This is a RSS file. Copy the URL into your aggregator of choice. If you don't know what this means and want to learn more, please see: http://platial.typepad.com/news/2006/04/really_simple_t.html for more info. http://www.platial.comhttp://www.platial.com/map/My-Life-in-Hawai-i/12668 I spent six months living in Honolulu, from December 2004 to May 2005. They're probably the most influential six months of my life. Here are the places I went, the things I saw, and the stories I got from my time there. http://www.platial.com/post/873214 [March 11, 2005] Or I jumped. I don't remember. I do remember screaming "OH MY GOD!!!" at the absolute top of my lungs as I found myself abruptly falling out of an airplane. Think about the last time you flew somewhere. Think about cruising altitude, when the clouds cleared below you, and you could see the ground. Remember it? Remember how much you could see, and how far away it looked? It's just like that. Only it completely surrounds you, there's no tiny scratched doublepane plexiglass airplane porthole restricting your view. It's all around you everywhere you look. You're up above the clouds, and above you is sky, and below you is the ground. It's just like looking out an airplane window. Except you're falling towards it at terminal velocity, 124 miles an hour, and the wind is worse that you've ever felt it, and it's coming up instead of sideways, and it's in your sinuses and in your throat and your cheeks won't stop flapping and your voice doesn't get any louder, yet you still can't hear yourself, and you're wishing you'd worn a hoodie instead of a tanktop, because goddamn it's cold. And it's all getting BIGGER, and more detailed, and closer. One way or another, I stepped out of the plane, and fell. And my first thought was "I JUST JUMPED OUT OF A PLANE!! WHY! WHAT THE FUCK WAS I THINKING??" O'ahu is a small island. From three miles up, it seems like you can see the whole thing. You can certainly see most of the North Shore, and the east side, the Windward side, of the island too, and the mountains and plains in the interior. If you can't see the whole thing, you can see enough that it seems like it. I don't know what it's like to skydive anywhere else, but skydive on O'ahu, and you can see it all, this extreme range of landscapes. Big, lush mountains to one side of me; gorgeous, blue-green ocean on the other side, and under me is forests and farmlands and a town that's rapidly resolving itself into roads and houses and swimming pools. So my first thought got interrupted by my second thought, "Oh my god this is so incredibly cool!" I really don't have the words for it. It was incredible. I was in freefall, I didn't have a clue what I was doing, but there was far too much to see and feel for me to actually worry about it. There was The World, and I was too engrossed in it to really be concerned with my own imminent mortality any more. Freefall lasted a full minute. And then, with a tremendous yanking on my extremities, the parachute opened, and the wind cut out its upward flooding, and resumed a more normal sideways motion. We weren't falling anymore, we were flying. And it was suddenly really quiet. I said something like "Oh, we can talk now." I was a little shocked at the whole thing. Existential Crisis at 17,000 Feet There's something about dropping like a stone from a plane three miles in the air towards the North Shore of O'ahu that really makes one go "AHHHHHOHMYGODWHATTHEFUCKWASITHINKINGSTOPwow, this is REALLY FUCKING COOL! Why the FUCK didn't I ever DO THIS BEFORE!! ... Shit. What've I been doing with my life?" At that moment, I felt like I'd just utterly wasted 24 years, because they really didn't hold anything that could compare to the world I was approaching. I talked to Wisconsin about it too, because he's been on a "What am I doing with myself?" trip more intense than mine since I met him. He said he felt the same thing too. I really want to talk about it. I want to crystalize it in memory, I want to remember every detail I can so I don't lose any of them over time, and I want to tell people bout it. I want to be able to share it, and I don't want to lose it. But I don't have the words. I don't know if I'd say it was a religious experience for me (because that would be dumb), but I think it's the closest I've ever gotten to one. Plus, the edges have already lost their sharpness. As soon as I landed, the Brit and I were going "Oh my god! That was awesome! Wasn't it awesome? That was awesome!" Meanwhile, Wisconsin just had this shocked look on his face. And then he fell down and lay on his stomach in the grass for a little while. I wish I'd done that. Taken a minute, by myself, to let it sink in, to pay attention to how I felt and how I'd just gotten done feeling, to remember the way it looked and the way it felt, and just focused, instead of jumping back into company. I think this really could've changed my life, if I'd paid attention to it. Not, like, massively overhauled my life, but adjusted its course slightly, pointed it in a more specific direction. (Actually, I think it has -- just not as much as it should have.) Because... JESUS CHRIST that was intense. And beautiful. It made me wonder why I waste my time on the things I waste my time on, when there's intense and beautiful things to experience out there. Anyway. I talked to Wisconsin and my coworker about it. I want to start doing stuff like that, big, adventurous stuff, on a regular basis. Shark cage adventures, skydiving, glider riding, bungie jumping if we can find it, stuff like that, once every month or two. Make it part of What We DO. Because there's so many things like that that I'd like to do, but haven't yet, and I don't have any good reasons not to. But that's not the point, is it? The point is that I don't push myself to do the things that I get the most out of, I'm just content to keep on wasting my time. The point is to raise the bar for the rest of my life, so I don't spend it willfully doing so much mediocre bullshit and dreaming about the things I don't have the guts to actually try. I'm working on that. Just nowhere near as hard as I should be working on it. "...As I look back at countless crossroads, and the middle where I stay. Right up the beaten path to Boredom, where the fakest fucks get laid..." - Say Anything "Red Cat (Slash) Yellow Cat"

Map this on Platial
]]> 2006-12-21 00:08:05.270801+00:00 http://www.platial.com/post/864150 I showed this to my coworker, and he cracked up at the first panel. "The fence! It looks like you're in prison! 'Wanna see where I'm living now? In JAIL!!'" I hadn't thought of that. I just thought it was Pretty. Here's a couple of photos from my time there. My friends in the TV lounge: One day I looked at the memorial for the hostel's founder and thought, "Buddha's flashing his gang sign." I could never look at the statue the same way again. "To all my old-skool bone thugz on Tha Middle Path..."

Map this on Platial
]]> 2006-12-21 01:42:16.778293+00:00 http://www.platial.com/post/864155
Map this on Platial
]]> 2006-12-11 00:29:09.653561+00:00 http://www.platial.com/post/864158
Map this on Platial
]]> 2006-12-11 00:31:55.810301+00:00 http://www.platial.com/post/864162

Map this on Platial
]]> 2006-12-11 00:45:50.398633+00:00 http://www.platial.com/post/864165 are here to skydive, I'll make it half price. $120. But you need to make up your minds, because the plane takes off in 10 minutes!" The next 10 minutes were spent initialing waivers. In 2005, 27 people around the world would die skydiving; that works out to about one every 160,000 jumps, but it's still a huge liability. After that, we got in the plane, which had no door, and flew up to 17,000 feet. "It was supposed to be a nice, relaxing morning," my friend Wisconsin remarked at one point, "in a cage, surrounded by sharks!" (Read my blog entry about the jump itself, and the effect it had on me.)

Map this on Platial
]]> 2006-12-21 00:22:00.948072+00:00 http://www.platial.com/post/864167 I'm a protected species," said the little old German woman on the tour bus.

Map this on Platial
]]> 2006-12-11 00:50:27.746649+00:00 http://www.platial.com/post/864170
Map this on Platial
]]> 2006-12-11 00:55:32.490362+00:00 http://www.platial.com/post/864173
Map this on Platial
]]> 2006-12-19 01:39:10.199774+00:00 http://www.platial.com/post/864191

Map this on Platial
]]> 2006-12-11 01:09:03.471658+00:00 http://www.platial.com/post/864193 [April 22, 2005] After my coworker got off work tonight, we headed up into the Manoa Valley, me on his bike, him jogging, to go to a graveyard with a banyan tree that he'd found and said was good for climbing. It's a gorgeous night. The moon's full, and everything's lit up. We talked about life, and it was a good time. It was worth it just for the bike ride. And then we got to the cemetery. it turned out to be a Chinese graveyard, up on this little hill in the middle of the valley, just high enough that you could see... everything. Over all the houses on three sides, turning into the slopes of the hills to either side, and eventually turning into the big hotels of Waikiki in front. It was gorgeous. Under the full moon, especially so. "I really like it up here," my coworker told me. "This city is so crowded and desperate for space. But this is a big, open area, and the only people who use it are dead." The banyan's at the top of the hill, over a low shrine decorated with carved lions. There are thick clumps of aerial roots hanging down from the tree, and someone's knotted one of them together, so you can climb it. Or swing on it. You can swing out over the shrine, over the tops of the lions, towards one of those big Chinese gateway-things whose names I don't know. So I swung on it a lot. My coworker and I took turns, pushing each other like we were on a swing. When we got home, something occured to me. "Um... I left my hoodie there." "Shuddup." "Yeah, I did. Can I borrow your moped?" I don't seem to be able to drive my coworker's moped without uncontrollably laughing from the shear joy of it half the time. The last time I rode it, I was enjoying it so much that I was just sort of ignoring everything, and cut off a guy who followed me, honking and swearing, to the next streetlight, whereupon he got out of his car, clearly going to hurt me until I apologized and explained it was my first day riding it. (This was two weeks ago. it really shakes me up when I get in big conflicts with people, so I'm only comfortable writing about it now.) So, I laughed joyously the whole ride up to the cemetery, which I found to be just as wonderous as when I left. And I laughed joyously the whole ride back. I then climbed up on the roof of the hostel, and lay on my back on the scratchy tiles, looking at the clouds and the sky and the city, listening to "Good To Be Here" by The Animators, and really being quite unbelievably overjoyed with my place in life. I came back the next day, and found the entire place smelled sweetly of incense.

Map this on Platial
]]> 2006-12-20 20:57:20.613265+00:00 http://www.platial.com/post/865142
Map this on Platial
]]> 2006-12-11 15:29:39.63132+00:00 http://www.platial.com/post/865143 [May 10, 2005] My pictures from the Songshan Shaolin exhibition turned out better than I expected. In the above photo, a monk is balanced on the points of six spears, and they didn't break his skin. It was insane. There were 18 monks in this exhibition, ranging in ages from 5 to 22 (yes, they're all younger than me. It was humbling. Like most things in my life), plus their grandmaster, who did some incredibly badass feats. In fact, they all did incredibly badass feats. Like doing handstands, using only two fingers... and then doing one-handed handstands, using only two fingers. The coolest part was that the youngest monks... were 5-year-old triplets. The Shaolin Triplets. They were not only badass, they were adorable too -- kind of shy when they first came out on stage, and then way cool when they started doing things. They did headsprings. People did lots of headspings in this show. They also leaned over and planted their heads on the ground... and then walked around them spinning their bodies, keeping their heads planted on the stage. There were lots of weapons demonstrations, and animal-style demonstrations. There was a guy who demonstrated drunken boxing, and then drunken sword fighting, and then drunken staff fighting. There were kip-ups in every single demonstration. They did lots of flips and tucks and cartwheels and stuff, all right out of my gymnastics class -- except they never landed on their feet, they always landed on their backs, which was a little odd. The grandmaster did demonstrations where big, burly men in the audience would get a chance to try to hurt him. He took repeated kicks to the crotch from very large men, and chain-punches to the stomach... and then the monks brought in a battering ram, and a bunch of them rammed it into his stomach a lot. The Shaolin Triplets did a 'shell game,' where kids from the audience had to close their eyes while the three kids ran around and rearranged themselves, and then the kids had to guess which of the three was which. And there was a really cheezy computer animated video accompanying it, and a very '80s World music soundtrack. So in addition to being extremely badass, it was also extremely exploitative. Afterwards, they signed autographs and posed for pictures... and my friend Japalino was totally crushing on her 'dreamboat monk' (which was the coolest thing ever -- my friend had a crush on a monk! A monk who could kick your ass!). And I was thinking... This is a bunch of monks, from China. And here they are, in the West, encountering women who wear less clothing than they've ever seen, and getting treated like rockstars. How weird must that be?

Map this on Platial
]]> 2006-12-19 01:06:02.116619+00:00 http://www.platial.com/post/865145 weird. It's mostly Mormon, and it's where Brigham-Young University is, and they've set up this phenomenally successful Polynesian Cultural Center to make money for the university. So you've got an odd situation where a bunch of Mormons have become the curators of a culture that died out, to make money for their church. So La'ie has some weird influences. The mormon population means the grocery stores don't sell liquor, and everything, even the beaches, are closed on Sundays. But the Polynesian influence means... Well, here's what the La'ie McDonalds looks like: Inside it's big and weird and shaded, and looks more like a fancy restaurant than a fast food franchise. There are lots of vitrines (plexiglass museum display boxes) inside, full of Polynesian artifacts like the instruments they'd play ancient hula music on, and a fountain in the back. And, apparently, this McDonalds does karaoke. I wasn't in La'ie for even an hour before I got missionaries trying to pimp their good friend God to me. "Our friend Jesus thinks you're really cute." (Note: Not a literal quote.) They're clever in La'ie; they send attractive young women after the young guys. I found myself talking to a girl from Japan and another from Nevada for a while before I read their nametags more closely (I figured they were guides with the tour group I was near), and realized they weren't actually really friendly, outgoing people who though I looking interesting and wanted to be friends. The Altruism Trick makes me sad. When people act like they're interested in me, and act like they want to be my friends... and then I find out they're doing it because they want to sell me something, whether it's an idea or a product... it makes me sad, and it makes me wary, and it discredits their whole cause to me. (Gilligan's Island was filmed on O'ahu, or rather, on Coconut Island, which is off the coast of O'ahu on the Windward Side. Coconut Island is a biological research center, and my coworker who's a biologist got to go on a tour there. "A three hour tour?" I was quick to ask him.)

Map this on Platial
]]> 2006-12-20 21:04:22.549392+00:00 http://www.platial.com/post/865148 On April Fool's Day in 1957, a tsunami hit the coast of O'ahu, and the water literally punched a hole through solid rock on that island. Historically, La'ie Point was once a puuhonua (a refuge where criminals could go to be forgiven), and the islands out in the ocean were said to have been the broken pieces of a giant lizard that a local hero defeated.

Map this on Platial
]]> 2006-12-20 22:34:53.159117+00:00 http://www.platial.com/post/866938 [April 18, 2005] I'm an odd tourist. I go and see the sights, do the touristy stuff, some days. See the historic sights, and the Gorgeousness Of Nature, and all that. And then on other days I wander around and take pictures of all the graffiti I find, or of pretty trees I want to climb, or street signs that interest me, and every so often I check to see if the sky is doing something interesting when it thinks I'm not paying attention. So I think of myself as more of an explorer than a tourist. I like to wander around in cemetaries (because I'm a secretly a little goth girl), and I like to visit playgrounds (because I'm only this many: *holds up three fingers*). There's this park I always see from the bus. It's got a playground right next to the wall of a cliff, which reminds me intensely of a park from my half-remembered year in Norway at age 6. So today I decided I'd get off the bus and explore it first, before I continued on to temples and shrines. And it's the COOLEST PARK EVER. Not only is it a park with at "Danger, Falling Rocks" sign next to the playground (that's EXTREME! eXtreme Playgrounds!), it's also got this huge banyan tree up the hill from it. The treehouse in Swiss Family Robinson was a banyan tree. They're from India, and they have grey bark that looks kind of like cement, and they drop aerial roots from their branches which eventually sink into the ground and become additional roots. So there's parts you can climb, and parts you can hide inside, and 'vines' that are strong enough that you can swing on them, and this tree has them all! There's another one that's attached to a cliff face, and its roots stretch all the way down the cliff for something like 60 feet. You can climb straight up the roots. I know, because I tried it did.

Map this on Platial
]]> 2006-12-20 20:50:14.940298+00:00 http://www.platial.com/post/866943

Map this on Platial
]]> 2006-12-12 17:51:15.028301+00:00 http://www.platial.com/post/866947

Map this on Platial
]]> 2006-12-12 18:00:59.932661+00:00 http://www.platial.com/post/866950

Map this on Platial
]]> 2006-12-12 18:02:55.093932+00:00 http://www.platial.com/post/866951
Map this on Platial
]]> 2006-12-12 18:07:47.816653+00:00 http://www.platial.com/post/866953

Map this on Platial
]]> 2006-12-12 18:16:09.705527+00:00 http://www.platial.com/post/866957 Waikiki has a population density rivaling Tokyo, tourists from all over the world frantically trying to relax before they have to head home. It's easily overwhelming. But walk Diamondhead (east) for twenty minutes, and you find small, secluded beach parks with no one at all on them, where they need signs to say "No climbing trees or nude sunbathing allowed," because such things evidently happen enough for the authorities to consider it a problem.

Map this on Platial
]]> 2006-12-12 18:22:33.667339+00:00 http://www.platial.com/post/866958

Map this on Platial
]]> 2006-12-12 18:24:53.964162+00:00 http://www.platial.com/post/866960 "What the hell was that?" I asked my friends, but they didn't know. This random temple, thin and tall, rising out of the trees right next to the highway. A tour guide friend of mine told me it's a Shinto mausoleum, and that each floor has bodies interred in it; he also said it's not open to the public. Eventually I found it, in the back of a big cemetery along with the Royal Mausoleum, and sure enough, it was both closed to the public and hard to get close to. That's the best photo I could get of it.

Map this on Platial
]]> 2006-12-12 18:30:51.952175+00:00 http://www.platial.com/post/866962 Why is Nu'uanu so religious? I was startled at how many shrines and temples there were along it. This is a Shinto temple right along the main road (I'm not sure exactly where on Nu'uanu it was, but it was on the Aiea side), which was one of my favorites. Next is a Buddhist temple on one of the Aiea (west) side roads which you can see from Nu'uanu.

Map this on Platial
]]> 2006-12-12 18:58:24.021621+00:00 http://www.platial.com/post/866974 The sign outside reads "This is a place for people who seek the truth and the Real Meaning of Life. A life dedicated to peace, harmony and a meaningful contribution to society."

Map this on Platial
]]> 2006-12-12 18:56:47.797983+00:00 http://www.platial.com/post/866980 I'd always see this church from TheBus #6 on the way to Ala Moana Center. It was built in 1932 to resemble an old Japanese castle to symbolize a quote from Psalms about the Lord being "a strong Tower against my enemy." I always wanted to dress up nice one Sunday and go to a service there, at least long enough to look around inside. There was also a tree on the sidewalk outside that I quite liked.

Map this on Platial
]]> 2006-12-12 19:05:28.604362+00:00 http://www.platial.com/post/866981 And here's the curtain call:

Map this on Platial
]]> 2006-12-12 19:18:22.099785+00:00 http://www.platial.com/post/871647

Map this on Platial
]]> 2006-12-18 23:35:06.200377+00:00 http://www.platial.com/post/871650 The family that runs both Hostelling International locations in Honolulu also owns a house on the Windward Side that they use as a guesthouse. To stay there you have to spend time at one of the HIs first and get OKed by the staff, and then it costs basically the same as a bunk bed at a hostel, except generally you've got a whole room to yourself. When I got really damn sick of people in Honolulu, I spent a very relaxing weekend. I was the only guest, it was just me and the Houseparent, in a small, quiet "town" along the King Kam highway. I definitely recommend it as a different Hawai'i experience, neither the citylife of Honolulu nor the surfing hippie towns of the North Shore. I walked nine miles down the coast to Kualoa Ranch, taking lots of pictures along the way, and then caught the bus north, through Laie and around the top of the island to Waimea. Below is a photo of the beach by the guesthouse. If you go out the front door, cross the two lanes of the King Kam, and walk 200 feet, that's where you end up: A sandy beach about 20 feet wide, and the Pacific.

Map this on Platial
]]> 2006-12-19 00:34:15.966971+00:00 http://www.platial.com/post/871653 This is was a sugar mill around the time of the Civil War. Now it's a very scenic ruin I really wanted to climb around in.

Map this on Platial
]]> 2006-12-24 23:58:36.930175+00:00 http://www.platial.com/post/871656

Map this on Platial
]]> 2006-12-19 00:21:56.751388+00:00 http://www.platial.com/post/871658 It seems like every third tree along the ocean on the Windward Side has a rope swing hanging from it.

Map this on Platial
]]> 2006-12-19 00:23:50.008008+00:00 http://www.platial.com/post/871660 When I saw this roadside memorial, I immediately thought, "Ar! The sea, she be a cruel mistress!" I then had to wonder why I instantly assumed it was a memorial for pirates lost at sea, rather for people killed at road.

Map this on Platial
]]> 2006-12-19 00:37:11.250192+00:00 http://www.platial.com/post/871664
Map this on Platial
]]> 2006-12-19 01:11:43.79327+00:00 http://www.platial.com/post/871666 Sorry. Hawai'i humor. A kama'aina discount is a discount for locals; they're really common. My second week on the island, on the North Shore, my Irish roommate was heading back to a hostel in Waikiki. "You going to get a hooker while you're there?" one of the Aussies asked him, smirking. Turns out a girl in Waikiki had asked him if he wanted a good time, and for whatever reason, he'd asked her how much she charges ($200, it turned out). Irish and the Aussie then came up with the following dialogue: "Hey baby, do you want to be naughty?" "Do you take credit cards?" "Sure! Just swipe it between my legs, and enter your PIN. But don't use your fingers."

Map this on Platial
]]> 2006-12-22 21:05:11.233342+00:00 http://www.platial.com/post/873066 [April 10, 2005] "My goal is to pay off my student loan." I walked down to Waikiki tonight, intending to shop. Instead, I took lots and lots of pictures of the performers on Kalakaua Ave. There's a new performance artist there; me and some friends first saw him there a few weeks ago, but I don't know how long he's been there. There've been people who cover themselves in paint and such there for years; but this guy covered himself in newspapers. I don't know what his name is. I call him the Paperboy. The robot Michael Jackson guys, they work for their money. They just stand there, until you give them money, and then they do a little act. The Paperboy, he just sits on his bench, all night, and reads the paper. And people are amazed, and take pictures, and flock around him, and give him money. And then he turns in early for the night. It looks to me like it's produced an artistic 'arms race' on Kalakaua. Because the robot Michael Jackson guy, who's always there? He wasn't there tonight. Instead, there was another new guy. Painted gold, and with a rather clever set-up which makes it look like his left leg is made out of a muffler and some metal tubing. When you give him money, he moves. I think it's the Robot Michael Jackson, T Tron or CJ or whichever the most recent one who did the shtick was, in a more elaborate get-up, to compete with the Paperboy.

Map this on Platial
]]> 2006-12-20 20:25:11.425473+00:00 http://www.platial.com/post/873076 [April 15, 2005] While I was sitting at the desk tonight, a bird of unimaginable tinyness flew in and decided to perch all around the room. At first I thought it was a large moth, then I thought it was a bat, and then I thought it was a very large, chubby hummingbird. Here it is, sitting next to a magazine. It was a really remarkable creature. We had to throw a towel over it and take it outside to get it to leave the office. The photo of it sitting in my massively gigantic hand turned out blurry, and I was disappointed.

Map this on Platial
]]> 2006-12-20 20:28:58.976594+00:00 http://www.platial.com/post/873078 [April 16, 2005] I went to the Upstanding Youth/Go Jimmy Go ska show at Anna Bannana's tonight, where I was mostly unable to skank for the first band because my sandals would slip off and the staff told me not to dance barefoot, and then had trouble skanking for Go Jimmy Go because the place was so packed. When I left, I encountered a tall black kid in a cardigan who was so overjoyed at finding his lost bike lock keys that he exclaimed "Karate kick!" and playfully kicked me in the hip. He then gave me a big warm hug, while the girl he was with protested his abuse of me. "It's okay, I know this guy!" he told her. "He's been skanking all night!" I enjoyed that people could 'know' me just by seeing me dance.

Map this on Platial
]]> 2006-12-20 20:36:19.603019+00:00 http://www.platial.com/post/873112
Map this on Platial
]]> 2006-12-20 21:02:08.404618+00:00 http://www.platial.com/post/873221

Map this on Platial
]]> 2006-12-21 00:31:35.089274+00:00 http://www.platial.com/post/873224 [March 25, 2005] There's a man from Texas staying at the hostel. He's 37, and still lives with his mother... and this is really the first time he'd ever been on a trip on his own. After he checked in, he spent the next three days standing or sitting in the patio. He never tried to find something to do ("Television's boring."), and he was too afraid of getting lost and being unable to find his way back to go sightseeing, even in the neighborhood. So he just stayed in the patio, looking terribly bored, for three days. The first night I had to ask him to stop following me around while I worked, because his questions were getting on my nerves (standing in the driveway: "So... this is where people park their cars?"). Imagine Ralph from The Simpsons fundamentally unchanged at 37, except that age has removed all the cuteness and endearingness from his naivety, slow-wittedness and lack of social skills. He smells like he chronically sleeps in his clothes, after a hard night of smoking in bed. This is odd, because he doesn't smoke. He was hoping to move to Hawaii. However, he doesn't like the heat, and even as cold as the nights have been getting here recently (sometimes I sleep with a hoodie on... mostly because I only have one blanket, and it's very thin), they were still too hot for him to sleep comfortably. He likes beaches, but he can't swim. He doesn't really have a profession, but he used to work in a grocery store. He wanted to come to Hawaii because he used to see shows about the hotels here on the Travel Channel, and he thought that if he could get a job in one of those hotels, like as a busboy? Then his life would be good. He also came here because his Jr. High teacher was from Hawaii, and he was hoping he could find his teacher. Yeah. At 37, as far as he could tell, he has less life experience, less marketable skills, and less common sense than any teenager I could name. And he severely creeped everyone out. Until I found out his story, and told the rest of the staff. After that, he just depressed us all heavily.

Map this on Platial
]]> 2006-12-21 00:37:10.32579+00:00 http://www.platial.com/post/873226 [March 27, 2005] His face, his hair, and his tasteful burgandy blazer, all spoke of him trying to get out of the rough life of his adolescence, despite the best efforts of his former friends, cut-throat black belts that they are, to drag him back into it. I actually found myself watching him, until I realized a fight scene wasn't likely to break out right there on the bus. So when he pulled the cord and the driver let him off, I watched him walk away as the bus pulled out onto South King. I was kind of disappointed that he wasn't immediately attacked by a horde of Triad ruffians.

Map this on Platial
]]> 2006-12-21 00:40:25.408842+00:00 http://www.platial.com/post/873229 [March 31, 2005] "I'm young, and I won't be forever!" one of the folks I live with declared. "My body works good now, so I should do things that use my body while i've got it! "After it wears out, I'll have plenty of time for stuff that needs thinking." I had to think about that for a while. Though I doubt that was his intention.

Map this on Platial
]]> 2006-12-21 00:48:10.591374+00:00 http://www.platial.com/post/873232 [February 4, 2005] Do you know what that means? It means someone had a very bad day. Maybe they can't pay their rent now, or it was someone else's money they were borrowing, or now they can't afford food for the next two weeks. $300 is about a paycheck for someone working part time for minimum wage here. It makes me sad, and my stomach doesn't feel good. $300 is almost a plane ticket to LA from here. I hope I didn't royally screw someone over by picking it up. Then again, maybe someone's drug deal went bad. (I was not comfortable spending the money on myself, because I didn't consider it 'mine'. But my girlfriend's birthday was coming up, so I used it to buy her an iPod.)

Map this on Platial
]]> 2006-12-21 00:53:36.81444+00:00 http://www.platial.com/post/873234 [February 5, 2005] Tonight we went to Downtown for the First Friday art gallery walk. Downtown is right next to "Honolulu's historic Chinatown" (which was actually the first Chinatown to be established in the U.S.). And this weekend they were celebrating Chinese New Year.

Map this on Platial
]]> 2006-12-21 00:57:50.043693+00:00 http://www.platial.com/post/873236
Map this on Platial
]]> 2006-12-21 01:07:22.820553+00:00 http://www.platial.com/post/873238 [December 31, 2004]You're surrounded by explosions, as the working class celebrates the birth of the new year (or maybe the death of the old one?) as noisily and brightly as possible. You swerve to avoid geysers of green and blue flame in the road, and wince when you roll over strings of bursting firecrackers when the road's too narrow or busy to swerve. The air is thick with smoke and sound, and some of the explosions are so loud, so near, that you can't help but jump. Bright, noisy, colorful and over-the-top, with little danger you'll actually be hurt: Terrorism, Disney-style. All it needs are some snappy musical numbers about the Israeli/Palestine conflict, and a love story. (The beautiful lonely daughter of the Israeli Prime Minister, and the poor-but-honest-and-improbably-handsome Palestinian boy who finds the magic rock that smashes tanks?) This city is a zoo on New Year's. The firecrackers started last night, and then took a break till this morning. By mid-afternoon the whole city was already hazy and smelled like sulfur. This is a big deal, because there's rarely air pollution in Honolulu -- you always have the trade winds blowing it away. I'm used to big aerial fireworks... for about a half hour. That's what it's like back home. This is strings of ground-level firecrackers, and it's utterly constant.

Map this on Platial
]]> 2006-12-21 01:18:55.951042+00:00 http://www.platial.com/post/874422 [November 24, 2004] My first night in Honolulu, I took a walk from the hostel, trying to find the nearby Borders (my headphones have been singularized by the accidental application of my foot in LAX, and I need a new pair). Walking down Kalakaua Ave. between Kalulani and Seaside, I passed the following: - Three street artists - A women whose sign read "Spiritual Advisor" - An old man with opaque glasses and a store-printed sign around his neck that read "BLIND. Need your help in the pursuit of justice." - A hippie playing a hand drum; a teenage busker doing awesome solos on a full trap set - A guy whos skin and suit were the same color silver, pretending to be a robotic Michael Jackson while a large crowd watched - A similar crowd ringing a dog lying on the sidewalk, apparently dead, while a man whose sandwich board read "Shoot real guns!" and pictured a hot Japanese woman posing with an assault rifle - A choir of young women accompanied on guitar - Several teenage Old Skool Bone Thugzz alternately hassling each busker in turn. The best part was when two of the guys were about to get in a fight, but since they were standing in front of the dude soloing on his trap set, they turned it into a freestyling competition instead. But then the one who couldn't rhyme as well still picked a fight with the other guy. I also wandered through what looked for all intents and purposes like an Ewok village at night (The International Market Place). All this in the span of a couple of blocks. [Insert grave pause and inclining of head.]

Map this on Platial
]]> 2006-12-22 20:50:39.739083+00:00 http://www.platial.com/post/874424 [November 27, 2004] The North Shore is very pretty, and it has a nice feel to it, and I like our hostel (except the shower, with its frightening set-up and four-inch centipede I got to put outside today because Irish was content to leave it there while he showered). But there turns out to be basically nothing to do if you don't surf (and if you aren't a *good* surfer, for that matter -- these breaks tend to injure or kill the unwary and inexperienced). And when the surf isn't up, like this morning -- there's nothing to do but sit on the porch of your little beach house-thing and drink. Which I don't do. At least it finally stopped raining. The drive between Honolulu (on the south shore) and the North Shore is one hour. Yes, that's right -- you can cross this island in the time it takes to drive to Nenana, in less time than the drive to Delta Junction. This island is just that small, and yet it's got almost as many people as the state of Alaska. I'm daunted.

Map this on Platial
]]> 2006-12-22 20:56:16.068986+00:00 http://www.platial.com/post/874425 [November 30, 2004] They pick up moisture from the ocean and carry it into the island. When they hit the mountains, they shoot upward -- to where the air is colder. The cold makes the ocean-plucked moisture cool and condense, forming clouds that then race away from the mountains, back out toward sea. Honolulu is far enough away from the mountains that the clouds have rained enough and spread out enough by the time they reach it that it's usually just dry and sunny. There's a lot of gorgeous beaches and things on the island, but that's why Honolulu is where all O'ahu's resorts are. I'm on the other side of the island. Where the mountains are. The trade winds shoot up the mountains, condense into clouds, race away at a startling speed, and rain a whole lot. Right here. Which is why I'm inside, typing on the computer today. Because I'm tired of being out in the rain.

Map this on Platial
]]> 2006-12-22 21:02:02.163878+00:00 http://www.platial.com/post/874467 [December 10, 2004] It was mentioned in Lonely Planet. I was the only one on it, so I had to do a fun song-and-dance to rouse one of the employees at the infodesk from their endless checking-of-email and playing-on-Hot Or Not ("I'm an 8.6," my guide told me). It was quite an informative tour, but not in the ways campus tours usually are. "This building was recently renamed. I don't know what the name of it is. I've never been in it before." "Here's the athletics section, which our campus revolves around. And our athletes get away with everything, from rape, to assault." (That was the only point in the tour where I wanted to hit someone.)

Map this on Platial
]]> 2006-12-22 21:25:28.715929+00:00 http://www.platial.com/post/874472 [December 14, 2004] Walking around the University of Hawaii Manoa, I continue to have the feeling that I've wandered onto the set of a college movie. Or a promotional video where they're trying to convince you to go to their college by showing you how diverse-yet-Wonderbread their student body is. It really *is* that ethnically diverse here. But everyone dresses the same. It's not even Big Brand-Name Conformism, it's all just this sort of low-key trendy blending-in. It's really fascinating to look at. I've seen a couple of hippie girls on campus, and a couple days ago I was overjoyed to see a girl with bright pink hair. That's about it. Saturday when my coworker and I were walking to meet our friends, a group of Asian folks passed us. My coworker turns to me and goes, "How's it feel to be a minority?" My Lonely Planet said that there *is* no ethnic majority in Hawaii -- there's heaps of white people, and comparably-large heaps of asians, and a bunch of others too, without any ethnic group seriously outnumbering the others. But on O'ahu there's 2% more people of Japanese decent than there are caucasians. I've been in lots and lots of situations where I stood out because of my hair color, or my clothes, or the way I act. But I don't think I've really been in a place where I felt like I was a minority because I was white. This is a new experience for me. I went to a concert this week where I wanted to dance, but nobody was dancing, and I was one of, like, three white guys in the club. I didn't end up dancing, but even then, I was more afraid that they'd go "Look at that guy! He isn't local!" than "Look at that guy! What a howlie!" ('Howlie' is traditionally spelled 'haole'. Haoles were mythical creatures with no souls. Today, it's applied to foreigners, or especially white people.) It's new and different. And a learning experience.

Map this on Platial
]]> 2006-12-22 21:55:09.195593+00:00 http://www.platial.com/post/864152

Map this on Platial
]]> 2006-12-11 00:23:43.446151+00:00 http://www.platial.com/post/864190 Here's Olga from Germany and the 18-foot-tall Buddha.

Map this on Platial
]]> 2006-12-11 01:06:23.019842+00:00 http://www.platial.com/post/865136

Map this on Platial
]]> 2006-12-11 15:23:41.18208+00:00 http://www.platial.com/post/871645 Punchbowl Crater is an extinct volcano that the Hawaiians used to do human sacrifices. Why did the U.S. military think it was a good idea to turn it into a graveyard for soldiers who died in the service of the U.S.? I mean, how ironic can you get without meaning to be? There are 33,000 people buried here (compared to Fairbanks, Alaska, which has a living population of 31,000), the U.S. military dead from four different wars. It's one of the big scenic attractions in Honolulu, and as a connoisseur of graveyards, I was excited to visit it. Unfortunately, it turned out to not only be boring, but sad. 33,000 people who died fighting for their country, each commemorated by... a small plaque set in the ground, which tells their name, the dates they existed, and maybe what branch of the service they were in. Sometimes not even that -- lots of plaques are missing last names, and there are lots of unknown dead buried here. But the view of Honolulu from the edges of the crater turned out to be worth the trip.

Map this on Platial
]]> 2006-12-18 23:22:50.836581+00:00 http://www.platial.com/post/871663
Map this on Platial
]]> 2006-12-19 00:51:29.911829+00:00 http://www.platial.com/post/873242
Map this on Platial
]]> 2006-12-21 01:36:05.388038+00:00 http://www.platial.com/post/874420 2006-12-22 20:46:03.649125+00:00 http://www.platial.com/post/874441 Koko Crater is the imprint left by the vagina of Pele's sister Kapo, which was sent here from the Big Island to lure the pig-god Kamapuaa away from Pele." I will give you a minute to let this properly sink in. I'm sure you've all realized that I must see this now. In the name of Science®, of course. There are important questions that must be answered! How anatomically accurate is this geological formation? And most importantly: Did ancient Hawaiians ignore the clitoris? I will be sure to take pictures. I'm sorry, I smell an article in this. Inquiring minds want to know! The worst thing about it is, when I first got here, there was this big controversy because a local politician proposed they use Koko Crater as a landfill. That's fucked, and disrespectful on so many levels...

Map this on Platial
]]> 2006-12-22 21:13:45.502795+00:00 http://www.platial.com/post/875071
Map this on Platial
]]> 2006-12-24 22:49:17.824588+00:00