First prize is a week in Waikiki, Honolulu, Hawaii. Second prize is a month in Waikiki.”
Variation on an old burlesque joke.
In Anglo World, the day after Christmas is called Boxing Day.
When I was growing up in England, Boxing Day was for eating leftovers and relaxing. Television commercials, finally freed from promoting the excesses of Christmas consumption, switched to hawking packaged vacations.
Back then, packaged vacations to Spain became a thing. Suddenly, flight and hotel packages to Spain’s Costa del Sol were becoming affordable for working class people.
I lived in northeast England near some beautiful beaches… if you were fine with the brisk climate. My school song included these lines:
Four-square to ev’ry wind that blows,
In our stormy northern lands.
Boxing Day TV commercials promised an escape to guaranteed sunshine and warmth.
Up Next: Waikiki, Honolulu, Hawaii
So, what’s up with the cheap joke at the top of this post? It may surprise people who know us that in February we’re staying in Waikiki, a prime mass-tourism destination, for an entire month.
Rather than explaining why Waikiki might be an odd choice for us, I asked Google Bard AI to list out a few reasons why Waikiki has issues:
- Overcrowding and high costs
- Loss of local character
- Environmental concerns
- Noise and pollution
- Lack of authenticity
All this is true, but in its defense Waikiki has the attributes my working class neighbors sought from packaged vacations when I lived in that “stormy northern land”: it’s sunny and warm.
In February, when we arrive in Waikiki, Minneapolis may be sunny, but definitely not warm.
Suddenly, I find all sorts of reasons to commend Waikiki.
Walks along the oceanfront are gorgeous.
Public transit is good within Waikiki and to points throughout the island of Oahu. There’s bus stops near some of Oahu’s trailheads, so we’ll be hiking.
Cultural activities include Shangri La and the Honolulu Museum of Art. Shangri La is a beautiful house and grounds, now a museum of Islamic art; tickets get booked out months ahead. The Honolulu Museum of Art will be showing a Hockney retrospective: I appreciate the way he’s gone in so many interesting directions.
I’m sure we’ll find time for sunset cocktails and pupus seated by the Pacific at the 1927 Royal Hawaiian Hotel, one of the first hotels in Waikiki.
And Japanese immigration and tourism mean there’s good food to be found.
We’ll be living high above all the street activity in a rented 35th-floor apartment with views of Diamond Head and the Pacific. We won’t hear the ocean, we won’t walk out into tropical lushness and the sounds of ocean waves, but we get a nice view.
And, at the end of our stay, I get to hop on a plane to Tokyo.
