The Many Moods of Waikiki

I was in Hawai'i, but I have to admit that not once in all of those seven days did I go beyond the confines of Waikiki. (We're not including the trips to and from Honolulu International Airport.) The conference was hectic and fun, and I enjoyed meeting the people I met and attending the sessions I did. A lot of this experience has been somewhat of an eye-opener for me, and I am glad I got the opportunity to go to Honolulu this year. My typical day started at 7:00am (I was always awake by 4:30am due to the jet-lag, though.) and went on till at least 6:30pm... frequently past 8:00pm. So you can imagine that I haven't had much time to look around. This wasn't meant to be that sort of trip.

Nevertheless, if I've given Hawai'i (the state), Oahu (the island) or even Honolulu (the city) a miss, I've still been able to gather in some impressions of Waikiki itself. The little suburb of Honolulu that houses 70% of the sunburned tourist population of the state of Hawai'i and easily more than 50% of the native population was still worth a look. It wasn't the 'real' Hawai'i and I'm not going to pretend it was, but it was a snapshot I was happy to view. For the mean time, that is.


I'm going to do what I've done with trips in the past, and log the moments/incidents as erratically as they occur to my head. Here's what I remember:

• The whiff of sea and salty air right upon landing at the airport. (It is an open airport, can you imagine? Pretty much no air-conditioning. Delicious!)
• The super-large TV remote control at the hotel. (Okay - that's not a "Hawaiian" thing, it's just a weird hotel thing, but I had to mention it. C'mon, that piece of equipment was a good 7" x 12"!!!)
• The cone-shaped paper glasses at the Convention Center. (Again, may have just been a weird Convention Center thing, but it was certainly my first time drinking out of a cone-shaped glass!)
• The ubiquitous ABC Stores at every corner! They tend to grow on you after a bit.
  
• The Frisbee match at the Ala Moana Park! I was walking back from the beach after having watched the sunset on Tuesday, 4/21, when I chanced upon a bunch of people tossing it around - with a bunch of onlookers cheering (or jeering) at the right moments. I remembered Plum (my uncle) so very much! He's a huge disc enthusiast, and I remember several mornings in SN Park with him and my cousins, tossing the disc around. But this was more like an American Football match, except that, almost incidentally, there was a Frisbee floating around instead.
• If you're Indian, you've most certainly heard stories of Raja Vikram and the Vetal, the cunning storytelling corpse and the justice-loving king he outwits every time. Can you picture the large tree they meet under, its wide reach and many many roots reaching to the floor? Well, I saw that tree! That one, and several of its kins-trees. Hawai'i is filled with these old trees! The one I photographed was either at least 250 years old or they just shoot up like they've been fed on the cake from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland!
• Not everything in Honolulu was wonderful. I had a little upset there too. I was walking on the beach early Tuesday morning when I saw a couple of people cut down the coconuts from the tree. They were little green coconuts, not yet edible. I walked up to one of the men and asked him what they do with the little coconuts since they could not be eaten. He told me that, in Hawai'i, it was illegal to have coconuts on the tree in a population-intense area, especially on hotel properties, etc. Those coconuts are cut down, mulched up and "given back to the land". And I'd been thinking of the tender coconut water and meat I was going to eat in Hawai'i!! They cut down the coconuts so that dumb tourists don't get the chance to sue the owners of the property when they're injured due to falling fruit from the coconut trees they're picturesquely seated under!! Tell tourists that sitting under those trees is at their own peril! No self-respecting local would do that anyway. Ever heard of a coconut palm giving you shade? But please, allow those trees to bear their fruit! (Man, I'm starting to wonder if I might be anti-abortionist. Wow! Imagine learning that from a coconut tree.)
• (Sort-of on the previous theme) Did you know that, with all those coconut palms in almost every picture I took of Honolulu, you cannot get tender coconut meat and water anywhere in Honolulu?!?! You only get "the real thing" two hours away, on the North Shore of Oahu. I'm lost for words. Hey, I was looking forward to them even more than the pina colada I'd promised Plum I'd have on the beach. (I did get to drink the pina colada, but not on the beach.)
  
• Wednesday evening, 4/22. For me, this moment sums up Waikiki. I'd just attended a late evening meeting/social, and decided to take my usual walk on the beach before turning in. The waves washed lazily against the shore. There was a sort of stone jetty that protruded into the ocean. I walked out onto it and stood at the far end, looking out into the sea I could not see. There was ocean on three sides of me, and I could hear the waves lapping, and an occasional crash of spray against the stone. The lights of Heartbreak Hotel (you'll see why I call it that in a minute) twinkled up some distance away on the beach. On the lowest level, little flame torches lit up their restaurant from where I heard distant voices and snatches of hula song. I waited there for a while. Hula songs are mostly love songs, and are slower than you imagine them to be. Something started playing. The song mingled with the voices of the crowd, all against the rhythmic crash of wave behind me. And then, just when it could not have been more beautiful there, I looked up into the sky. Have you ever, ever seen a black sky? A pitch-black sky with millions and millions of stars?! With the waves crashing around you and someone singing a Hawai'ian love song far away in the distance so that it just touches the air around you, but does not obtrude?!? I can't explain the emotion - it was a combination of happiness and deep appreciation of the beauty around me, and of love mingled in with pain - but I know this: If Fi had been around, we'd have had another impromptu dance right there.
• Honolulu, and all that had been my life in the seven days preceding Friday, 4/24, from the top of the large Diamond Head crater. The town looked so compact, the ocean so vast. And I'd made all of that my life for those few days! It was a little uncanny.
• Iced tea and scones with the birds at Starbucks, Friday, 4/24. I put a few crumbs out for one little fellow and soon his relatives and friends were guests at my tea party. My table was the center of (feathered) attention. I was so proud! Most of the scone went to the birds: the sparrows on the table-top and the pigeons pecking at my feet. They'd grow a little quiet once the crumbs had disappeared, but the noise and jostling would start again when they'd see my hand reach out into the paper bag for more. I have to admit I've never been more comfortable at a tea party with loud jostling strangers! Have you noticed you get more smiles from (human) strangers when you're playing host to birds and animals than when you're eating alone?
  
• The hula at the airport!!! I'd had such a busy trip that, what with that and the jetlag, I hadn't had the chance to go for a hula show in Hawai'i at all. I got to the airport and checked my luggage in. I walked to the gate and sat there for a while - and then realized they were having a hula show right there in the airport. I finally got to see it! I talked with the singers and dancers. I was there for the show till it ended, then saw it was time to board, and then realized no one was at the gate that I was waiting at! I looked at my tickets and realized I'd somehow come to the wrong gate, and that my gate was way across at the other end of the airport. It's like I came there just to be shown the hula at the very end of my visit!! Don't ask me what I think about destiny now; Hawai'i seems to have turned a good bunch of my ideas on their heads.
  
• Friends in a strange land. Talking to utter strangers, something you wouldn't normally do. Why is it that we feel so wary of strangers in our hometowns, and can open up so much better in a strange land? I spoke to a man at a hotel near the beach about tourism and places to visit. He was a tour planner and we got into casual conversation, by the end of which we'd also discussed art, movies, photography and social justice as well! Then the native man I saw fishing in the ocean. He showed me a fish he had caught, it was in his pocket, and when he got it out to show it to me, it was still flapping around. It was nice talking to him but I didn't need to see the poor half-dead fishie. Then the young lady at the ABC Store. Her name is Emilia and she taught me my third Hawai'ian word (the word for "you're welcome" - keepamai, the first two being, of course, aloha and mahalo). The last thing I did before setting off for the airport was to go say goodbye to her, she gave me a 2010 Oahu calendar as a keepsake. Then there was the German man who was also an attendee at the conference, we talked for an hour at the bus-stop and in the bus. The conference formed a bond but we stuck strictly to non-MR topics. Then there were the fellow PhD students at the Sports Bar I went to have my last dinner at. I was soaking wet from the beach, they were soaking wet from the bar. I guess it's because we were all PhD students (i.e., geeks) that the evening ended in MR-talk! Of course, there was also my Samoan friend who introduced me to the tragedy of the coconuts. Friends in a strange land also reminds me to acknowledge IA from my lab for making the unfamiliar a little more comfortable, especially on that bewildering first day alone in Honolulu.
  
• The songs. Not the Hawai'ian songs this time, but the songs in my head. Circle of Life as I got attuned to the island; followed by Rafiki Mourns (with the pathos rather than the anger) as I realized it was time to leave. I'd thought I was happy - even on that last day in Waikiki - but the artist in my head clearly knew it had found a home in Hawai'i and was loath to leave.

I know that what I've lived is much more than what I've shared. Some things are so beautiful that they cannot be captured by the lens of a camera; and so moving, that I'd be doing them an injustice by trying to express them in words. My one suggestion? Go there, go with someone you can connect with and share your emotions with. Live the place, don't just see it. And, once you've had your own impressions, when words fail you as you try to express them, don't worry. Hopefully, you will be able to see the reflection of your thoughts in the eyes of your companion.

Can't wait to go to Hawai'i with my Fi!


Note: Pictures from L to R: (1) Waikiki and downtown Honolulu from Diamond Head, (2) the large "Vikram and Vetal" banyan tree at Ala Moana park, (3) the Hilton lagoon, with the Pacific beyond it, (4) sunset at Waikiki beach, (5) sun glistening on the water at Waikiki beach, and (6) the Pacific ocean from the summit of Diamond Head.

Aloha, MR-palooza!

So, tomorrow's the day. I fly out insanely early, which is an option I wasn't too unhappy about, given that it might just give me an opportunity to hit the beach first thing upon landing in Honolulu. Yes! Now you know what I was talking of in this post. It has actually turned out a bit better than I expected, but I'll post about that assuming The Important Event of the last post comes through in the way that I hope. I know your fingers are busy but if your toes are long enough, keep them crossed for me on Monday - and then on Thursday too!

On another note, I was just thinking of the travel arrangements, etc. There's likely to be a large crowd from all the Chicago institutes and my colleague told me to look for other geeks with large poster tubes slung over their shoulders starting right here at O'Hare Airport. (I've got mine ready too!) It reminded me a little of the Quidditch World Cup: MR folks apparating everywhere, folks making MR jokes ("We can't resist showing off when we get together", as Rowling so eloquently put it.) and exchanging poster/talk information. I'm hoping there's another MR soul next to me on the flights. That would be wonderful!

Today we had a mock-up of all the posters/talks our group is presenting over the course of the next week. We have six altogether. Two of mine went well, or, at least, it felt as though they went well. The Important One, however, backfired. I'd done a rehearsal last week with My Advisor, and I think I'd done better then than I did today. Well, that was before we were told it was Important. I guess I felt a little more pressured today - and landed up doing worse. I will be using the time on the flights to rehearse this one, and my colleague has very kindly agreed to go through another dry run with me before Monday. The condition? We do the rehearsal on the beach! Am I complaining? Nope! I've just checked my schedule for the week and I'll be out every day from 7:00am till at least 8:30pm. As my grandfather would have put it, it's going to be a "Water, water, everywhere - and not one drop to drink" situation.

I can go on, but it's past seven in the evening and I have only ten hours left before I take off. Gotta pack the beach-wear, people!! Aloha!

Gearing up....

I can smell spring in my room today. It's the smell of sun, the smell of chlorophyll, the smell of a new world and new life sprouting.

It's a week before the conference in Honolulu. I have to admit I'm far more excited about meeting all those people and attending the scientific sessions than I am about Hawai'i! Well, I have a few important events to attend, and then An Important Event, besides. I hope I do well. Keep your fingers crossed!