Hawaiians love their spam. McDonald's is famous for serving a "spam burger". We don't have a McDonald's on the base, but we have a Burger king and they also serve a spam burger during the breakfast hours. I have yet to try it *shucks*.
While shopping at the commissary we found a wide selection of spam. It's pretty impressive.
While driving down Waikiki the other day, we happened upon the "Spam Jam". The traffic was really heavy through this part, so we couldn't pull over and park, but I got out of the car to get a few pictures (later I had to run up a few blocks to find Sam, who was driving the car. We've discovered that this is the best way to see Waikiki because traffic is so heavy: We put the car in park and switch drivers while the other person goes pee, or looks at a cute window shop. We have it down to a science. Anyway, back to Spam).
The "spam jam" wasn't as spam-esque as I would've hoped. There were only a few vendors selling spam cans and other spam paraphernalia. I did see a few spam specialties that had I been hungrier I might have tried. All of this spam reminded me of a well loved episode of Monty Python and the Flying Circus (this is for you dad!).
Today Sam and I participated in a "Mormon Helping Hands" service project. Stake members got up early (that is, the white folks got up early and the Samoans and other natives showed up an hour later) to pick up trash at Ke'ehi lagoon park. We can't complain because the Samoans brought the food.
Of course, picking up garbage reminded us of a Disney classic. I'd never heard it before I married Sam, so here you go. Let's say there was a lot of "booty shaking".
Our ward is made up of Hickam and Pearl Harbor members, so we don't have much "Polynesian flare". However the rest of the stake is made up Hawaiians and Samoans, so the service project was a great chance to interact more naturally with the "kama 'aina" or natives. A little something about Samoans: if it ever came down to a fist fight, they could totally beat me up. They are bulky and squat. Thankfully, they were very nice, very hospitable and took kindly to white mainlanders like me and Sam, who butted right in, ate their food and tried to speak Samoan (I'm exaggerating a little- we didn't eat ALL their food).
So, some observations:
- All of the men sat in one group and all of the women sat in another group. I'm not sure if that's a cultural thing or just how it turned out.
- Even though they brought all of the food, they filled up large to go boxes with food and fed all of the white folks first. They brought us napkins, refilled our drinks, and brought around trays with sweet breads. When I tried to help by passing out the drinks they looked at me funny and told me to sit down and eat my food- lovingly of course. Silly haole.
- They know how to eat. I felt like a missionary who's expected to eat everything or I'll offend someone. Lucky for me, I liked everything they offered. Also lucky for me, they handed out to go boxes so I could take my meal home.
- I need to get a lava-lava. It's a sarong wrap and men and women wear them, either alone, with jeans, or with shorts. They look cool and breezy.
The food:
- Imagine this: Freshly mashed pineapple and pineapple juice mixed with sweet milk and ice. I'm drooling thinking about it! I had three glasses of this stuff, it was sooooooo good. Not overly sweet. Very refreshing.
- Taro donuts. I grabbed what looked like a chocolate donut, only to bite into it and eat a purple sweet bread. Nope, it's not dyed, its made from Taro root. I had some of this stuff at the luau. It's very yummy when prepared as a mashed potato.
- Hot Chocolate rice. Boil the rice like normal, then add hot chocolate mix and a banana leaf- at least I think it was a banana leaf. It was something weird and unexpected. It tasted like hot chocolate but had something extra to it.
- Gravy dumpling: They called it a gravy, but it's not salty or savory like a gravy. It made me think of a sweet Thai sauce, thick and dark poured over dense biscuits. It had a nice ginger flavor to it.
- Fried pancake: It's just like it sounds. They drop pancake batter into a frier so that it looks more like a biscuit. I think they add more sugar to the batter because it tasted sweeter than normal pancake batter. I first thought it was fried chicken (think Chinese style fried chicken), but there's nothing inside it. You eat it plain without any sauce.
- Plantains dipped in a creamy sweet sauce. The sauce almost looked like mayonnaise, and there may have been some in it, but it was sweet. Maybe they used coconut milk. Either way it was sweet, but because they used plantains it wasn't too sweet. I really enjoyed it.
- Thick custard pies: really thick custard in pie filling.
- Gelatinous noodles mixed with veggies (but not ones I easily recognized), with meat chopped up fine. It had a nice ginger taste and reminded me of Chinese food.
We had a great time. It was just the cultural experience I've been itching for- not hokey or cliche. Some women told me to come over to their home and live like a Samoan. I said I'd love to, but I'd probably gain 50 pounds.
Our word of the day was Fa'afetai (thank you)!!
And Mahalo to you!
In an effort to appease my brother, who said the blog needs "more bums and less talk", I'm going to post more pictures. Sorry if I'm verbose, Chris- can't help it- but if you really want more pictures of "bums" then it's Annie's husband you need to talk to, not mine :)
I don't have the pictures for the USS Arizona ready yet, so instead of talking about Pearl Harbor, you'll get pictures from the Temple and the Polynesian Cultural Center (PCC).
We woke up early on Saturday and drove the hour along H2 (an aside, there are three main freeways on the island: H1, H2, and H3) to the North Shore. The North Shore is where it's at!!! Much less congested and more native in feel. I can't wait to get back, try some BBQ and get in the ocean.
Here are some views from the way up.
We went to a session at the temple in the morning. It's a gorgeous temple, called the "Taj Mahal of the Pacific". It was built in the 1860s.
We spent 9 hours at the PCC and could've spent more doing the activities. I think the PCC is worth the trip and expense. It's family friendly with things to interest adults and kids. Our package included a luau, so we sat at long tables with other guests and ate buffet style food. We got to eat a salmon salsa (not my favorite), Poi (really good- a purple root), Kalua pork, gelatinous chicken noddles, Hawaiian jerky (really good!), and pineapple sherbet desserts. We met a couple vacationing from Ecuador and another couple from Guatemala.
If you don't want to spend the whole day doing the island activities, the theatrical production of HA: Breath of Lifeis a good way to end the day.Ha is a Maori word, and Maori is the name of the natives on Aotearoa (what we call New Zealand). I was worried it would be overly dramatic and cheesy, but it was less about acting and more about dancing and theatrical stunts, which was great. The finale is the best part, with fire dancers spinning flaming batons- it's a lot cooler than it sounds, I promise!
The Samoans
The Aotearoans
The Tahitians
(Tahitian dancing is bad-A and I want to learn how!)
Last Sunday at church we were delighted to hear the bishop get up at the pulpit and say "Aloha", to which the congregation answered aloha back. When they say it like that people draw out the "o", so it sounds more like I wrote it. Hopefully, you'll play along and whenever I say "Aloha", you'll say aloha back to me.
Sam and I caved and rented a car from the on-base rental agency. We may have severed off our arms with a blunt spoon to pay for it, but it was well worth the $ just to have a way around the island.
Military members have the option of living on or off base, but most people we've talked to say it's better to live on base. The air force pays you enough money to live off base, but it takes so much time and gas to commute you ending up paying a lot more than you bargained for. We found that out for ourselves when we decided to go for a "quick" drive last night. Unfortunately, the Medford-ites that we are, we hit the freeway at 4:30, right at rush-hour traffic. This is a taste of what we encountered.
And in case you were wondering, this street is not pronounced "likee-likee", but "leekeh-leekeh". We were stuck in front of this sign long enough I decided to take a picture of it.
As part of Sam's inprocessing- sorry, PCSing- we had the chance to take a tour around Honolulu.
We got to see the Punchbowl, Diamond head, Waikiki, and my personal favorite Nu'unau Pali "cool heights cliff". I'll have more pictures of Waikiki and the Punchbowl latter, but for now I want to share Nu'uanu Pali and Diamond Head.
Nu'uanu Pali is part of the Ko'olau Moutains, one of the only traversable parts. It's famous as being the site where King Kamehameha secured control of O'ahu, by driving the opposing army off of the cliff (pali means cliff). Trade winds funnel into this valley creating a sort of wind tunnel. Something about the wind, the slight chill, and sheer cliffs reminded me of the Oregon coast- maybe that's why I liked it so much.
I wish I could say that I took this picture, but I actually found it on google. I wanted to give you an idea of what the cliff looked like.
Diamond Head is on the more southeast side of the island, not far from Waikiki. It snakes over to Hanauma Bay, famous for it's snorkeling, waves, and because Elvis Presley made a movie there. We didn't get to see it because was closed (sorry!). Diamond Head is a pretty spot for body surfing, wind surfing, and actual surfing. We kept our feet on ground and out of the water because of the tour, but the water called our name and I'm sure we'll be back.
In my next post I'll share some pictures of Historic Pearl Harbor, including the USS Bowfin and the USS Arizona.
Before I left for Hawaii I knew that I wanted to start a blog. I also knew I would name the blog something along the lines of "beach bums". Little did I know how appropriate that title would be.
I'm not sure what living in Hawaii is like- at least not yet- but I can tell you a little of what it is like to live on an air force base in Hawaii: it's pretty sweet.
But I'm getting a little ahead of myself. First things first, the arrival.
DAY 1
If you have ever seen two guys in uniform walking through an airport terminal holding up a bright pink sign glued with heart shape pictures of your face, then you can imagine our reception at the Honolulu airport. If you haven't, then it looked something like this.
We found out later that this was the "rate G" version. The "PG-13" picture was taped in plain sight at Sam's shop. They cut and pasted a picture of Sam's face on that of a sexy looking man being hugged and smooched by another sexy looking man. Sam's face was a particularly nice shade of red with that one (sorry I don't have a picture!).
All ice broken, we began the long, drawn-out, and completely helter-skelter process of "in-processing" (or if you are cool "PCS-ing"). Imagine
processing with a government entity (think DMV) on Hawaiian island time and you'll get an idea for how efficient in-processing is. It's a little frustrating sometimes, but as my father so aptly reminded me "If that's the price you pay for living in Hawaii, then you can deal with it". Some more words of wisdom from the pops.
Sam and I are living in Temporary Housing until a home opens up. Thankfully our room is more like an apartment than a hotel, so we are doing
fine as far as that goes.
DAY 3
It became very apparent within the first few days that unless we had a bicycle or car that Sam and I wouldn't be able to do or see very much of anything. Our car should take anywhere between 2-4 weeks to arrive, so we started out by looking for bicycle rentals. NOTHING. Amazingly, Hickam AFB doesn't have any bicycle rental options, which really is silly in my humble opinion. We finally found out about a wonderful place called "the airman's attic" located on the exact opposite side of the base. Early Saturday morning Sam and I started the long trek across the base to the airman's attic, where we waited another hour for it to open. The waiting paid off because we found a free bike (!) and another for $45. We left feeling like champions on our new set of wheels. We aren't going to win the Tour de France anytime soon, but it gets us around.
Later that day we rode our new bicicletas to Mamala Bay, the on-base beach. It's beach access for military members only, so it's not crowded. The waves are gentle, so it's a great place to try out paddle boarding, kayaking, or to just swim around. We rented a paddle board for an hour and found that it's not too hard, but it takes some getting used to. You have to bend your knees and grip with your toes; it also requires upper body strength to propel yourself and to turn.
We left the beach exhausted after our long day of walking, biking, and swimming, not to mention a whole lot of sun...speaking of which, I got my first killer sunburn. Killer because it really hurt. I lathered sunscreen on my face, arms and shoulders but completely neglected my legs. Wa-wa-waaaa. Learned my lesson.
There's a lot more to write, but I want to avoid information overload.
Please, please, PLEASE, write and tell me the things you want to know about. What are you interested in reading?
