Hawaii

I've already mentioned some of the aspects that I found really appealing about Hawaii, but at the risk of sounding repetitive, it is really beautiful! The conference was held in the Hilton Hawaiian Village: a cluster of several large tower blocks. Some of these seemed to be time-share/condo accommodation, and several were more traditional hotel blocks. Interspersed between the tower blocks were beautiful tropical gardens, swimming pools and "streets" of shops and restaurants, giving the "village" feel to which the resort's name alludes. The photo below is the view from the balcony of my room: you can see something of the gardens and the Pacific in the distance through the palm trees.

The state of Hawaii consists of several islands, of which Hawaii itself is the largest. However, SAC was held on the island of Oahu in the state capital, Honolulu. Interestingly, Hawaii only became a state relatively recently (1959). The locals pronounce the name with a distinct glottal stop between the i's: as Hawai'i. And one last random fact: if you drilled down through the centre of the earth from my hotel room you would come out in Western Botswana (alternatively, you could invert the coordinates and plot it on Google Earth, as I did!) — it really is on the other side of the world from "home", and the time zone difference back to SA was a full twelve hours.

The Hilton resort is right on the North-Western end of the Waikiki beach (my hotel room was at the coordinates N 21°16'56.50" W 157°50'10.76", if you want to check it out on Google Maps or Google Earth), with its own enclosed lagoon as well as access to the Pacific. Despite the fact that I had a slight cold, I couldn't miss the opportunity to have a swim in the Pacific, which was very pleasant (a little "fresh", but much better than the North-Californian version of the Pacific, which is icy even in mid-summer!).

On the Wednesday morning, I slipped out of the conference and took a tour to Pearl Harbour. That included entrance to the museum there and a visit to the USS Arizona memorial. The Arizona is a battleship that was one of the ships sunk during the attack on Pearl Harbour. Her main ammunition store was hit by a bomb and she sunk very quickly at her mooring bay in shallow water, so her main deck is just a few feet below the water level, with the base of a gun turret and a few other bits sticking out above the water. She also holds the remains of the 1700 or so people who died aboard her on that morning (retrieving the bodies would have been too difficult and dangerous, given the state of the wreck), and the memorial is a very sombre and meaningful reminder of the impact of the events of that day. The memorial takes the form of a large "bridging" structure over the centre of the wreck, with view ports out of the sides and into the water below, and a large marble wall inscribed with the names of the dead. The ship also holds a large reservoir of oil, which leaks out slowly (about 40l per day, our guide reckoned) — I have a photo of the slight oil slick produced.

On the way back to Waikiki, our tour bus took us through some of central Honolulu, including the state capitol building and the only royal residence on American soil: the 'Iolani Palace, used by the last two traditional monarchs of Hawaii.

On the last night of the conference, the organisers had arranged a dinner at the Polynesian Cultural Center up in the North-East of the island (the Center is run by the Mormons to provide employment for students at the adjoining campus of Brigham Young University). The dinner featured various forms of Polynesian dancing (including the famous Hula and a fire-dance — see the video below), and Polynesian foods (shredded roast pork, lots of sweet potatoes and coconut on all the deserts!). As the Center was a one-hour drive from Waikiki, it was quite late by the time we got back after the dinner.