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On the way to the airport returning from Hawaii I was scarfing down a banana in the car. Zoe had another one. Then at the airport we had to throw out another banana and a beautiful avocado. We left some bread in the fridge at the apartment we rented. We threw away various styrofoam containers of leftovers. We brought home the granola bars. I feel like on almost any vacation I’ve taken, there ends up being leftover food you can’t bring home. (You’re not allowed to take fresh fruit or vegetables from Hawaii to the mainland). Shouldn’t there be some way to make use of them? Give them to a shelter or food pantry? Are there places where nonprofits could connect with travel-related organizations so you could drop off your food when you’re leaving town and it doesn’t go to waste? Just wondering.
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It turns out Randy is good at speaking Hawaiian. Not that it’s as useful in our everyday lives as Spanish or in general in the Western world as French, or in the global economy as Mandarin, but still.
When we first arrived in Hawaii we were struck by how similar all the names sounded and how we had no idea how to pronounce them and it felt kind of like a foreign country, at least linguistically. I remembered being in Prague and feeling completely overwhelmed by consonants.
But after a few days we looked up some answers and got a few clues about the language. It turns out they only use 7 consonants: W, M, K, P, L, H, and N, and all five vowels. That’s the whole alphabet. So, yes, things do sound similar. But there are a lot of accent marks and I’m sure if you were fluent it would all make sense.
Randy discovered his favorite word, the name of a fish we saw several times while snorkeling. You mainlanders might call it a reef triggerfish.
But in Hawaiian it’s the humuhumunukunukuapua’a (HUMU-HUMU-NUKU-NUKU-APUA-A). It looks like this. Next time you see Randy, you can call him by his new nickname.
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The story goes that in 1795 King Kamehameha forced his enemies–the O’ahu armies–over this cliff overlooking the Nu’uanu Valley, thereby uniting the Hawaiian Islands.
Thankfully there’s a big wall there now and a railing. For only $3 to park, you can check out the sweeping view of the lush landscape below–a welcome departure from the skyscrapers of Honolulu when you’re looking for something a little more natural. We stopped here on the Pali Highway on our way to the windward side of the island to check out the beaches at Kailua and Lanikai.
It’s very windy here. And there are a bunch of chickens and roosters, which Randy discovered are actually jungle fowl, strutting around and clucking and crowing and making whatever other noises such creatures make.
Also at the Pali Lookout we did our vacation good deed. When we got back in our car the young couple next to us asked if we could give them a jump because their battery had died. I explained that I didn’t know anything about jumping a car (and I wasn’t sure if Randy did either) and I didn’t have cables, but she said that her boyfriend could do it and had the cables. So we said yes, and Randy helped the boyfriend attach the cables and the young woman told me when to rev the engine, and we started their car. They were visiting from Korea and thanked us effusively. It wasn’t like we did anything significant, but I was glad we could help.
Did I mention it was windy? Zoe was wearing her bathing suit because we were theoretically on our way to the beach. She was freezing so I retrieved her sweatshirt but she mostly clung to me like a koala for warmth.
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For some reason I can’t recall, on the first morning we were in Honolulu we decided to hike up the crater in the Diamond Head State Monument. Zoe really wanted to go to the beach. As did we. But you know how sometimes it’s hard to transition from real life into vacation? Perhaps we felt like we had to earn a swim in the beautiful turquoise waters by sweating. The state park website says: “the 0.8 mile hike from trailhead to the summit is steep and strenuous.”
When we arrived at the base, we were kind of tired, hungry, and thirsty. But we decided we needed to hike. Zoe expressed quite clearly and emphatically that she wanted to go to the beach. We promised we would go to the beach after the hike. We started to hike.
Zoe whined. We sweated. After about two minutes, we stopped. Zoe refused to continue. We attempted to negotiate. We failed. I told Randy to go ahead and I would stay with Zoe. We negotiated. He went.
Zoe and I sat down on a rock and had a chat. Somehow, and the details escape me now, Zoe decided she would like to continue but would like to play a word game while we hiked. She agreed it would be fun to surprise Daddy at the top. Never mind we’d sent our water with him. Zoe made up a game where each of us took turns saying some random letters — such as FGAW — and the other would think of words that started with those letters. We played this all the way up the crater. We played it on the rocky path, through the dark tunnel,
up the steep stairs, and around the spiral staircases.
When we arrived at the top we spotted Randy among the throngs of sweaty hikers. I suggested to Zoe that she surprise him. She ran up to him and said hello and he was, indeed, surprised. And delighted. As were we. I was proud that Zoe decided she could do it and was willing to try. Afterward we had snacks and Zoe had her first shave ice of the trip. Then we went to the beach.
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Randy and I first went snorkeling on our honeymoon (nearly 8 years ago) in St. John, in the US Virgin Islands. It was glorious, and definitely one of the highlights of our trip. For many years when we were stressed, we would say to each other, “think of the pretty fishes.”
So when we knew we were going to Hawaii for Randy’s cousin’s wedding, we were thrilled at the prospect of snorkeling again. We were hopeful that Zoe would be able to share the experience.
On our second day on Oahu we went to Snorkel Bob’s to rent gear for all of us. We tried on masks and flippers and listened to instructions and looked at maps.
Zoe expressed a little fear about snorkeling for the first time, but she was definitely willing to try. And she did. At least three or four times. I think she kept her face in the water for about five seconds at a time. She didn’t really get anywhere. She said she saw one fish and some coral. But she tried day after day, time after time, to figure it out and push herself. She mentioned several times how glad she was that she tried snorkeling. So she didn’t really experience the multitudes of beautiful fish that we saw hundreds of feet off shore. But she tried something new, and kept trying, which you have to admire.
You Ask a Lot of Questions 