Hawaii
islands are a beautiful speck in the Pacific ocean – half way between North
America and Japan which is far enough. Enchanted by legends of Hawaiian climate
and nature, I could not miss the opportunity and challenge offered by a major
congress organized jointly by the American and Japanese Chemical Societies in
Honolulu, Island of Oahu. I was to present our first
paper on “Uranium and thorium removal by
biosorption”.
Serendipity
- Nuclear Mishap
Little
did I know that a nuclear reactor of a power plant close to Philadelphia would
go out of control and close to a melt-down just at that time. As a result,
thousands of gallons of radioactive water flooded the containment basement of
the plant. When the media discovered the
title of my presentation at the conference, I had journalists jumping all over
me. Of course, there may be quite some gap between discovery research and the
application of it. I tried to explain what I could and – it was interesting and
overwhelming. What a serendipity !
And
this was how I found myself in Hawaii. While
I was talking my way through the conference, my wife Zuzana was already enjoying
the Waikiki beach. Yes, Hawaii is beautiful.
As it happened, I had to take a deep breath there several times. In
between though, we took some time off trying to take in as much as we could of
the breathtaking scenery. There are
“different people” living in Hawaii – many of them native Hawaiian, Japanese
and a selection from the US mainland. After all, it is the USA's 51st state and that comes with the US Dollar, skyscrapers, cars and hamburgers too.Pearl Harbor
It was interesting to notice how the Japanese tourists traveled all the way to Hawaii – arriving on Japanese airlines' jumbo-jets, booked into Japanese hotels, eating in Japanese restaurants, they really never left Japan !

it was weird to notice that the tourist boat we took was full of Japanese tourists listening to the narration about the treacherous surprise Japanese attack that sparked the US entry into the horrors of World War 2.
The Island of Maui

Right after the conference, we left Honolulu and the main island of Oahu to spend some time exploring a more quiet island of Maui where we relaxed snorkeling in the sunshine. We could not resist a driving trip around the island taking the scenic and rugged Hana road to the volcanic crater of Haleakala, crossing the bridge into the “unrecommended” terrain section at the Seven Sacred Pools >>


I never stood in a crater before - at least not knowingly. Following some climbing (Haleakala top is 3,055 m), there we were in the midst of it.
I suppose that a good thing was that Haleakala was friendly extinct, despite the raging inferno of Mauna Kea (4,205 m) close by on the neighbor (Hawaii) Big Island that we did not manage to visit.

Sinuses
All has its end – but I still had not done any surfing. And is it not what they do in Hawaii ? Oh yes, I have watched the surfers there carefully and with admiration. I had to try it -
Our flight was departing rather late on our last day – and back on Waikiki I managed to rent a surf board and paddled it for a not-so-killing surf spot out away from the beach, decent rollers all around me. Paddled and paddled – until I caught a good wave to take me back to the beach. Of course that I could not stand up and so I just hung onto the board kneeling, gaining speed with the wave. In that position one cannot really steer the board and so I just hung on it for dear life – and took another hawaiian deep breath as its bow started dipping, slicing off a mighty layer of water that streamed right into my nose. I thought that it must have been coming right out of my ears then. I held on and suffered it not wanting to give up that precious proud ride. Then the wave broke, rolled over me and I was in what felt like Niagara Falls of soda water – that, fortunately, hissed away as it spat me out.
Thoroughly confused, I struggled to the shore over a bed of razor sharp corals, looking for the board that I eventually located as it bobbed in the tidal pool, way in the distance.

We even managed to catch our flight.
I have to bashfully admit that the stream of sea-water that came out of my nose as I bent over to lift our carry-on luggage was mighty embarrassing. I would have never believed that sinuses could hold it for so long and so much of it. No doubt, my brain must have been then thoroughly washed too –
That
I did not write enough about the legendary Hawaii ? Well, I think that there is enough relevant writing
by many travel agencies, individual travel writers and such. From my thinning memory, I just set out to record
a couple of remaining images of my own for posterity. So there -
Aloha
!
● And what do they eat in Hawaii ?
Like this plate
lunch of lau
lau, kalua
pork, lomi lomi salmon, poi, haupia, and rice >>
Hawaii cuisine
It incorporates five distinct styles of food reflecting the diverse food history of settlement and immigration in the Hawaiian Islands: Polynesian, Native Hawaiian, European and American cuisine, and eventually New England cuisine brought by Christian missionaries and whalers. Immigrant workers from China, Korea, Japan, the Philippines, and Portugal arrived in Hawaii, introducing their new foods and influencing the region. A blend of cuisines formed a "local food" style unique to Hawaii, resulting in plantation foods like the plate lunch, snacks like Spam musubi, and dishes like the loco moco – all together forming a new fusion cuisine as of recent.
No comments:
Post a Comment