h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Finally I decided to poke around on your page, Colonel. I spent some time on Oahu (the North Shore in particular) in 1986, and I have to disagree with your recommending the Polynesian Cultural Center. It is nothing but a South Pacific Disneyland, all style and no substance. If your idea of a luau is overweight polyester-clad tourists gorging themselves on canned ham and rice, then by all means go!

Plus, it's run by the Hawaiian satellite campus of Brigham Young University, i.e. the Mormon Church. All profit from the Center goes into the church coffers, supporting missionary projects around the world. So, if you're as atheist as you say, then you definitely should not be recommending the PCC.

I must add, however, there is nothing like a warm tropical rainshower!

Didn't know all that about the Center. Truth to tell, I was going by hearsay on quality of their luau, because, well, I never went there myself. I lived on Oahu from 1995-1999, and I never once went to *any* luau, nor did I do a lot of cheesy tourist things, like visit the Arizona Memorial. I did visit the Missouri, however, but it was NOT a cheesy-tourist sort of adventure. When they first towed it out to Ford Island in '98, it required some serious work to make it presentable to the public. I volunteered to help with the effort for a day. I dangled from the top of the aft smokestack with a paint roller all morning, and then, after lunch, we all set our tools aside and gave ourselves unguided tours. That's the kind of effort you get when you ask for volunteers, I guess...

Anyway, I'm going back there in February, and I just *might* end up doing some of that touristy stuff I never got around to... nahhh....

So, if you didn't go to the Center, what else didn't you do that is listed in this entry?

The writers' credo is "write about what you know".

Granted, that doesn't apply to fantasy at all...after all, Tolkien never actually went on holiday to Mordor...

Just the PCC and the Arizona. And I'm not being misleading on the Arizona part, because all I discuss is the historic background, not the experience of visiting it. And it's not like I wasn't at least familiar with it... I did work right next door.

The Arizona Memorial is far from a "cheesy tourist place". It is a very solemn location and is worth a visit just for the vibe it gives out. It's easy to lose the realities of war in the statistics, but visiting a place like the Arizona Memorial really brings the message home. The Memorial is a must-visit for absolutely everyone.

It's true that the place is clogged with Japanese tourists pretty much all the time, but they understand just as much as anyone else what the Memorial signifies and they seem to have just as much, or even more, respect for it than the locals and mainlanders who visit.