If you asked me last Wednesday how I felt about Hawaii, I'd tell you without missing a beat that I disliked it. I spent 14 hours on Oahu on a layover from Japan several years ago, and hated it. So much so that when my boyfriend asked me last November/December to accompany him to a wedding on one of the Hawaiian islands this past weekend and potentially spend a week on vacation, I had no words. I had to explain to him how much I did not enjoy Hawaii, and it was absolutely absurd to ask that I take one week of my vacation time from work and spend it on an island I have already decided I did not like. I eventually had to use the excuse that I really did not see that it was financially responsible for me to spend the money on a "vacation" spot I did not even want to see... and he relented, and let it be.
Come Christmas though, he decided that it was something nice he could do/get for me - buy my flight/accommodations. He presumed it was more monetary than my actual dislike, so I had to clarify and eventually talk down the amount of vacation time I was willing to spend there. He really had no idea. I much preferred to spend it/save it for a future vacation to Europe (somewhere I had been dreaming of visiting since the last Olympics).
Well, now that the "vacation" has come and gone, I retract my initial reactions. I dislike Oahu, not all of the Hawaiian islands, and I've come to learn in my brief time there that this is a shared sentiment, even among the locals. If you visit the rights places, Hawaii is really how I always expected it to be, without all of the high rise buildings, and freeways everywhere you turn... instead, it is long stretches of two lane highways, lots of vegetation and delicious tropical fruits that make you drool at the thought of banana cream pies, and far north, it's mostly one lane, poorly maintained roads sitting cliff side that pass along and sometimes through old villages that are now mostly vacant. Life is slow paced, and really, no one is in a hurry.
The island life is not for me, but what I would give for another couple of days. Until next time for sure.
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