multi-million dollar homes and golf courses which the locals protest about changing the local undisturbed landscape. I preferred the east coast which even though was as enchanting, was almost void of tourists. There were a lot more locals surfing or just stopping at one of the many shrimp shacks beside the road to have some white shrimp. The favorite is the very large kahuku shrimp known for its sweetness. For $12, you could have a plate of shrimp fried in garlic, boiled, lemon garlic, spicy etc with rice or salad. If you're still craving for more, you could also buy them raw. A 1lb bag of about 20 shrimp costs $9. 

Kuoaloa Ranch where Jurassic Park was filmed

Kualoa Park facing west (inland) at the spectacular jagged mountain ridges

Kualoa Park facing north east (seaview)

Malaekahana beach on the east coast

Malaekahana beach

Malaekahana campsite. Love these humungous roots. So humbling to be beside something that's hundreds of years old.

La'ie Point. Looking out at an interesting 'holey' rock formation

La'ie Point where a scene in Forgetting Sarah Marshall was filmed

Tour of Honolulu

Selina took me on fabulous tour of Honolulu through the main neighborhoods this afternoon. I called it the scenic route. I've only been on the highways and that view ain't that great. It was also an entertaining way to see the landmarks in Honolulu and a better ground zero understanding on the local community here. But best of all, I enjoyed my first girls's day out since I got to Hawaii.

The first thing I learned was that Honolulu as a city is a hodge-podge of different interest points rather than one main downtown area acting as the shopping/financial/government district dissipating out to the perimeter. Downtown is basically the business and government district. That's also where Chinatown is. There's nothing much else there besides vagabonds loitering the streets. There's no real shopping streets here.

Chinatown with the traditional chinese characters everywhere

Love this round entrance to the Lung Do Society

One of the main grocery shopping strips in Chinatown

Kaimuki on the northeast side of town was a cool discovery. It feels like an old forgotten area with an old town feel which is going through a hip and younger facelift with cute little cafés, eateries and Tamura's - a wine and liquor store which housed a lot of exotic international wines and snacks. 

The Ala Moana part of town is known for its non-descript Korean Bars or what Selina calls 'Buy-me-drinky' bars where the women are usually from Asia. She explained the difference between the Korean bars and Massage parlors which are the places with the often unadvertised option to have more than drinks with the girls. 

Waialae Avenue in Kaimuki

I discovered the wonderful world of Marukai near the Ward Center area, well known for their eateries and shopping. Marukai is a Japanese Supermarket with the freshest looking fishes, Bento takeaway plates and all the condiments you can think of as well as a section of the cutest Japanese household products. It was like walking into Mitsuwa on the mainland except all the Japanese patrons I passed spoke English. 

The Ward Center area where Marukai is located

The Nimitz area which is basically a seaside industrial and dockland area hugging the south side of town. There's an area called The Fishing Village - Honolulu's somewhat unrealized dream of their version of Seattle's Pike's Place Market or San Fancisco's Fisherman Wharf. However I've heard restaurants serving fresh seafood for reasonable prices like Nico's Pier 38 and Uncle's Fish Market and Grill are worth visiting. I got a glimpse of the tent community which is a social issue here. It's an eyesore for the city but at the same time a catch 22 dilemma. These are homeless people who are usually into drugs or have mental problems. Many don't want to get into rehab programs because it's easier to keep going to the food shelters near Chinatown everyday for free food and pitch tents for free than to change. 

The irony of these tents pitched by the homeless right beside the sign that says, "Keep out. Government Property"

South King Street, Queen Street and South Beretania Street are my favorites. It's the road with all the old colonial buildings which houses the Courthouses and Government buildings. I'd like to come back to visit the Iolani Palace, a historical relic of a time when Hawaiian royalties ruled this land.

Iolani Palace on South King Street

Supreme Court Justice and other government departments on Queen Street

Salt Lake neighborhood

On the way home, we passed by Salt Lake which is the more ghetto looking neighborhood with bad schools whilst Moanalua - just the next neighborhood over looks a world of a difference with their perfectly manicured yards, wide streets and highrise condos. Made me think of The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell.

Moanalua neighborhood

Hawaii Reflections Week 3

When I came to Honolulu from Beijing, I thought, 'Wow! It's a tropical paradise!' with it's friendly people, massive banyan and monkey pod trees, tree-lined streets and lava shelf seashores. But now, coming back to the island of Oahu from Kauai, Honolulu looks like the quintessential metropolis but not in the sense of a concrete jungle with high rise buildings. It's more like an over developed isle that has lost much of its natural charm. I don't even see any coconut trees other than at the tacky tourist traps like Waikiki with the little souvenir booths stocked with knick-knacks made in China sold for probably ten times the profit margin. Still, it beats Beijing hands down in terms of weather. And life does seem to go at a much slower pace than on the mainland. It's greenery is unquestionable. Most of all, I love waking up to the sound of a symphony of  birds chirping outside my window - something completely lost in most developed cities.


When I was in Kauai, some places will ask, "Are you Kama'aina?" That means are you from Hawaii. Some places are free and they waive the entrance fee or a 10% discount. The Allerton Botanical Garden waives the $45 entrance fee for Kama'ainas on Sundays. Pronounced like 'Come-a-I-na'. 


Keike O Ka Aina means Children of the Land. Keike (pronounced like Cake-E) on the road signs means children. They write that on some pedestrian crossings warning people to drive slow because there are kids around. 


When we were passing homes in Kauai, I found it amusing that my Honolulu born beau kept saying, "It looks like the country out here, huh?". By Hawaiian standards, he's a city kid here. Sometimes, I feel like I'm in the country. Many stores are simply not available here and people pay a whopping amount for shipping, often double the price of the actual item they're buying! It's disturbing and sometimes, downright appalling! Selina told me big chain stores somehow close down here. Perhaps they just don't have the volume of shoppers (or should I say shopaholics) as in the mainland. Afterall, Hawaii only has a total population of 1.2 million and 9 million (71%) is on O'ahu.


Housing cost here is outrageous. It's second only to New York City. For half a million (USD$500,000), all you will probably get is an old one bedroom house in a bad neighborhood...if you're lucky. On much of the mainland, that could buy you a lot, lot more.


People here are large. The women are fleshy. I'd be hard pressed to find skinny anorexic looking chicks but I don't think it's because I've been in China too long. Perhaps it's their love for spam. I'm actually becoming quite used to the whiff of it floating out someone's kitchen window when I'm doing my morning jogs. I think Hawaii also suffers from the typical All-American culture which plagues most of the country -  lack of natural exercise being a non-commuter place. Nobody walks. Most stores and neighborhoods are not easy to get to unless you drive. And public transportation is not convenient. This is when I miss Beijing most. I miss being able to get around on the subway or walking everywhere. It's therapeutic to walk to get around. To be among the people as opposed to being apart from people besides being in a mall or restaurant.  It just feel more natural somehow. 


I can't help noticing how many people here have tattoos. Even the women. And I'm not talking about the little butterfly on the ankle or the thorny rose on the small of the neck. I'm talking about serious looking tattoos which go down the entire neck or arm or leg. Perhaps it's an island tribal influence. Hawaiians are very spiritual people. Though the rituals are mostly gone, they still hold deeply to superstitions, believe in old folks tales and sensitive issues like respect for sacred lands and burial sites still arise. Perhaps that spirituality permeates into the society values. 


Hawaiian Pidgin. It's how they talk here. A funny sing-song way of talking, seems like they hold the same tone for the whole sentence until the second last syllable which goes higher and ending with the last syllable which goes low. If it's a short sentence, it starts low, goes high then ends low. It's also a kind of broken english. Elton said it's like Asian-adapted-English when the Asians first started learning to speak English here and it somehow became a language of its own.  Certain words are omitted and pronunciation is cut short. Like "It's like dat" or "I tink so" (ie. I think so) or "You never said noting" (You didn't say anything) and the t is a pronounced like a hard T.  The funny thing is, Elton heard me speaking Manglish to my family in Malaysia which is also a sort of sing-song way of speaking English. I guess you could call it Malaysian Pidgin. But when he heard me speak it he asked, "Why don't you speak normal English to them?"!! Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!


Manual transmission. They say standard car as opposed to manual transmission. First time I heard it, I thought they were referring to a car's standard features!

Kauai Day 3

This was our last day waking up to the sound of crashing waves. As our luck might have it, the rain finally let up and the sun poured into our windows. We really wished we had more time to just sit in the condo all day, read a good book looking out into the sea and sip on tea. Now we know why everyone we talked to the island said we have to visit Kauai for at least a week.

We had to find the trail which led to the beach below from our cliffside condo. A short walk away and we found it! It led us to a lava shelf where Elton decided to pick me a Hawaiian delicacy for breakfast - Opihi. It's a limpet that is extremely rare on O'ahu but can still be found on Kauai. Being the type who always finds a way, he managed to find two pre-historic looking rocks and headed towards the crashing waves on the edge of the rocks. Something about a man hunting food for a woman. I really started having an appetite even though it was only 8am in the morning! The springy texture of the raw clams coated with the salty sea water made it the best raw breakfast I'd ever had. Actually, it's the first time I've ever had anything raw for breakfast!

After hanging out by the crashing waves and surviving a raw meal, we climbed back up to the condo to have our breakfast with another local favorite - Portuguese sausage. I thought it would be spicier. Nevertheless, it was a nice twist on the regular breakfast sausages.

Since the sun came out, we were determined to do our first Kauai activity closest to us in Princeville - kayaking the Hanalei River. We took turns kayaking and stand-up paddleboarding. Standup paddleboating turned out to be a lot easier than I thought though I imagine it would be a lot more challenging in the sea rather than the river. It was a good try. Besides it was a good workout for my abs and arms.

On the way down to the Lihue airport, we decided to make a little stop at the much touted about Anini Beach. Not quite the white powder sand beach I imagined. Apparently, beaches in Hawaii are all crushed coral sand, not the powdery white sands (what I'd like to call feet-sinking-sand!) on many Malaysian islands. Still, it's a beautiful long stretch of quiet beach, good for snorkelling, swimming or just to walk along and pick shells. While walking, we sipped on this Hawaiian beer called Longboard. It's a really good malty beer. Made me think of Black and Tan.

Anini Beach

Opeka Falls was next. It was a little too far from the lookout point to really appreciate so we decided to go to the famous Wailua Falls. Unfortunately, our new Magellan GPS is almost useless when it comes to roads in Kauai. We got lost again. This time, we stumbled along another beautiful grove of tree tunnel. These trees towered about 50 to 60 feet overhead. Breathtaking! Not sure what road we were on but at least our little Magellan helped us find our way back to Lihue in time for our flight! 

Kauai Day 2

It rained the entire day. Still, eventhough we had planned to stay in for most of the day and watch DVDs, a quick drive to the northwest side of the island called Hanalei made this entire rainy trip worthwhile. It's dreamy valleys, swamplands and one lane bridges made us think of the rice plantations of the Vietnam countryside in movies. The jagged tropical forest cascading down the steep gorges met the little road we drove on hugging the perimeter to our south. To the north, giant 20 foot high waves crashed onto the beaches. Elton called this place where the tropical forest meets the sea. I've never heard waves like that before. It was like the constant sound of thunder droning with the fizzling of bubbles. Rivers of rain poured down onto parts of the road we gingerly drove on, heeding the 15m/hr sign. We wondered why many of the homes in this area were built on stilts as high as 20 foot off the ground. I thought it was to curb the rodents or ants issue in Hawaii. Selina later said it must be a way to cope with flooding sometimes. Made sense.

Hanalei Lookout

A cluster of three homes on stilts

Hanalei's One-lane bridges

When we heard that there were farmers markets everyday in Kauai, we had to go to the one in Hanalei which happened to be on Saturdays. Other than the turmeric that Elton eyed like a kid in a candy store, we found the prices of the produce outrageous in the name of being organic. I mused at Elton's new found love for organics as he grumbled all the way back about what a rip off the farmers market was. This one must've been targeted for the visiting tourists and rich hippies.

Turmeric Elton bought to plant back home

Waterfalls which became road rivers in the rain

After lunch, we drove out to the northeast side of the island all the way to Kapa'a to see what it looked like as the rain continued to pour. Only 10% of Kauai is accessible by road. The only other ways were by boat along the coast, on horseback or by air. The road we took often passed through empty open spaces. In a strange way, it made us slow down and just appreciate the beauty of a land untouched by modernization. The tree tunnels we kept passing between Princeville and Kilauea towered over us, leaving us breathless. We didn't tire of them no matter how many times we passed through.  

Tree tunnel

Kapa'a beach Park

On the way back, we made a small detour onto Baby Beach which we found delightfully secluded and sat a while watching the kite surfers. It was quite amazing to watch. They were probably going up to a speed of 20miles/hr.

 

Back at the condo, we heated up a Rising crust  Digorno's pizza, laid out the mattress and blankets in the livingroom and popped in some DVDs for the night. We crashed out before the end of the DVD. A beautiful end to a grey rainy day.