Category Attractions

Iolani Palace: The Only Royal Palace in the United States

June 8, 2015 Comments Off read Attractions, Everything is Terrible, Hawaii, Pacific, Travel, USA, West

How dare these people spelling-shame the king like that?

Iolani Palace is gorgeous, full of history, and its restoration is a testament to the dedication and artisanship of the people who devoted their time to the project. Unfortunately, the tour experience is less well-designed.

When I arrived, I parked on the street outside; this turns out to be the wrong place as you’re supposed to park inside the gates. The parking lot signs inside the gates indicate that you need to have a government pass or pay or you’ll be towed–the woman working at the gift shop insisted that it was free to park for everyone. The hours for self-guided and docent-led tours vary wildly from day to day which means that if you specifically want to take one type of tour or the other, you need to plan your day around your visit. As it turned out, on the date and time of my visit, they were only having the more expensive docent-led tours. After I ponied up, I was directed to go watch a video about the history of the palace and its royalty, but the video was timed as such that I had to leave before it was over in order to make my tour time, which would be such an easy thing to fix considering they know exactly how long the film is and exactly when each tour group leaves. And then there was the docent.

The quality of every docent tour is dependent on the quality of the docent and in a deeply unfortunate turn of events, I hated mine almost immediately, which is rare for me. If someone wants to talk about something they know and are passionate about, I want to hear it. I always want to hear it. I’ll stand there and listen and suck it all in like a sponge. I loathed this woman. Deeply. And the feeling appeared to be mutual. She talked down to the people in the tour group. She yelled at Jason when the back of his shirt brushed against the wall for “leaning on the wall”. She yelled at me for walking out of a room in front of her when she’d just asked us to proceed back out into the hallway. Wildly inconsistent, sometimes she did have us leave the room before her, toying with us like the world’s pettiest tyrant. She talked about the bus system on Oahu and how her job pays for her bus pass. She talked about current politics. She talked about personal interactions she’d had with other tour groups. When we chanced to happen by another tour group, I was incensed to discover that group was actually getting to learn something rather than being scolded like puppies who piddled on the rug.

So much happened here: It had electricity and telephones before the White House! The monarchy was crippled and later overthrown in a massive betrayal by the Queen’s foreign advisers! The Queen was imprisoned in one of its rooms! It was turned into a government building, all of its exquisite and rare koa wood was completely painted over, the place got riddled with termites, and it was almost razed! The furnishings were all sold and had to be reacquired piecemeal and restored to its original condition! So tell people about that, because if they’re visiting this site, they should know what’s been done to Iolani Palace, what’s been done to the monarchs who resided there, what’s been done to Hawaii. This is the site to impress upon people those weighty histories. As it stands, I learned more from five minutes of video than I did in the entirety of my tour, which is a sad shame. So maybe save the bus pass talk for bunko night.

Kualoa Ranch: Home of the World-Famous Stick

June 1, 2015 1 Comment read Attractions, Hawaii, Movies, Pacific, The Great Outdoors, Travel, USA, West

Before our trip to Oahu, I spent some time researching different things we could see and do, which ultimately led to this conversation. “Honey! There’s a ranch that you can tour and see the famous log from Jurassic Park!” “So you’re telling me that we’re going to fly six hours to go see a stick?” “…yes.” There’s more to Kualoa Ranch than their stick. I opted to take their movie site bus tour, which runs about 90 minutes and was the least strenuous of their tour options, which was unfortunately a consideration because I somehow managed to get sick on vacation again. The worst was behind me so I wasn’t creating a plague bus ground zero situation, but I definitely wasn’t up to anything more difficult than sitting on my ass and listening to someone talk. Luckily, the tour bus driver was serving up exactly what I was looking for, telling us about the history of the ranch, local flora and fauna, movie and TV info, and the occasional joke. The movie stuff was actually the least interesting part of the tour, which I never would have anticipated. While we drove to the first stop of the tour, the bus driver told us about Hawaiian land divisions, or ahupua’a. Land divisions would be determined by a chief, and they would generally go in a wedge shape from the mountain all the way to the water, encompassing all the land in between. In this way, not only did each land division contain all of the things that were needed to survive (and thrive), but it was also ensured that the land was being worked to its greatest potential. Hawaiians didn’t believe in owning land, rather, they were its caretakers. Land divisions were not private ownership, but they did share similarities–each land division would stay in care of the same family, passed down from one generation to the next. Those who cared for the land paid taxes back to the overseer, whose job was to collect goods to support the chief. It’s my understanding that Kualoa Ranch comprises the land that was once a land division. In 1850, an American doctor bought the land from King Kamehameha III. Since then, the land has been home to a sugar plantation, been occupied by the US military during World War II, and is now a cattle ranch, farm, movie site location, and tourist destination. Our first stop on the tour was at one of those World War II bunkers, built and abandoned by the military and reappropriated by Kualoa Ranch to display movie posters and other memorabilia. The bus driver warned us about the wind before we exited the bus, and I still almost lost my hat–I think the only thing that saved it was it getting momentarily caught in the rat’s nest I call my hair which gave me enough time to reach up and grab it. Much like the Pali Lookout and the Vista House at Crown Point, you could conceivably be blown away if you caught the wind just right.

It wasn’t the wind that took my breath away, though. Look at that gorgeous water! After we finished walking through the bunker and gawking at the view, we re-boarded the bus and drove into the valley. On the way, we saw some of Kualoa’s pipi (cows, but pipi is a much cuter name), a wild boar, and a native duck that is now endangered which the bus driver says is a tragedy because it’s supposedly delicious, which may or may not help to explain its endangered status.

One more curve in the road, and we were in the Kualoa valley, filming location for dozens of movies and home to one famous stick in particular.

There it is, in all its glory! Granted, it’s deteriorated somewhat in the intervening years since 1993, and you could basically throw down any log and tell me it’s the one from the movie and I’d believe you, but I wasn’t going to miss the opportunity to pose with it anyway. Because have you really lived if you went to see a famous stick but didn’t then pose with the stick and maybe photoshop a few dinosaurs into it later? I would venture to say you haven’t.

After reboarding the bus, we saw some of the tracks from Godzilla (don’t get excited, it was from the Matthew Broderick one)–they had to fill them in substantially because the pipi were falling in at night and getting trapped. We also saw Hurley’s golf course from Lost, and a bunch of stuff from movies that didn’t crack 20% on Rotten Tomatoes.

On our way back to the visitor center, we stopped at a spot with a beautiful view of Kamehameha’s Turtle and Mokoli’i, and then we were released and given the run of the ranch–to check out their petting zoo, pat horses, view their educational video, and (of course), press a penny or two. I made sure to do everything, and while their petting zoo was far from the world’s most exciting, I did greatly enjoy their tree goats. And I’ll always make time for horse snuffles.

The stick may have been what brought me to Kualoa, but if I’m on Oahu again, I’d totally go back. The zipline tour looks fun, and I have it on good authority that the ATV tour is so fun it might make you pee a little. So maybe I’ll pack an extra pair of underwear, too.

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Swimming with Sharks on Oahu’s North Shore

May 27, 2015 1 Comment read Attractions, Hawaii, Pacific, The Great Outdoors, Travel, USA, West

Quint: What are you? Some kind of half-assed astronaut? Jesus H Christ, when I was a boy, every little squirt wanted to be a harpooner or a sword fisherman. What d’ya have there – a portable shower or a monkey cage? Hooper: Anti-shark cage. Quint: Anti-shark cage. You go inside the cage? Cage goes in the water, you go in the water. Shark’s in the water. Our shark. …Farewell and adieu to you, fair Spanish ladies. Farewell and adieu, you ladies of Spain. For we’ve received orders for to sail back to Boston. And so nevermore shall we see you again.

It was all well and good to say that I was going to go diving with sharks, add it to my list, find a place that does it, and make a reservation. The entire time leading up to the shark dive, I was nothing but excited. Then, about 24 hours out, I began to have second thoughts. Maybe it was the fact that they had to cancel and reschedule earlier in the week due to very rough water. Maybe it’s that I expected my snorkel to just give out at a critical juncture. Maybe it’s that I heard that there was a great white shark spotted in the area earlier. It’s one thing to know that sharks are not interested in eating humans on an intellectual level, but that knowledge didn’t do much to calm down the anxious monkey brain that kept insisting that going out of my element into a predator’s element was wrongwrongwrong.

I spent most of the night before quietly panicking instead of sleeping. Whatever it was, my imagination began working overtime, envisioning all of the various ways I could Mr. Magoo myself over the side of the boat and into a shark’s mouth. Or maybe a shark jumping straight out of the water and into the boat, because my fears aren’t limited to things that could actually happen. The most ludicrous scenario seems possible at 3am.

The next morning, we checked in to North Shore Shark Adventures, and my stomach was still tied in knots. The three mile ride into the almost unbelievably blue international waters (where sharks are no longer bound by man’s laws) didn’t do much to quell my nerves. The boat lurched on the waves, and I white-knuckled a bar while the crew joked about what to do in case of emergency (“Go up top, call the coastguard, and say “mayday, mayday, it happened again”). Pardon me, I’ll just be over here, weeping with fear, because right now, going over the side doesn’t feel all that implausible. They divided us into groups and asked if we’d be interested in having them film our experience. I’d purchased an underwater camera with video prior to the trip, so I figured I’d film it myself, plus I didn’t really need any outside video evidence of my pale corpulent self fear barfing into my snorkel, even if it would make for an excellent holiday greeting card shot.

The cage itself is moored out in the ocean for the day, rather than being hauled back and forth for each tour. I was placed in group two, which gave me a little more time to try and chill out. They told us to pay careful attention to how we get in and out of the cage, as it’s one of the only points during the tour where you could actually get hurt. Not from a shark patrolling the area and determining where the humans are most vulnerable, but from the possibility of a part of your body getting mashed between the boat and the cage by the waves. I was going to have to do this glassesless, with my vision further obscured by the snorkel mask, and those things did not serve to decrease my fear and feelings of vulnerability. Having never seen the cage in its entirety nor the locations of its handholds, after I backed down the ladder into the water, I froze. I didn’t want to just blindly reach out my hand into potential shark snackville. One of the tour guys barked at me to get off the ladder and let the next person down, and yelled at Jason to come get me. Eventually Jason was able to reach over, grab my hand, and guide me to a side of the cage. I took out my snorkel and managed to choke out that I was, at that point, more scared than I had ever been in my entire life. But I told myself that I could stand anything for ten seconds, gathered my courage, and literally faced my fear.

It was incredible. The galapagos sharks we saw weren’t interested in the cage or its occupants at all, and swam around us, all power and grace. Occasionally you’d see one rising from the depths, and it was awe-inspiring. The twenty minutes of our drop passed so quickly–as uncomfortable as I am in the water, I could have watched the sharks for hours.

The sharks aren’t chummed (which is illegal, and also no one wants to swim in bloody pink chum water) and are instead drawn to the sounds of the engine which they associate with the crab fishing boats in the area, which have tossed their leftover bait back into the water since the 60s. The tour operator also regularly tossed a water bottle tied to a line into the water, which gave the sharks something to investigate. He said that the object being a water bottle or floating or made of metal had no effect on the sharks’ interest, and that he could throw in a hat and get the same result; it was the sound of something striking the water that made them both interested and competitive.

One thing the shark adventure groups do recommend is taking anti nausea medication before departing, and after watching two people on our tour run to the back of the boat to vomit because of the choppy water, I have to agree. It looks like the lawless sharks aren’t the thing to be afraid of after all.

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