A Different Waikiki

It’s been years since I spent a half-day wandering around Waikiki, so my monkey safari yesterday was an eye-opener in more ways than one.

Summer in Honolulu is pretty hot – not so much the temperature, which was close to 90, but because it’s pretty humid (we do live in the middle of an ocean, y’know). It’s a good thing the trade winds were blowing in from the northwest or it would have been unbearable. Believe me, three hours in Waikiki takes a lot out of you.

The Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center has changed a lot. There used to be a plethora of smaller stores that carried specialty or unusual items. I bought a lot of monkey figurines in a small shop at the Diamond Head end of the center many, many moons ago.

It’s no longer there. Not surprising. But the character of the center has changed a lot. Now all you find are the high-end couture stores that you can find in any high-end cluster of shopping havens.

When I walked past the Moana Surfrider Hotel, a bedraggled tourist-looking guy with a wrinkled aloha shirt and ragged shorts stopped me and asked if he could use my cell phone.

What the hell? I told him no, and pointed to the Waikiki police substation, indicating that he could ask the cops. He didn’t like that, and walked away in a huff. Which told me he didn’t really want to just use my phone; he wanted something else as well.

The International Market Place is still there; that area hasn’t changed much, with dozens of kiosks and small gift/curio/aloha wear shops hawking stuff to the tourists. I had a good time there, chatting with the sales people and getting some first-hand commentary on how the tourism economy is doing these days.

The old Waikiki Theater – where my dorm-mates and I used to take in the first-run blockbuster movies in the mid-60s – was closed many years ago, and has been converted into commercial use.

No longer can tourists sit in the huge air-conditioned cavern before a large screen and contemplate the coconut and banana trees that adorned the sides of the auditorium.

Ah well … the more things change, the more today will seem like tomorrow’s yesterday.

(Oh, the monkeys … I found two.)