This and perhaps the next several entries are being posted from Hawaii, where I’m on vacation. As naturally I’d prefer to spend my time on the beach or somewhere similar, these are more a collection of notes rather than anything I’m actually taking any time to write. Read accordingly.
Only 4 more complete days here, even by day 2 I was already getting that where-did-it-all-go feeling. Every day has been full, every day we return back to the condo exhuasted, in bed by 11, yet there is this persistent question of what exactly have we been doing with the time….A lot of that time has been in stores, shopping. But I can’t just blame Naoko for this one, I’ve been more a willing participant that I would normally be (certainly more than I would be back in Japan). Part of it is because some of the shopping is for me (books, dvd’s), and I think part of it is because it is in those stores that I encounter the daily life of the people who live here, for good or bad….At any rate, let’s see, Walmart 5, 6 times (I’ve lost count), Borders at least 4 times, Barnes and Noble twice, Big K twice, Costco once, Daiei 2 or 3 times, Ross Dress for Less 3 times, Aloha Stadium swap meet once, “outlet mall” once (more Japanese than anyone, no surprise there, there are shuttles for them)….
I went to the Aloha Stadium swap meet the last time I was here so I had no expectations, but can’t help but lament what a boring “store” that is. It’s basically one large souvenir store, there are no folks here emptying out their garages like there was when I was a kid. In fact, going to the swap meet with my father, be it at the Stadium, or before that at Kam drive-in theater, or the theater out Waialae Ave. way, this was a Sunday ritual when my brother and I were in our early teens, after my parents divorced, spending our newspaper route money on second hand clothes. Not to be hip, just to have something to wear (years later in late teens we would discover the fashion “havens” of the Salvation Army and Goodwill stores). I don’t know how it came to be that we spent our own money on clothes when we were only 12 or 13, but that’s the way it was. In those days there was no Ross or TJ Max type of place, so we’d buy $1 or $2 coudouroys and whatever non-tourist Aloha shirts we could afford, and not having our mother to coordinate anything we were a couple of sorry looking haoles on our way to school.
Aside from spending way too much time trying to decide how to spend my money on DVD’s and books, I haven’t had too much time for myself, no surprise there, no regret there either. But I did read about this Doris Duke’s Shangri-la in my guidebook, remember my mother mentioned it a while back, so I booked a tour on my own (it was $25 a pop) and left Naoko and Kaika with my mother (they went shopping at Ross!). Doris Duke was a heiress who maintained a house in Hawaii for some 50+ years. To people of a certain age she’d be a household name, but not to me. Anyway, for reasons no one really knows, she was fascinated with Muslim art, and with more than enough money at her disposal, she not only collected it feverishly, she also built her Hawaii home under the influences of it, and to house her collection. She wrote in her will that when she died (which she did in 1993) a Foundaation for Muslim Art would be established, and her home would become a museum, which it now is, under the auspices of the Honolulu Academy of Art. And what a museum it is. I can’t vouch for the quality of the art therein, and indeed a lot of it is reproductions of things she had seen in her travels to the Middle East, but this has got to be the most sumptuous home I’ve ever seen. Will want to write more later but needless to say, if you ever get here, it’s definitely a tour worth going on.
Can’t overstate how much Kaika has taken to the ocean here, when I was a kid according to my mother I didn’t step into the sea until I was at least 4 (though she says that was more from her fear than mine). We bought him a little float thing (what are those called) and he loves just floating with this, twirling around and around till he’s dizzy, or sticking his feet up in the air. Every morning he asks if we’re going to the beach, and he cries when we say it’s time to leave. Even though he occassionally comes out shivering, as soon as he’s warmed up he wants to go right back in. Being with him in the ocean is something I can’t describe, to see him laughing in glee, spinning around, seemingly not afraid of anything….Today we finally got a chance to go to Hanauma Bay and try some snorkeling. We bought a mask for Kaika but he’s not comfortable wearing it, but even without that he could see some fish swimming around. It was my first time there in probably 25 years, my how the place has changed, for the better really. Sure you have to watch that video and you’ve gotta get there early for parking, but the place is much nicer than I remembered it. And getting there early, you get a half-empty beach for about an hour before the crowds arrive….Some tragedy though, today a young woman was killed near Hanauma Bay and the body was brought to the bay via jet ski before being taken away. We could see that something was happening with the emergency vehicles and what-not although it wasn’t until we watched the news later in the evening that we know what had happened. Just yesterday, we were out at Mokuleia watching the ocean crash into the rocks there, and some man and his son ventured out too far, when all of a sudden a wave crashed into the rocks, lifted them off their feet and soaked them to the bone. Fortunately they were not taken out to sea or carried by the wave splash, though the boy did lose his sandals and seemed to be in shock after the incident. Just goes to show that those warning signs are there for a reason.
I was responsible for buying my own clothes, too, as a teenager. My allowance was $5.00 a week. Most of my money went to buy records and books or go to the movies on post (50 cents). So I ended up making my clothes. I developed quite an odd fashion sense for the time: early cos play (long dresses and capes). I decided I couldn’t afford make-up or jewelry.
My spending were definitely formed in those penny-pinching years. My priority spending is still books, iTunes, and movies. I never developed a fashion consciousness and now I’m too old to care.