Paradise must look at least a bit like Hawaii.
The place is stunningly beautiful. You can point your camera at practically any
point of nature and you have framed a remarkably beautiful sight. Taking
pictures was effortless. Point and shoot: it’s that easy. I have enhanced none
of the pictures that adorn these web pages. There was no way I could improve
upon Mother Nature.
The ocean water is mostly clear, the colors range from a
lively green to the deepest of blues, and all variants in between. The variation
in the vegetation boggles the mind. Perhaps there is such diversity because
Hawaii is as much a vertical ecosystem as a horizontal ecosystem. Beaches
sit right next to towering mountains with nearly vertical cliffs. Consequently
you can be on the beach enjoying lovely breezes and sunshine and a couple miles
away (and a thousand feet or so higher) an area is enshrouded in mist and
clouds.
On Oahu we never had a “proper” rainstorm. Rather what
you had were sun showers. Consequently it is more usual than not to see a
rainbow when it is raining. Very often it doesn’t seem possible for it to be
raining because there is full sunshine on you. But a fine rain from high above,
or far away and blown by the wind, hits you anyhow. It feels like something more
like a hard mist than a proper rain. And rain is often an ephemeral experience:
here for a minute or two and then gone, and it hardly seemed like it was there
at all. Umbrellas are of limited use because the rain is not likely to hang
around long enough to make you seriously wet.
While we were there the temperature never got above 83
degrees nor below 69 degrees. However the islands are often windy, even on the
leeward sides of the islands. There were a couple times in the evening where the
wind was coming so fast I wanted a sweater I didn’t have. I don’t know what
the climate is like in the summer but I would bet it doesn’t get that much
higher in temperature. That’s not to say you can’t feel hot. When protected
from the wind and standing in a movie line you can definitely work up a sweat.
(Hawaii sits at about 20 degrees in latitude.) But most of the time it was
perfectly pleasant. You normally don’t even think about bringing something to
wear.
A richness of color permeates all of nature on Hawaii.
There seem to be infinite variations of green among the plants, as well as
bountiful colors that make up the many native flowers and other vegetation. Even
the beach is not just the beach. There are textures of color in the beach sand
along with everything else.
Nature sounds different too. I don’t know what birds live
in Hawaii, but they don’t live in my neighborhood. They were lovely to listen
to.
If Oahu is typical of the other islands then every part of
the island is a different ecosystem, and every thousand feet of elevation brings
additional changes. Ascend into the mountains and you are often surrounded by
mist or rain, and usually fierce winds too. Much of Oahu is a tropical
rainforest although you don’t feel as if you are in the jungle. Indeed owning
a house in higher elevations of Oahu may not be that great an idea because they
seem to be in perpetual rain. Of course it’s hard to find places to live too
far from sea level because the terrain becomes so vertically challenging.
Hawaii is in a word: Lush.
Since returning from this first visit to Hawaii I have been wondering about how environment affects behavior. I am sure Hawaii has its share of narrow minded and obnoxious people, but I didn’t encounter any of them. Perhaps there is something about living in a beautiful spot that makes for naturally nicer people.
Now it could be something about spending most of my time in tourist areas. Maybe in order to get a job in Waikiki, for example, you must past a rigorous test where you must prove can smile all the time as if you mean it and you don’t know an unpleasant word. But I don’t think so. I think it really is environmental. There are the five big islands and that’s about it. To get back into the madness of the rest of the world requires a 2500-mile flight. Looking out your window every day is a treat: blue skies, seas full of the deepest blue, aquamarines and green, temperatures that rarely get below 70 or above 90, rainbows … what is there not to like? It would be difficult to be sour or unpleasant for long in such conditions.
Clearly Honolulu and its vicinities have its share of urban woes. Housing is costly, and locals often work 2 or 3 jobs to make ends meet. Traffic on H-1 can be a bear during rush hour. There are lots of dead end jobs. I thought about the lady at the parking garage working the midnight shift on Christmas. But it doesn’t seem to matter. Mood is infectious. We spoke with hundreds of service workers and locals over the course of those nine days and they were all not just pleasant but happy and genuinely glad to talk to us.
Perhaps it’s the way it should be. Perhaps it’s as close as we are going to get to a true Garden of Eden here on Earth, in both a literal and metaphorical sense. How did things go wrong for the rest of us? Or what happened on Hawaii to make things right? And how do we replicate it to make the rest of our world a more peaceful, loving and friendly place, as Hawaii seems to be?
I was told Hawaiians have an obesity problem. Native Hawaiians come from a race that ate fish, rice and fresh fruit and little else. Now they have all the temptations that put pounds on the rest of us and clearly it is a problem for many native Hawaiians. But for the most part I thought the obesity problem was overrated. They seemed overall to be healthier and weigh less than the rest of us Americans.
It’s hard to tell tourists from natives sometime. My guess is that it is about 30% Japanese, 30% Caucasian and 30% Native Hawaiian, the rest being coming from other ethnic groups. Many of the Japanese I think are tourists … our hotel was about half full of Japanese guests. But there are plenty of Polynesian people in the islands. Hawaiian women in general are stunningly attractive female creatures. I had the same observation about Philippine women when I visited the country in the 1980s. Were I unencumbered and all other things being equal I would be looking seriously at potential Polynesian mates.
Oahu has what has to be the best bus system in the country.
$1.50 (less if you purchase 4-day or monthly passes) takes you over pretty much
anywhere you need to go in Oahu. This is not a system that stops at the city
edge of Honolulu -- it takes you on pretty much any decent sized road on the
island, including obscure towns on the far northern and western shores fifty or
more miles away. Called simply “The Bus”, the fleet is modern and clean.
Express buses with limited stops speed your way into the city.
What surprised me coming from DC is that everyone embraces
the system. This is not a system for poor and lower income people only. Everyone
from the lawyers to the maids take the bus. You can live without a car in Oahu
and not feel particularly at a disadvantage.
As tourists we thought we’d find using the system a bit
cumbersome. But it isn’t. Free maps are at all the local McDonalds
restaurants. We found a guidebook at an ABC store for $5 that showed how to get
to all the major attractions using the bus. This worked well because we didn’t
rent a car the whole time we stayed in Oahu and it was quite easy to find our
way to places we wanted to go. Many buses have clear signs inside the bus
telling you what is at the next stop, including local places of business and
hotels. In addition many of the buses have electronic voices that announce
upcoming stops.
It was a pleasure to ride the bus. Those with bicycles are
not inconvenienced. At the front of every bus is a bike rack. Just place your
bike there and take it off when you disembark. The buses were often crowded but
only rarely did we have to stand up. Moreover every bus we took ran to its
schedule, and buses came by constantly on Kuhio Avenue, near where we stayed. It
was unusual to wait more than two minutes for a bus.
Given the density of the city the bus system is an obvious
choice. But even if you wanted to own a car it doesn’t offer much of an
advantage. You can get to most places just as quickly on the bus.
If Hawaii can do it I don’t see why all sorts of cities can’t make a bus system so easy to use and so universally accepted.
No doubt you have heard that living in Hawaii is expensive.
Food is clearly more expensive, since most of it is shipped in. Hawaii depends
on shipping for its survival. I’m guessing our grocery bill would be 50%
higher (or more) if we lived in Hawaii. Restaurant prices were somewhat more
expensive than around Northern Virginia, but not prohibitively so. I suspect
restaurant prices are artificially inflated in the tourist areas.
Housing prices did not seem out of line. Looking through
the paper I noticed apartments were going between $800-$1200 a month. That’s
about what we pay for an apartment around here. However the medium income in
Hawaii is considerably lower than it is here in Northern Virginia. I was told it
was around $30,000. Considering all the low-wage workers in Waikiki (and in
perhaps much of the Islands) that would make affording basic housing a real
challenge for many residents. I don’t see living there as something
unaffordable for someone like myself in a professional white-collar job,
providing I could maintain close to the salary I am currently making.
Perusing he real estate ads I learned I could buy a house
similar to what I own now for the value of my current house, or less. However
there is a big catch. You don’t usually “own” the land your house sits on.
Large companies purchased most of the land when the state was just a territory.
Instead you negotiate long term 25, 50 or 99-year leases to occupy the land your
house sits on. This would, I think, depreciate the value of a house. In addition
the lots would likely be much smaller, and the same would be true I think of the
house size.
There is not a whole lot of new land that can be developed.
Much of the island is too “vertically challenged” to be turned into housing
at any price. Much of the rest can’t be turned into land for development
because of political pressures. This leads to the usual solution: build up. Tear
down the three-story building and put up in its place a 30-story building full
of condominiums. If we were to retire there I would think we’d probably buy a
condominium. It is much more practical and I’m betting the single family homes
don’t turn over ownership that often.
So don’t dismiss Hawaii as a place to live as unaffordable. I think it’s doable and once you see the islands it might be hard to resist the lure of living there. I learned from one of our tour operators that the population is stabilizing. Native Hawaiians are actually leaving the country in greater numbers than new people are arriving (perhaps because they can’t afford to live there and hold relatively low wage jobs). Tourism, while good, is flat.