By this point in my life I’d flown enough to have seen the world through a wider lens than afforded on a car trip. I’d seen the tree tops, fields and mountains from an airplane window, but flying to an island, looking out the window and seeing effectively what looked like nothing was an eye opening experience. Water is pretty featureless from 35,000 feet. Just black as far in all directions as you can see. It really drove home the reality of how huge the ocean is, and the world by extension and how small we are in comparison. There is a lot to see out there and I was seeing a small bit of it for the first time.
After five hours of the featureless, blackness our
destination appeared as a disruption to the nothingness on the horizon. The earth started to poke its rocky, tree
covered dermis forth from the water. The
black water started to turn to dark blue giving away to ever lighter hues of
blue. The outline of the land looked
like the piping of a sofa cushion in a contrasting white. At first I could see miles of coastline and could
see it curve back towards the horizon, a clue this coastline is not just one
long continental edge. This was indeed
an island surrounded by water. Contrasted
against the clear blue sky and illuminated by the tropical sun were massive
bleached white billowy clouds hanging over the land. The earth rose up as the 747 slowly
descended, the foam of wave caps became apparent, and the narrow white island
boarder revealed itself to be beaches which grew wider and merged with the aqua
and sapphire waters. In some spots I
could see into the water and I strained to see anything remarkable, but saw
nothing below the surface. On the
surface though were a few sailboats. I
was in Hawaii!
Exotically Different
The air was thick and warm and we were overdressed. In our pass riding attire there was no
disguising we were tourist. All we
needed was a camera hanging around our necks and map in our hand. I figured the locals were the ones in shorts,
sandals and floral short sleeve shirts.
A much more practical wardrobe.
I’d never see so many flowery shirts in my life.
My father hailed a cab outside of baggage claim, we piled
in, my father up front, me, my sister, and mom in the back. I had a window seat and took every advantage
of it. My head turning left to right, up
and down as we made our way from the airport to the Waikiki area of Honolulu. Honolulu, on the island of Oahu and the
capital of Hawaii, was not initially what I expected a tropical land to look
like but it was vastly different compared to where I was half a day ago in Maryland. The oaks were replaced by palm trees, there
were scrubs with huge colorful flowers and all this was intermixed with a busy
metropolis filled with cars, trucks, buildings and people. While it wasn’t the tropical jungles I
thought I’d be seeing it was all very exciting and I was filled with the anticipation
of what else there was to see and experience.
I do like different and variety.
Even in 1970 Waikiki, located on the south side of Oahu, was a collection of tall buildings, mostly hotels. Washington, DC was my primary reference for a large city with its sprawling open plazas, few tall buildings and architectural features that, well, looked as if they were all designed by one firm, in contrast Waikiki felt like a canyon. The towering hotels, closely packed together, made the street level shady and dark and the tropical trees and bushes that lined streets created the illusion of being in a jungle valley. The iconic images from post cards and travel brochures of white sand beaches and the dormant volcano Diamond Head were not apparent until you were actually on the beach.
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