Aloha means goodbye and also hello

I’m sitting on the 6^th deck, aft, as we slowly pull out of the harbor in Honolulu. Michael is in our cabin asleep after a long day of swimming and walking. I’m still so excited about being to a place I’ve always wanted to visit that I’m still wide awake. My day started at 5:30 A.M. when I awoke to the persistent beeping of my alarm clock. I remembered setting it especially early with the intention of seeing the ship pull into Honolulu and I quickly regretted making that decision. Nonetheless I got up and peered out the porthole window. Lights! Land! It was an amazing sight. I cannot possibly imagine how wonderful it must have felt for sailors in earlier centuries to see land after sailing for months with nothing to look at but ocean but I felt quite happy.

I quickly showered and went up to the 6^th deck to watch as we were led into the port by the pilot boat. Land closed in on us from all sides and the buildings rose up like giants. Compared to what I’d seen out my cabin’s porthole window day after day, they were giants. After breakfast Michael and I waited impatiently for our turn to see the U.S. customs officials before leaving the ship. That time finally came, after which we set foot on dry ground and met up the rest of the group who were going snorkeling. The “snorkeling adventure” (as it was described) was not much of an adventure at all. We got on to an aging catamaran and rode out quite a distance from, but parallel to, Waikiki beach. We then donned flippers, goggles, and snorkels and jumped into the very warm ocean. The water temperature was nice but no one informed us that there was no coral to be found on the sea floor. Instead we were greeted with a barren sandy bottom except for a lone (but very big) sea turtle. Despite the lack of sea-life we all had fun splashing around for a bit, after which we had lunch on the boat and made our way back to the dock.

Michael and I met a few new people on the snorkeling trip, one of whom was Jesse who had been smart enough to bring a guitar with him on our journey. We both wanted to play a musical instrument so bad that we even discussed risking total embarrassment by playing the piano on board the ship even though neither of us really knew how to play. Jesse invited us to use his guitar whenever we wanted, and after talking some more he decided to accompany us to a few Ukulele stores that Michael wanted to see. We took a taxi down to the Waikiki beach area and after some confusion finally found one of the Ukulele stores. Michael was intent on buying a Ukulele; he’d been planning on it for some time. I on the other hand just tagged along; I’d look but I didn’t want to buy anything. However, after entering the store and playing a few Ukuleles I decided that I absolutely needed one, so I bought a wonderful Baritone Ukulele which sounds similar to an acoustic guitar since its four strings are tuned the same as the four higher strings on a guitar. Michael bought a nice black electric/acoustic Ukulele that I myself had been eyeing.

The beach had been calling us since we first set our eyes on it and finally we gave in and went for a swim. The beaches in Hawai’i are renowned for surfing but are unfortunately not very good for swimming. Sure, the water is a pleasant 82°F but you have to walk on sharp algae-slick rocks to get out to where the waves are. Despite the rocks Michael and I waded and swam around a bit and then decided to get going. There was no sign of Jesse so after waiting a bit we left. We walked the whole of Waikiki beach and found a nice park with strange trees. We sat underneath one with the intention of playing our ukuleles but quickly got up as ants began to swarm our legs. We found a Thai restaurant called Shingla which served pretty good food. While it was Americanized Thai cuisine it made me eager to try the real thing in Bangkok.

After finding out from the waiter that the Ala Moana mall was a short walk from the restaurant we continued on, intent on finding a drug-store to get some supplies (particularly peanut butter and candy). The Ala Moana mall was interesting. Like much of Honolulu everything was in Japanese as well as English. This came as a shock to me since I’m not used to seeing Japanese anywhere. I had even seen a movie theater near Waikiki beach that had the film names displayed only in Japanese. It quickly became evident that Hawai’i must be a major tourist spot for vacationing Japanese and the state attempted to capitalize on it as much as possible by providing bilingual signage and tourist guides. The most interesting sight was in Long’s Drugstore where Michael and I found all sorts of food and medicine covered in the now familiar Japanese Hiragana syllabary. Michael even bought a Japanese anti-fungal solution for his feet since it was much cheaper than the American name-brand products.

After wandering the store some more we finally left and eventually found a taxi to get back to the port. Once there, we went through two security checkpoints, one run by the port authorities and another one by the ship’s crew. In the past there have been problems with students trying to smuggle alcohol on board the ship which is strictly forbidden. I overheard two port authority officers talking about a student who was found trying to sneak two water-bottles filled with alcohol onto the ship. Little did I know, that was only the beginning of re-boarding problems. In a few short hours I would see what happens when several hundred drunken college students all decide to return to the ship dangerously close to the mandatory boarding time.

Michael and I returned to our cabin eager to play our ukuleles. After doing that for a bit we heard the growing roar of lots of people talking at once. It was close to 8 P.M. The Dean had made it very clear that anyone who was not on the ship by 9 P.M. would suffer the consequences of losing several hours of their time at the next port. He recommended that everyone should start returning to the ship at 7 P.M. Michael and I were on board by about 7:15 P.M. We both looked out our porthole window to see several hundred students lined up waiting to get on board. It was at least half of the 700-strong student body. More than a few people were going to be in trouble.

We ran up to the 7^th deck to take pictures of the growing crowd of students. As we did so we chatted with other students and faculty who, like us, came up to take picture and stare incredulously at the crowd below. We heard how a number of students were caught trying to sneak alcohol on board, in shampoo bottles taped to thighs and in zip-lock bags hidden around waists. Apparently the health clinic had extra staff on duty to cope with the kids who decided to drink far too much. I took some video footage of the drunken crowd that now stretched the length of the ship. They yelled foul words at the staff and other students boarding the ship. When it was announced that the boarding was taking so long due to people sneaking alcohol on board we saw lots of people quickly get rid of bottles and bags. At any moment it looked like a crowd of drunken people were about to stampede onto the gangway and into the ship. The foul energy in the air seemed like the beginning of the running of the bulls in Seville. It was an ugly sight.

Before embarking on Semester At Sea, I had the apparently very misguided idea that most of the other students on board the ship would, like me, want to travel around the world, meet new people and explore alien cultures. Witnessing that mess only added to the disgust I felt when we were first served alcohol last week. Seeing hundreds of kids crammed onto the very small 7^th deck drinking their allotted four cans of beer or glasses of wine as fast as possible made me convinced that I was growing up with a generation of future alcoholics. Seeing girls getting very drunk and strangely intimate with people they didn’t even know was very strange to me. I realized this was standard practice at many colleges but I’d never really witnessed it firsthand. I don’t go to any parties or clubs back home so I’m not used to this behavior, and I’m all the more glad for it. One of the “lifelong learners” (retired people who take part in the Semester At Sea program to travel the world and sit in on our classes) told Michael and I how one student had said that he didn’t know how he could possibly go nine days (from Hawai’i to Japan) without drinking. Thankfully the people I’ve become friends with on the ship so far are more like me.

Hawai’i was fun and I’d love to go back. It was a great place to experience on our way to Japan. At the same time I’m a bit ambivalent. We left as quickly as we came, with only a small taste of Hawai’i and our last chance to experience our familiar American culture. From here on out we will be foreigners, gaijin in Japanese, at the mercy of cultures entirely unfamiliar to us. Just as aloha means ‘hello’ in Hawaiian it also means ‘goodbye’; goodbye to America, goodbye to American English, and goodbye to the conveniences of our familiar lives at home, at least for a few months. As Honolulu slowly recedes the lights of houses climb up the mountains and appear to be hovering in nothingness. It’s a wonderful sight and I’m going to miss it. Only 9 days to Japan. Dewa mata (see you later)!