Welcome to Hawaii

Photo: iStock

Buildings pop up like tourists wearing tacky aloha shirts.  Shops come and go like the trade winds, but somehow ABC stores never close.   Traffic is part of keeping Hawaiian time--there's no wonder the speed limit is 45, but the feeling of stepping off the plane and walking in the warm, open air to the baggage claim is unmistakable. 

            I became a resident of Hawaii nearly 20 years ago, when my family moved to Honolulu from Dallas.  I was a naive middle-school kid with a very thick Texan accent and nothing to lose.  On my first day of school, I wore what Texans would consider a very stylish outfit: a red-white-and-blue sweater, a red ruffled skirt, and white Keds with white socks.  I checked into my first class and surveyed the extremely casual attire of the other kids in my class.  I quickly learned that a t-shirt, shorts, and “slippers” (or flip-flops, as mainlanders call them) are the only things you really need in your wardrobe.  Socks are particularly unheard of in this tropical paradise.   Whenever I spoke in class, my classmates would wrinkle their eyebrows, wondering why I looked local but spoke like I was from the mainland.  After school, kids left their slippers and bags in the hallway and walked around the outdoor campus barefoot.  On that first day of school, I made a futile attempt to fit in by taking off my shoes and walking around in my clean white socks.  It took me a full year to rid myself of my wardrobe and Texan accent, but since then I discovered myself and became a true island girl.

            Island fever can mean two very different things.  To some, it means you suffer from a kind of middle-of-the-ocean claustrophobia--you just can’t stand being in a tiny island chain that is far from a large mass of land.  If you suffer from this type of island fever, Hawaii is not the place for you.  The other kind of island fever is the kind I suffer from: I miss Hawaii when I’m gone and still miss it when I’m there.  For me and many like myself, you can never get enough of Hawaii and even when you’re there you wish you could give it a bear hug and soak up all of its beauty.

            Since making Hawaii my home, I’ve spent countless hours flying to and from Honolulu.  I know the taste of my tears, but no matter how difficult it is to leave it’s always so great to be back.  In this material world we live in, I find myself all over again when I return to Hawaii.  The locals here are completely happy in their tropical bubble--as they should be--and we thrive on tourism to keep our economy going. 

            Although small, Hawaii has so much to offer that even a lifetime wouldn’t uncover its infinite beauty.  Each island has its unique flavor.  The pot of gold is found in the Rainbow State.  Hop on over to the "Rock" and see.

FACT BOX:

•   More than half of Hawaii’s 1.25 million live in Honolulu.

•   “Hawaii” is the collective name of the Hawaiian islands together.  It is also the other name for the Big Island.  Honolulu, however, is not located on the Big Island.  Honolulu is a city on the island of O’ahu.

•   Extremely casual attire, clothes designed for the year-round tropical climate, is the only type of dress on the Hawaiian islands. 

•   “Slippers” are the only footwear necessary to fit in like a local.  Sneakers are things that only runners wear or guys use to get into nice clubs.  Socks are obsolete; it’s better to just go barefoot.