Hawaii Diary
Wednesday, March 18 - Arrival
A trip to Hawaii from the east coast makes for a very long day indeed. My wife Eileen and I awakened at 4:00 a.m. local time in order to get to the airport in time for our 7:00 a.m. flight to Chicago and then onward to Honolulu.
The weather on the mainland continues to be very wet in great contrast to the drought conditions here in Hawaii. Today the rain back home and the fog in Chicago delayed both of our flights but otherwise our trip to Honolulu was uneventful. It always amazes me how much food United Airlines gives you on their flights to Hawaii. To their credit, the food quality on United seems to improve every year.
I had arranged for a lei greeting for Eileen at the airport and although I think she suspected it, she did enjoy it. As always, Honolulu International Airport continues to be one of the most flyer friendly airports in the United States. It is actually a pleasure to fly in and out of Honolulu.
We picked up our rental car and then it was on to the Hyatt Regency Waikiki Resort. After a couple of hours to rest up, it was off to dinner and a bit of shopping in Waikiki. The natural tendency is to "crash" when you finally arrive at your hotel and it would be very easy to fall asleep at 6:00 p.m., especially since if you live on the east coast, your body tells you it's actually 11:00 p.m.. The trick, however, if to stay awake, because if you fall asleep too early you will find yourself wide awake at 3:00 a.m..
The first thing that we noticed as we walked the streets of Wakiki is the noticeably fewer number of Japanese and other Asian tourists. I'm not saying that you won't see Japanese tourists. There are still plenty of them, but their numbers are much fewer than several years ago.
We decided to have dinner at the Royal Steak & Seafood in the Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center. On our last visit, this restaurant was teeming with patrons, mostly of Japanese origin. Tonight there were actually empty seats, and the majority of those dining were clearly non-Japanese. I spoke about this with our waiter during dinner as well as with the manager afterwards. Their restaurant clearly caters to Japanese tourists and they are suffering from the poor economy in Asia. The manager told me that he hears projections that if the slump continues at least 10% of all businesses that cater to Asian tourists will close in the next six months.
After dinner we wandered across the mall to one of our favorite stores in Hawaii - The Little Hawaiian Craft Shop.
Established in 1968 this store claims to have "the most extensive selection of genuine Hawaii-made collectibles crafted by the finest artisans in the islands and reasonably priced". From what we have seen,that claim seems to be pretty accurate. I spent quite a while talking to our salesperson as well as one of the owners about the benefits in establishing an independent Internet site for their store. There is big market our their for quality Hawaiian handicrafts that can be ordered via the Internet. We'll be doing a feature on this store in upcoming weeks.
On our way back to our hotel we stopped by The International Market for some shopping. This is always an exciting place to visit where you can find some nice buys on Hawaiian shirts and dresses. We found a really nice dress for Eileen tonight.
By this point, we were pretty beat so it was back to our hotel where I sit at 10:30 p.m. preparing this feature. Just think in a half hour I will have been awake for 24 hours.
Tomorrow it's off to the North Shore of O'ahu and then to the Polynesian Cultural Center. Stop by for tomorrow's report.
