Steve Jenson's blog

More on Hawaii. Waikiki, where we stayed, is a study in crass commercialism. All but 2 of Hawaii's hotels are stuffed in this neighborhood less than a mile square. It's sweltering hot while the rest of the island is temperate because all of the skyscrapers block the trade winds. It's clogged with affluent tourists, scam artists, and bad restaurants. A mostly polyester aloha shirt cost me 35$. Without a decent guidebook, you're screwed if you want to find a good place to eat. Luckily, our guide book pointed us to a nice place where I had a jerk chicken chimichanga and last night we ate at a great italian place which had some hawaiian flavor to it; pineapple juice with our neopolitan pizza and a grapefruit dressing on our insalata.

I guess it's not much different than staying in SF near Union Square. It's not that hard to find bad parts of San Francisco either. It's not hard to think SF's a dump if you live in crappy neighborhoods like Soma or the human-waste filled little Tijuana known as the Mission. At least you can get a good meal in the mission unlike Union Square.

I had a really good time in Hawaii, actually. If I were to go back, it'd probably be after I learned to drive and we'd rent a house on the north side of the island, where good sand and good mountains are nearby. And not a Chili's in sight.

We took some tours around the island, learned some history, and met some really nice natives. The driver for our second tour laughed when somebody honked their horn at us on the freeway: "What? Where are you in a hurry to go? It's an island, you just drive around in circles."