If You Go to Hawaii, You Have to Go to a Luau

So, we did. We went to Germaine's Luau, which is held on a beach at Barber's Point, at the southwest corner of Oahu. The first thing you see on arrival is this lighthouse, which I though was pretty cool.

Like many activities in Hawaii, the Luau starts with a bus-ride. The buses collect tourists from all the major hotels and take them for an hour-long ride out to the Point. When you get there, they take your picture. There's no obligation to buy, but they are trying to sell it to you. This was a common feature, particularly on Oahu.

The Luau is a dinner and show. The traditional in-ground roasting of a pig, and other fine foods, adult beverages and not, and a long show featuring a review of traditional Polynesian dancing and music (including stereotypical "Hawaiian" music of the Don Ho variety). Members of the audience are invited up to try the Hula. And, of course, there is a fire dance.

It was tacky, but fun.

One of the great things about the experience, for us, was the tour guide who ran out bus -- Alika. His job was to check us in, tell us what was happening and when, and entertain us on the long bus rides to and from the Luau.

On the ride out, Alika wen through the bus, back to front, and introduced himself to every passenger. But more than that, he introduced the passengers to each other, row by row and seat by seat until he seems to have learned every one of us and something about us.

On the ride back, he broke out his ukulele and proved to be a talented picker and singer, creating Polynesian rap and covering a range of pop songs. keep an ear out for this kid. He's good.

At Waikiki

Our Hawaiian vacation started in Honolulu, where we had a four-night stay at a hotel just two blocks from the beach at Waikiki. The trip was born last summer when Karen bid on the four nights in a silent auction to benefit Epworth United Methodist Church. Honolulu wouldn't have been our first choice, but we knew we needed something like that to force us to plan the rest of the trip.

We arrived in the afternoon, and managed to fill enough time looking at the beach and finding dinner to get us into the evening and to bed at a reasonably late hour to start working on adjusting our internal clocks to Hawaiian time. We hit the beach the next day and promptly got various levels of sunburn.

We attended a Luau and visited Pearl Harbor and the girls took a surfing lesson. Each of these events will have their own blog posts before too long. This one is meant to convey a general impression.

Honolulu is a big city and our hotel room, 14 floors up, echoed with the sounds of trucks and buses and police and fire vehicles. We awoke one morning to find that a water main had blown-out in the street below. We watched the day-long effort to fix it and patch the street.

One evening we watched from our balcony as the police subdued and arrested a man on the sidewalk in front of the hotel. I was reading while waiting for the girls to shower for dinner when I heard shouting. I looked down to see police cars pulled up and officers pointing handguns at a man. He eventually dropped whatever weapon he threatened with and was taken into custody, but not before an officer tried pepper spray (which went astray and was blown into a fellow officer's eyes).

And it seems like everyone in Waikiki who is not a tourist is trying to sell to tourists. They take your picture (no obligation to buy?), they hand out discount coupons, they panhandle, and they hawk their wares. We were surprised to see prostitutes on the sidewalks near the hotel when we returned from restuarants in the evening.

Yet, Waikiki is a beautiful spot. The beach is lovely and the men selling surfing lessons, canoe rides, catamaran sailings, food, umbrellas, chairs and other things are only a minor irritant. Early morning and late evenings find Honolulu locals on the beach for a surf or a swim. Many sit comfortably among the homeless enjoying the evening breezes.

There are many high-end stores and restaurants. We are not immune to shopping and the girls are developing a taste for haut cuisine. We ate one evening at Roy's (he had appeared on Top Chef Masters and the girls are fans). I amused myself by recording our meal via cellphone photos. 

Another evening we ate at Tanaka of Tokyo, a Hibachi-style Japanese steak and seafood restaurant recommended to us by a local. We are fans of Hibachi restaurants and were very pleased with Tanaka. We shared our table with two Japanese ladies on vacation from somewhere near Sasebo. They had little to no English and we spoke no Japanese. Our Hawaiian chef, Jared, helped with some translation but he admitted that, despite his Japanese heritage, he spoke only enough to sustain his chef-ly patter. Still, they were lovely ladies and we had a pleasant, friendly meal.

So. We enjoyed Honolulu and Waikiki, but we were glad to move on to the Big Island to continue our Hawaiian visit in a somewhat quieter environment.

Why I Am So Zombie-Like Today

This is in no way a plea for pity, because I deserve none, but I wanted to take a moment to outline the travails of traveling the width of the nation. We are in our recovery day after a red-eye return from Hawaii. Here is what that actually amounted to...

We had a late-night flight from Kona International Airport, leaving at 10:59 p.m. on Wednesday. That meant that we had to find a way to kill the hours between a mid-day hotel check out and the 8 p.m. check-in at the airport. We stayed in our room as late as we could and then had a longish lunch. We shopped and drove around a bit and finally had a late supper before heading to the airport.

As it was, we had to wait a bit before even starting the check-in process. That involved having the USDA check our checked bags for contraband plant life, a long wait to check-in with the airline, a fairly quick TSA security check, and returning to the USDA for a check of our carry-on bags.

When we finally boarded the flight, things went fairly smoothly. I ended up seated away from Karen and the girls. We were together but decided I should trade seats with a woman traveling with a child who otherwise would have had to be seated far from the kid. That put me next to a gent who was born and raised in Honolulu (a haole) who had lived and worked in Florida before moving to Kona. He had worked as a tour bus driver, so we compared notes -- I explained what we had seen and done and he told me what we should have seen and done.

We dozed away what turned out to be about a five and a half-hour flight to Phoenix, arriving there at about 7:30 am. After a brisk walk to our next gate, we breakfasted on muffins from Starbucks and waited a short time to board the next plane.

It was 7:30 am in Phoenix, but about 4:30 am Hawaiian time. Our bodies were on Hawaiian time. When we boarded the next flight, we immediately dozed off. Karen and I woke up for the take-off and then nodded off again. The girls slept through take-off and woke up on and off during the rest of the flight.

We arrived at BWI in Baltimore at about 4 pm Eastern time, or around 10 am Hawaiian. After retrieving our bags, and our car, we headed east across the Chesapeake and made it back to Lewes around 8, or just after lunch by our internal clocks.

So there we were, unpacking at the end of what felt like a long day, but was actually part of two. We'd gotten up early on Wednesday to squeeze-in the last bit of sunshine and pool time before leaving. We spent a long last day in Hawaii and the most of the next day sitting in planes and airport waiting lounges. Before we knew it it was midnight Eastern (dinner time in Hawaii) and we tried to head to bed.

Now it is the next day and we're attempting to return to east-coast time. That's why today seems such an odd sort of day.

OK....We're Back

Well. Yesterday and today have been a long day... sorta.

We're back home in Lewes after a red-eye return flight from Hawaii. We're doing laundry, checking in with the cats, and generally trying to recover.

We left last Monday for four nights at Waikiki on Oahu and five at the Waikoloa resort area on the Big Island.

I had brought the laptop along, with plans to post updates along the way, but the damn thing died after a few posts of pictures from Waikiki. I used a flickr/twitter application from my cellphone to post a few more photos to the start of a set. But most of what I snapped will have to wait...

...as will posts on, among other things, Pearl Harbor, surfing, swimming, Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, snorkeling, golfing, and lots of lava.

Thirteenth Golf Game of 2009

Steve Seyfried and I went out to The Rookery this morning for a round of golf. We played together a few years ago, but haven't had a chance for another game, until now.

Steve and his wife founded and lead the Rehoboth Summer Children's Theatre, a group for which I was once on the Board. We've become friends. Our wives are friends. Our kids are friends.

We were paired with brothers-in-law from the Washington suburbs -- Mike and Web. They were fairly good players; Mike had a nice steady shot and Web had a potential to crush long shots, though he also had a potential to go astray.

I started out fairly strongly and, despite some slips, had a good front nine. I even birdied the ninth hole to finish at 47. Of course I then hit a disastrous nine on the Par 5 tenth hole. That set the pace for the back nine, I'm afraid. Despite a par and a few good holes, I fell back into bad happens and took 58 strokes to get home with a final score of 105.

I was a little disappointed with myself, but there were hopeful signs and some good strokes. And we had fun.

Age is Different in Different Ages

I spotted this interesting photo on the old-photo blog Shorpy the other day and it has stayed in the back of my mind. I realized why today, during a meeting of the Delaware Population Consortium.

The picture was posted by a reader called Dana and it includes some of his or her forbears. It is from 1902 and includes four generations of a family. From the left, Great-grandmother at 65 years, Grandmother at 47 years, baby at six months, and Mom at age 19 years.

It has stayed in my mind because I am 47 years old this year. But That Grandmother looks more elderly than I do or than any of my contemporaries. and Great-grandma looks much older than folks I know who are now in their 70s and 80s.

At the meeting of the Delaware Population Consortium today, we were reviewing population projections for the state out to the year 2040, when we predict a much older population. We talked about how many people will be around 100 years old and speculated that at some point the age of retirement -- the age that we think of as "old" -- will have to go up.

Looking back at this picture, I realize that at different times in history, the stages of life -- youth, middle age, old age -- come at different ages.

Twelfth Golf Game of 2009

I joined my friend Michael for 18 holes this afternoon at his new country club -- Maple Dale Country Club in Dover. Maple Dale has been trying to bring in new members and they have offered a pretty good deal for young families. Michael and his wife and sons took advantage of it for the club's golf course, pool and other amenities.

Neither of us played very well. In fact, I would say that nothing went right for us if it wasn't the case that almost every tee shot did in fact go off to the right. We were slicing more than a deli worker at a thin-meats convention.

I eventually straightened out some of my tee shots, though not soon enough. But I played poorly otherwise, wasting good iron play with poor putting.

It's no excuse, but I must say that the Maple Dale course offers some real challenges. It was first built in 1925 and it has some old-fashioned aspects. There are some fairly deep sand traps and mature trees that block your second shot should the first go wide (which many of ours did).

That said, on the few holes where I did hit a straight first shot, Maple Dale was great fun. The fairways were in fine shape, as were the greens. A second shot off those fairways could be very satisfying.

I finished with a par on the par-5 18th hole. I hit a driver shot well down the fairway and followed with a very pleasing long second shot with the hybrid 3 wood. I hit the third -- a 7-iron -- a bit left, but pitched the fourth onto the green and made the putt.

That's how the game is meant to go.

Eleventh Golf Game of 2009

Another Sunday morning and another 18 holes of practice golf at Old Landing Golf Course. Old Landing is quite affordable, particularly if you are walking. And I do like to walk, for the exercise.

For this practice game, I decided to only grant myself two mulligans (do-overs, for the non-golf-addicted), one on the front nine and one on the back nine, That's about normal for a friendly round and I thought I should try to stick to that.

My first nine weren't too bad. But for a mess of putting on the big par-5 seventh, I would have been under 50. I had a par and some good drives. I was mostly happy.

The back nine were not as good to me. I started poorly and found a distressing tendency to hit slices from the tee box as my legs tired. I carded a 57 to finish the round at 109. That's about my average over the last year.

It was not a bad way to spend a Sunday morning. I plan to play in Dover on Monday afternoon, and may get out again later in the week. So I'm glad to spend some time working on my game. And I was glad to get some more exercise.

Blast from The Past: Lunar Landing Edition

It was 40 years ago today that Apollo 11 lifted off to begin the mission that would put the first humans on the Moon. Today began a week-long celebration, of sorts, that has at least two newspapers here in Delaware asking for reminisces from readers about the Moon Landing.

And NASA has released newly restored footage of the first moonwalk. That restored material is included in the video below.


I found this, by the way, as part of an interesting report on the release on the NY Times blog The Lede.

I was seven years old in July of 1969 and my memory of the Moon Landing has me, for some reason, in a classroom at Woodacres Elementary School, in Bethesda, Maryland. I would have been a first or second-grade student that year, but I would think that school would be out in July.

Perhaps it was a summer school session; I have a memory of one summer when I was quite small when we did some sort of summer school, or perhaps a summer program at the school. I remember brown-bag packed lunches eaten under a tree outside.

If it was in Woodacres Elementary that I watched the Moon Landing, then I think it was the case that I was suffering from a scratched cornea that day and was shortly taken off to the eye-doctor, who applied a temporary eye-patch.

I had been struck in the eye by a thorn-bush branch that whipped back into place as we walked through the woods near our home. There would probably have been a line of us -- I was one of seven kids -- and I think whoever was ahead of me brushed past that branch causing it to spring back at little me.

I think I remember not being able to see what the hell Niel Armstrong was doing when I watched the Moon Landing. In fact, looking back at even restored footage, I'm amazed at what we were impressed with on our television screens back then.

Anyway, that's what I think is my memory of the Apollo 11 mission. I hope my Mother and Father can correct or corroborate my recollection. I have found lately that my memories of childhood are at least partly productions of my imagination.

What happened 40 years ago, in my memory, is recreated from the scraps that remain in memory from the little I saw and heard from down below the big people. The right side of my brain is playing with those scraps and creating new dramas, comedies, and mockumentories for me.

The College Tours Continue

We're in Quakertown, Pennsylvania, this morning, getting ready to stop in at Cabrini College to collect Christina. She's just finished two weeks at The Rock School, an intensive ballet program in downtown Philadelphia which houses its students on main-line college campuses like Cabrini.

We took yesterday for a pair of college campus tours with Colleen. We started the day at Villanova, just down the way from Cabrini, and finished up at Lehigh, about an hour north of there, in Bethlehem.

They are both very nice schools. Both are largely gothic, architecturally, so I was in Dad-with-camera-heaven. It made one of the young tour guides nervous. She felt she was going to have to wait for me each time I became fascinated with a steeple or a hilltop view. I assured her I could catch up and that the tour was for my daughter -- not me.

The photo above right is from one of the libraries at Lehigh. It is, I believe, a "quiet room" there. I loved that room; three stories of open shelves with spiral stairs and an amazing sky-light, stained-glass, dome.

Time will tell if either school appealed to Colleen enough to want to apply. I liked them both. These campus tours are bittersweet for me; I realize what a great opportunity college can be and how much more is offered these days. And I realize how much more I might have gotten from my college experience had I been a bit more mature.

At Villanova, our guide pointed out an archway where it is said that you can hear a whisper in one side of the arch around on the other; sound is carried along a carved-out channel. Two kids in the group decided to try it out, but it didn't work -- both were listening neither was whispering.

At Lehigh, we came upon the university's wrestling team. They were manhandling their wrestling mats into a rented truck parked facing up a steep grade. The mats didn't quite fit. I have my doubts that that exercise ended well.

Lehigh is built on the side of a small mountain. There are many steps and inclines. But also great views. If nothing else, students there have no trouble staying in shape.