Shopping on Oahu, Too

The Ala Moana Center in Honolulu is just down from Waikiki on the shore -- you can watch the surf while you eat at Bubba Gump's or other restaurants on the sea side of the mall.It has a large interior courtyard and the walkways are open to the sky. It's just the place to pick up a trifle from Prada or Chanel or Montblanc or Jimmy Choo. It has every high-end retailer you can think of and lots of mid-range stores, too.It is fully bilingual - Japanese/English. The mall brochures and signs are all in both languages. There are shopping shuttles for Japanese tourists.

But, earlier I said there were two stores we used when we first moved here. One was Wal-mart and the other was Sears. That's where we got the inflatable bed that kept us from the tile floor for far too long (that will be a later post). For now, it is enough to mention that Sears is at the Ala Moana Center and it has everything from inflatable beds/sheets/pillows to electronics for prices that are fairly close to the mainland and you don't have to pay shipping. There is a hefty delivery charge, though, which accounts for the story of how our television got a cab ride home. (later!)

There are Costco and Sam's Club and Home Depot for big-box stores. There are also some outlet stores on the west side of the island. We passed them when going to the coast on a hiking expedition. Since we have furnished our little studio without a car, we haven't ventured that far in search of supplies.

It's Raining!

I heard the rain this morning in my sleep and was very happy I could just turn over and go back to sleep. Later, the actual rain stopped and the air held a light mist, like a plant mister was spraying the whole town. For lunch, we walked to a new pub that is just opened. It's somewhat like Connor O'Neil's but smaller.

I think Hawaii is headed for a rainy season. My pay stub this week had the following notice typed on the bottom in capital letters:

(I took some pictures on campus Thursday and Friday that I'm going to just randomly add to this post because they're pretty and it's hard to take pictures of rain with an iPhone.)

"Hurricane season ends in a few weeks and Hawaii's rainy season begins. The potential for earthquakes, tsunamis, and other natural and man-made hazards is always with us. When disaster strikes Hawaii's people, I may call upon you to help the victims. During or following a disaster, every state employee is considered a civil defense worker and may be assigmed response or recovery duties. Linda Lingle, Governor."

The notice makes me wonder about the uniform for civil defense workers. I'm thinking they'll issue me a Smokey the Bear hat, small camping shovel and maybe cammo flip flops. I'm unclear as to whether it will involve a lei, but that is possible. Every public event seems to involve floral neckware.

So, the past two days have been glorious. Thursday and Friday were golden!It's raining again now as I prepare for sleep -- nice, steady rain, not the plant mister or quick blast from a fire hose kinds of rain I told you about earlier. It's fun to be in a place with different kinds of rain. No thunder or lightening so far, just different manners of water falling from the sky.

Asian Influences

The stone lions standing guard at the East West Center are a gift from China. Along East-West Road, there are several installations given as gifts from Asian nations. Behind this large hall is a Japanese garden with a stream and large, colorful fish.



And a traditional tea house still used for tea ceremonies.

There are more photos of the Japanese garden on my Facebook page.

Link

Between the East West Center and the Center for Korean Studies is a Tibetan sala.
It's just a pretty place to sit to talk or meditate or wait out the rain.
The Center for Korean Studies is modeled on a palace. The Hawaii Peace Memorial celebrates the contributions of Japanese workers and residents to the state.There are other cool installations on campus and many Asian influences. These are just the ones I passed on my way to the credit union from my office. There was also a cool bamboo grove near the Japanese garden. There is a new shoot in front that looks like a spear. I guess those are the things pandas like to munch on.

Trees and New Leaves

It is autumn but the palm trees here are all sprouting new leaves. The new leaves look like a stick in the middle of the plant -- like an Alfalfa cowlick in a head of hair (random My Gang reference).Although there are lots of different kinds of palm trees -- or at least they look really different to me (the non-biologist) -- all of them seem to sprout new leaves the same way.The stick is actually just a leaf rolled up really tight. It unfurls like a flag or umbrella as it matures.
The new leaves are often a lighter green or shinier than the others for awhile.

This is an interesting palm I walked by on the way to meet my ride-share this morning. it doesn't seem to be sprouting a new leaf but, judging from all the others, it should soon.

Time Zone Tuesday

This view of Diamond Head is from the third floor of Sakamaki outside the room where I have class on Tuesday afternoons. All Tuesday afternoon. For six and a half hours. In a row. In the same room. It seemed like such a good idea when I was trying to fit a job around my class schedule.

OK, back to the time. Hawaii has its own time zone (in more ways than one). Hawaiian Standard Time is the official time that is four hours behind Colorado right now. When it is noon in Boulder, it's 8 am here. The state does not observe daylight savings, so the time here will not change next month. But it is getting dark earlier. You can see the setting sun reflecting off the building at the bus stop tonight after class.
The other kind of time here is referred to as "Hawaiian time." It pretty much means "We'll start when everyone is ready." It could also be referred to as "Island time" since it is common across populations. When you refer to "Hawaiian" here it means the ethnic group indigenous to the islands, not all the people who live in the state. Those people are "locals" or "kamaaina".This is the view of downtown Honolulu from campus. It's about three miles from the UH campus in Manoa to downtown. On Tuesdays, I catch the bus from campus to downtown and then change to the Kailua bus. It takes about an hour to get from campus to home, which is close to the time it took to get from CU to Gunbarrel by bus except here I'm going across the island and through the mountains.

Fresh Fruit

According to Rick the biology major, this is a Noni fruit. We walked by it this morning on the way to meet my ride-share. There were several of them nice and low so I could get a picture.

They were in the front yard of a house in the neighborhood I walk through. Other houses had lemons, tangerines and a tree I thought had oranges but Rick thought had grapefruit. They were much too tall for me to take a picture of without a zoom, which doesn't yet come with the iPhone. People bring fruit from their yards in to the office all the time. So far, I've gotten tangerines, little bananas and guavas (which I wasn't sure how to eat so I looked it up on the internet).

I sometimes think you could grow things here by just sitting in a field and thinking real hard about it. It is so different from Colorado's five-minute growing season. And things grow so big! This weekend we made guacamole from a large avocado Rick got at the Farmers Market and it was too much for us to finish -- one avocado made more than two people could eat. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture before I turned it into tasty mush.

This is the ripe papaya I bought at the Farmers Market on campus last Friday. It was Sunday breakfast before we went to the beach. The mango is next.

Big Trees, Weird Roots

The trees here are so amazing it will take several posts to describe them. I'm just going to show you two of them I walk past on the way to my office. They both have the weird root thing that is common here.
Not only are these roots huge, they look like they're trying to escape from the planter. Like these.
There are lots of these kinds of trees on campus. The other interesting tree looks like a haystack, except the roots are coming down from the tree not up from the ground.


And here's a picture of the bamboo trees that grow in the courtyard of Sakamaki Hall, the building where the philosophy department is housed. They are so graceful, they whisper as they slow dance with the wind.

(I know that's three trees and not two but I got carried away. The trees really freak me out.)

Sunday at Kailua Beach

It was cloudy today so the photos on the little iPhone are a little off. But it was a fabulous day at the beach.