I kept pretty busy, but then I was in grad school. For your average working stiff, maybe. But that was before the Internet, which can keep you more occupied these days. But I was never bored. Seemed like there was a lot to do if you cared to look.
My thought exactly.
Clever ploy, OP. I’m now planning to move to that paradise.
There are lots and lots of tourists. The possibilities are endless. If you get bored, it would have to be your own damn fault.
One thing I remember about then pre-Internet days in Hawaii is you missed a lot of movies. For whatever reason, Hollywood didn’t feel the need to ship everything they had to the Aloha State like they did to other places around the country. That was a little frustrating. Even some Oscar-nominated films never made it to there.
On the other hand, there was a good Movie Museum that screened classic and cult films for cheap, and it’s still around. And the Honolulu Museum of Art screened some good stuff.
Plus there’s an annual film festival that in my day was billed as the largest free film festival in the world. But they finally had to start charging for it. Roger Ebert would go there almost every year. It’s in the winter – I’m sure that did not play a part in his attendance, away from snow-bound Chicago.
You accepted orders to Hawaii?
OP’s got a pretty bad case of rock fever. Surprised no one ever told you about the phenomenon before you accepted your orders.
Sorry, I can’t get my head around the accepted part. How’s that work?
Also, if you live two miles from work you should just walk. That only takes about half an hour, and saves you time finding parking, too.
In Hawaii, stationed there with lots of amazing native restaurant food choices, your choice of a night out restaurant is the tourist trap Cheese Cake Factory?
After your whole description you feel that you simply must keep a dog in this massively over-crowded and expensive urban location?
I get that’s it’s not the perfect place but you might want to think about adjusting your choices. I’m not going to go to Italy and dine at tourist traps or get a dog if I’m living in NYC.
My little brother was stationed there as a Coast Guard officer a few years ago and is still trying to get reassigned back there so he obviously liked it. I get that Oahu may have some issues that aren’t apparent to the fly-in resort set but I visited him there and liked it too. I stayed right in the Wakiki area in the cheapest decent hotel (The Ambassador) but it was fine and a great deal because I just hung out in the much more expensive hotels down the street. I absolutely loved Sandy Beach (the spinal injury capital of the U.S.) even though it dangerous as hell and I was at the upper end of the age range the lifeguards would let in the water. Snorkling and the food trucks on the North Shore were awesome as well.
One thing that surprised me was the sheer amount of acreage taken up by the military on the island. Besides Pearl Harbor, there are many other military installations as well but that isn’t a bad thing when you are a military officer. My brother took me to some great private beaches and we even rented a huge sailboat for $40 for the day despite the fact that I can’t sail at all and he barely can. The latter decision almost cost us our lives when a fast moving storm moved in right off the coast of the real-life Gilligan’s Island but we eventually made it back somehow. I honestly considered just jumping overboard with a life jacket at one point and taking my chances in the open Pacific that way because I thought we were going to flip the boat anyway.
Two of the things I didn’t like were the traffic (although it didn’t affect me much) and the housing standards especially once I found out how much crappy little houses cost. I thought that we had affordable housing issues in Massachusetts but Oahu is ridiculous. Most of the housing for normal people is quite unattractive, unkempt looking and jammed into every available piece of land.
When’s the interstate to San Francisco scheduled for completion?
Unknown but I hear they are going to start construction on it any day now. The interstates on both ends are already in place so all they have to do is build a connector. The good news is that it will be really straight and there are no hills, mountains or land rights issues to get in the way. It should be really straightforward once funding is approved.
You can pretty much make that claim to most islands. I read Hawaii’s governor just issued some kind of emergency status, to deal with the amount of homeless people in the state.
Sounds just like michigan.
That was my thought. You’re in Hawaii and voluntarily went to Cheesecake Factory? There was a two hour wait at the last Cheesecake Factory we tried to get into here on the mainland.
When we were in Hawaii we ate great food every single day at locally owned restaurants – not all of it Hawaiian food. I had the best Italian meal of my life in Hilo, of all places.
I would have guessed you’d only been there a year based upon your goddamn amateur list.
You can only complain about the price of stuff and traffic? You went to fucking CHEESECAKE FACTORY?
Hawaii is awesome for about a year. If you hate it that bad already, you’re the problem.
Wait another 3 years, then we’ll compare notes.
My sister lived on Oahu for a few years, and I visited and stayed with her. She showed me all kinds of cool stuff that was tourist-free. Traffic wasn’t bad, either.
There. My anecdote cancels your anecdote.
I understand that they had a test of it on I5 through the Grapevine the other day.
I was going to post something longer but decided this pretty much sums things up in two eloquent sentences.
Wiki lists Hawaii as only the 13th most population dense state.
Also, news flash: dense urban areas are incompatible with lots of cars and parking. Better get used to it.
I was born in Honolulu and then lived there again for a while after college. Anyone who lives there and goes to eat at the Cheesecake Factory deserves a horrid experience.
Sounds like the OP is more cut out for suburban living.