Email from Caro: Hawaii

I was a little concerned about donning the lycra and hitting the famous Waikiki Beach with all the body-beautifuls.  But I managed to muster the courage and strut my stuff in a sarong, jandals (or "slippers" as they say here and "thongs" in Aussie), only to discover there are so very 'fat' people here.  When I say fat, I do not mean "phat" as in cool, or "money" as in cool, I mean fat as in obese.

Hooray!  Positively lithe, Symon, Brownie and myself cavorted in the ocean, sunbathed and we looked "money, Baby".  Also, with the trillion japanese tourists everywhere, who are devoid of breasts, hips, common sense and dress very badly (albeit expensively with shades of Prada, Gucci, Louis Vuitton evident everywhere) and luuurve anything with a cartoon on it, we still felt "phat", "cool" and "money".

I even caught a beautifully made-up yet braindead japanese tourist commenting to her equally designer-clothed boyfriend about the hilarious yellow rabbit on the side of the tour bus, whose logo is a yellow rabbit.   She kacked herself for a long time over that.   I just looked baffled.   After 7 years of studying their language, culture, social customs and history, I still don't get them.   Who the hell laughs at a yellow rabbit on the side of a bus?

But I don't want to get all nasty about it, since they are suffering a little backlash from the release of the epic "Pearl Harbour" movie which premiered here last week.  Yawn.  Ben Affleck was in town as was Dennis Rodman.  We didn't see them, although we did dine in the same restaurant a couple of nights later; "Duke's Canoe Club".  And I won't dwell on it the phenomena that is the Japanese Tourist en masse getting in your way, standing about waiting for instruction, being shouted at by their tourguides, wearing ridiculously high platform shoes on the beach, wearing long sleeved gloves and a hankie over their faces so they don't get any sun on their skin (why got to Hawaii in summer then?)...for another reason...

...other tourists visiting from other States, who dress very badly.

In particular The Texans who sat at Starbucks smoking cigars with Stetsons on and gawping at girls asses in a not so discreet way.  Average age of these young bucks at Starbucks was like 20.   I wanted to shout "I've seen bigger cigars than that, Honey" as I casually sipped my grande latte and smoked my Marlboro Light cigarette.

We were even cool enough to go on a helicopter ride over Oahu.  Woo!  Yeah!  Just like in 'Nam!  Play that "Paint it Black" my man!
 
Actually, we had a nice Pilot called Mike, from Germany, and a funny lady in the office who brought her lizard "Jackson" to work for a bit of variety in his cold-blooded lifestyle.

We even got the video to keep.  Yep, it's true, I was having a monent as we hovered over Tom Selleck's house and the place where they filmed "Magnum PI". Watching that programme had me entranced with Hawaii ever since: Higgins, "the Lads" (Higgins' Dobermans), Rick, TC.   And Tom.  

Does anybody remember "Jake and the Fatman"?  William Conrad and Joe Penny? Well, that was another Hawaiian magic moment.   So, we also got to fly over the valley where they filmed Jurassic Park, and we checked out the Banzai Pipeline.