Hawaii

Crossing the International Date Line was odd.  We left Fiji (and Praise The Lord for THAT) on Thursday the 17th of May and arrived in Honolulu on Wednesday the 16th.   I thought you could only travel back in time if you had a De Lorean.  So I got another crack at Wednesday and Thursday, much like Bill Murray in "Groundhog Day" and I'm happy to say I managed to improve on the original.  Mainly because I wasn't in Fiji.  
 
I just wished I had crossed the dateline on my birthday, because then I would have got two lots of presents.  Mind you, it would also make me 33 years old and I don't think I'm ready for that yet.
 
When we arrived in Hawaii it was raining.  This was in line with the familiar pattern.  We arrived somewhere and it would be experiencing the wet season come early.  That, and the local currency would plummet, which actually worked out pretty well for us.  On our arrival in Hawaii, the Canadian economy was undergoing some sort of crisis.  They must have looked at our itinerary.

Waiting in a queue at US customs, I discovered something very unnerving.  Caro had been right about something.  I hate that.  The Hawaiians do INDEED pronounce their island as Ha-wah-EE as opposed to the mispronunciation Ha-WHY-EE.  This forced me to shut my big fat trap as I had been making fun of Caro the whole way.  As it happens, the Hawaiian alphabet only consists of 13 letters, including all the vowels which means that the Hawaiians are excellent Scrabble players:
 
EUROPEAN:  Damn!  I drew all vowels again!
HAWAIIAN:   Ba ha ha ha!  The advantage is mine!
 
Still, all those vowels mean that many words require peculiar glottal stops when spoken.  So if you pronounce them correctly it sounds like you've stopped talking in the middle of a word to do a bit of a burp.  I could become fluent in weeks.  One such glottally word was O’ahu, which was the island on which we were staying.  The other islands include Hawaii itself, Maui, Molokai, Elmo, Gonzo, Lino and Endor.  
 
Our taxi driver dropped us off at the Polynesian Club Hostel, took one look at the place and told us that there were LOADS of nice hotels in the area.  We should have taken this as A Warning, but you know me,  as sharp as a bag of wet hair.  On checking in we found that - HORROR - we were once again in a room off a dorm.  
 
HELLO!  Sleepless night!  
 
Yes, another night of lying in the dark listening to f*cking &rsehole English Tourists (well of COURSE they were English!)  Caro and I got to hear for several F*CKING hours how stupid people flirt with each other:

HOW REALLY F*CKING STUPID PEOPLE FLIRT WITH EACH OTHER
 
GUY:    Blah blah blah me, yeah, right, me, me, me, me.
GIRL:    Hee hee hee.  Ooh that's SO funny!
GUY:    (Encouraged)   Blah blah, ME blah blah, YEAH, f*cking ME ME ME F*CK 'EM I SAID, YEAH f*ck, f*cking blah blah.
GIRL:    (Doing that horrid hysterical laughing noise that sounds like when you cover the end of a vacuum cleaner.)
 
(They shag).
 
CURTAIN.
 
So we weren't too happy the next morning and immediately checked out.  We wandered up to a place called The Ilima Hotel, looking tired, fed up, and totally Fiji-ed off.  The guy at the desk took one look at us and laughed.  Then he fixed us up with a room at the "Promo Rate".  We dragged our sorry arses into the room, opened the door and nearly CRIED.
 
It was (sniff) BEAUTIFUL.
 
The room was nearly as big as my old flat.  We had a double bed each, a REAL kitchenette with Microwave and (sob!) a TELLY.  I would like to tell you right now that that very nice man’s way “Jay” and he was lovely to us the entire time we were in Hawaii.  Listen, I was so grateful I would have done ANYTHING for Jay.  And you really don’t want to know what I mean by “anything”.
 
Caro and I spent the rest of the day lounging around in bed and watching "The Jacksons:  An American Dream" which was a good choice because that film is like 5 hours long and so we didn't have to move to change the channel or anything.  I think it was while I was lying there, flat on a comfortable bed with actual pillows and not pieces of felt wrapped in toilet paper that I had A Holiday Epiphany.  I LOVED America.  

No really, I know I’m not supposed to.  I have undergone years of English socialist training, but despite knowledge of such American crimes as Operation Sideshow, Iran-Contra and Dawson’s Creek, I find I can’t help but love it.  It’s a land of people who in all seriousness say things like "Aw, shoot".  A land where people are just friendly, for no good reason.  It’s also where all the telly comes from, let’s not forget.

I know I'm not supposed to say that.  I should be w*nking on at this point about American Imperialism blah blah island paradise ruined by corporate America blah blah local culture destroyed blah blah souless machinery of blah blah blah blah...
 
I CAN'T bring myself to say that.  First of all because I'd just been to an unspoilt Island Paradise with a Genuine Local Culture and it sucked.  And what's WRONG with local culture being replaced by Polite Service and Convenience Food?  Convenience Food is - well - f*cking CONVENIENT for one thing and as someone who's been living on Pot Noodles for the past six weeks, I bloody well appreciated it.  

So I'm sorry, but if you're wanting the usual knee-jerk reaction to America, you'll have to read one of those irritating Lonely Planet Personal Accounts about how great it is to sit in the rain and wipe your runny bottom on tree-bark in Borneo.  ( See "Wiping My Arse With Tree Bark in Borneo" published  by Faber and Faber 1989.)
 
However, the Anti-American radar was set off by some of their tv commercials.  One concerned the gratitude of the Hawaiians to their "military neighbour" for protecting them all these years.  I can sort of understand it, especially given Pearl Harbour and all that.  

Also, I'm sure that Fiji would LOVE to have its culture subverted by the dollar, but at the same time, the benefits to statehood are all around.  Do they really need that sort of North Korean mind-control advertising to put the message across?  It made me shiver just a little.  

Another jarring chord to life here is that I just found out the US government doesn't recognise the Hawaiians as the native people of Hawaii.  This sounds to me like going up to a man with red hair and a kilt, whose name is Angus McScottish and demanding to know what he's doing in Aberdeen.  

I suspect the reason that the government has recognised almost 600 different Native American tribes but not Hawaiians, may be something to do with not opening the floodgates to 100's of Mabo-type land claims on Waikiki beachfront property.  So there you go, that’s my liberal-ness now expunged.  Yay!  We can get on with the sunshine and the beach and lots and lots and lots and LOTS of Japanese tourists!
 
There were times it started to feel like we had just stepped off the bullet train in Tokyo.  Many shops signs are in Japanese, there are loads of sushi and karaoke bars and everywhere you look there are tiny women hiding from the sun under huge designer floppy hats, immaculately made up and teetering along on altitude-sickness-inducing high-heels.  

Then there are the husbands, also dressed in the coolest designer gear, going into the Japanese electronic shops and loading up with duty-free stuff.  I suppose it's a home away from home for them, like Spain used to be for the English, only without the crappy pop songs and sangria.