And, to answer another question, we really do wear them.  However, there are differences among the cheaper, gaudier garments sold on the sidewalk and the graceful, elegant designs sold in fine clothing stores.  Nevertheless, they reflect a local love of colorful clothing.

 It took me a couple of encounters to realize that some of the aloha shirts are worn as uniforms.  For example, when the first Target opened on the islands, crew members were dressed in red aloha shirts rather than the red polos worn on the mainland.  Beyond that, some uniform shirts have customized patterns.  The aloha shirts worn by bus drivers have little busses tucked in among the flowers.  Our campus bookstore sells aloha shirts that incorporate the UH logo.  Some of the private high school students who ride the bus with me have school uniform shirts in an aloha pattern.

If you have colorful, tropical shirts by all means bring them along on a visit to Hawaii.  However, if you don’t you might want to wait and get some here.  They are lightweight and casual, yet appropriate in almost any circumstance.  It is not unusual for men to wear nice aloha shirts to the office or dinner.  (I’ve seen legislators and government officials wearing them in TV interviews.)  Women wear aloha patterned shirts and dresses.  It’s a celebration of the beautifully lush natural environment in which we live, work and play.

Posted by Cindy Scheopner  Follow me on Twitter @Scheopner

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At one point, my family lived on a small farm-ette which included chickens.  We had them for the fresh eggs and, occasionally, for the chicken soup.  I hated those chickens.  I disliked feeding them, gathering the eggs, and most especially, cleaning the coop.

HOWEVER, I love chickens in Hawaii.  Why?  Well, they seem to be fairly autonomous.  There are feral chickens on most of the islands, apparently.  They just wander around on their own, not expecting to be taken care of (or eaten).  We first experienced chickens in the wild on our second visit, when I had an appointment at the University of Hawaii.  (That was also the time we discovered that you cannot eat a Fat Boy burger and drive at the same time, but that’s another story.)  While I discussed philosophy with professors, Rick entertained himself by wandering around Manoa, where he first met a flock of wild chicken.

Since then, we encounter them regularly.  The photo is from a Kailua parking lot, where a hen and her chicks had decided that it was a good idea to huddle up next to a truck tire, for some reason.  We have seen them on hikes, as well, and at a park along the beach.  They are amusing to watch.  One morning on the way to a conference, I watched a rooster walk across the street with several hens.  One hen, somehow, missed the crossing and was left on the median.  She was panicking, wandering around in circles.  Annoyed, the rooster crossed the street to reach her and then chased her back across the road to join the group, complaining all the way.

That’s the reason I love chickens in Hawaii.  They are so amusing when they are on their own, rather than cooped up or in cages.  They may be annoying to some, crowing or clucking at odd hours, but I love seeing them as fellow creatures, rather than captives.  One writer compared them to the movie "Chicken Run: The Great Escape," which makes me laugh.  Even the chickens love hanging out in Hawaii!

Posted by Cindy Scheopner  Follow me on Twitter @Scheopner

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Last week, I wrote that clocks in Hawaii would not "fall back" over the weekend, as Daylight Savings time is not observed in this state. (Hawaii Clocks Stay Put) One reader Tweeted to let me know that Hawaii had experimented with a time change back in the 1930’s, according to his family stories.  Intrigued, I did some quick internet research.

The always-informative and occasionally-authoritative Wikipedia reports: "Hawaii did experiment with DST for three weeks between April 30 and May 21, 1933; there is no record as to why it was implemented or discontinued."  Well, THAT’s interesting.  How can  you know the exact dates of the time shift but not why it was either undertaken or abandoned or both?  I’m dying to know more.

I did locate a couple of other interesting items in my quick search.  First, among the emergency powers of the Governor of Hawaii is the ability to impose Daylight Savings Time.  I’m having trouble imagining exactly what that type of emergency would look like, but someone must have had an idea.  I’m now a little apprehensive. 

Second:  apparently, a resolution has been introduced in the past several legislative sessions asking for a study of how Daylight Savings Time might benefit the State of Hawaii.  It looks like it passed in 2009, with a report due back before the start of the 2010 legislative session.  If you know anything about the legislative interest in a seasonal time change for Hawaii, PLEASE do tell! 

In the meantime, I’m happily greeting dawn at my bus stop and watching sunrise on my walk across campus en route to my very early class, as usual.

Posted by Cindy Scheopner  Follow me on Twitter @Scheopner

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You could accurately describe Murphy’s Bar & Grill as several things. It’s a family restaurant. It’s an authentic Irish pub, owned and operated by proud Irishman Don Murphy. It’s a sports bar, fully equipped with multiple screens and just about every satellite TV sports package available. It’s a neighborhood bar for innumerable Downtown workers. It’s also a historic building, built during the whaling boom of the late 19th century.

Murphy’s hosts a yearly block party each Saint Patrick’s Day, shutting down two city blocks to accommodate the estimated 20,000 revelers that turn up each year. It is the largest such Saint Patrick’s Day celebration anywhere in the Pacific.

It’s also the headquarters for a number of charitable events throughout the year, supporting causes such as pediatric cancer treatment and research, literacy and University of Hawaii and high school athletics. Murphy’s has helped raise millions of dollars over the twenty years since it opened, and owner Don Murphy shows no signs of slowing down with that noble work.

The walls in Murphy’s are festooned with countless souvenirs, both sports related and authenticm mementos from the Emerald Isle of Ireland. The bar staff is widely recognized as among the most friendly and knowledgeable in Hawaii, and the service staff is always cheerful and accommodating.

The fare at Murphy’s ranges from simple burgers and sandwiches to traditional Irish fare like corned beef and cabbage, to more sophisticated dishes like miso salmon. Murphy’s a wide selection of domestic and imported draft beer, and although things like Guiness you’d expect from an Irish pub are on hand, other less usual choices are available, Smithwick’s, Boddington’s Ale and Murphy’s Stout among others.

The clientele at Murphy’s represents a wide demographic. The lunchtime crowd usually consists of the business set doing power lunches in the seated rooms, and a more casual sort seated at the bar sneaking a quick peek at "the game" while gobbling up a quick lunch. Mainland visitors are frequent at Murphy’s many of whom are regulars during their stays. All are welcomed as family.

Murphy’s is entrenched in downtown, and looks forward to many more years of providing a taste of Ireland, island style.

2 Merchant Street

Honolulu HI 96813

(808) 531-0422

gomurphys.com

Posted by: Jamie Winpenny

This is just before sunrise from my bus stop at 6 am today.  It will look pretty much the same on Monday.  Unlike most other states (and European countries), Hawaii does not observe Daylight Saving Time – there is no “fall back” this weekend and no “spring forward” in March.  When it was 6 am at my bus stop this morning, it was 10 am in Denver.  On Monday, when it is 6 am in Honolulu, it will be 9 am in Denver.

The idea behind Daylight Saving Time is to allow more sunlight in the afternoon/early evening.  At the equator, the length of days and nights doesn’t change much.  However, the farther you go in either direction from the equator, the more seasonal change there is in the length of a day compared with the duration of night.  In Denver, there are about 14 hours of daylight in July: sunrise is around 6 am and sunset is just after 8 pm.  In December, that shrinks to 9 ½ hours of daylight (between 7:30 am and 5 pm).  The difference between darkness at 5 pm and darkness at 8 pm is noticeable, and this is with DST.  Without it, the December daylight would end at 4 pm.

Hawaii is north of the equator (by about 1,470 miles), so there is a noticeable difference in daylight hours from summer to winter.  However, it isn’t nearly as radical as the mainland.  In Honolulu, the days are about 13 hours long in July and 11 hours in December.  Just a small swing of the pendulum either side of 12 hours of light and 12 hours of dark.  It is enough that I catch the bus just before dawn in the winter and in sunlight during the summer months.

About the only time I think about DST these days is when calculating when to call friends and relatives on the mainland.  The time difference was a challenge when we first moved here – the phone would awaken us at hideously early hours because it was someone’s morning break in Colorado.  I told them to use this rule of thumb:  when you are having lunch, I am having breakfast.  That works as a rough guide year-round.

(See More Time in Hawaii)

Posted by Cindy Scheopner  Follow me on Twitter @Scheopner

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This intriguing sand circle was on the beach last weekend.  Not exactly like crop circles, I’m sure aliens were not involved.  However it looks like a game, rather than the toy bucket sand castles usually left behind.  Although the creator was long gone, no one had yet disturbed it.

The beach was quiet during my sunset walk on Sunday.  It seemed to be more relaxed than during the busy days of summer.  The air was still warm, as was the water.  Coming out of the gentle waves after a float, there was a slight chill to the air.  But I was soon dry just from taking a stroll and the air was again warm.

I mentioned something about Hawaii in winter to a friend, who laughed.  "Do you have winter in Hawaii?" she asked.  "Isn’t it just called shade?"  The temperature changes here are in a much narrower range than on the mainland, but there is a difference.  The weather isn’t quite as hot at midday and is often rainy overnight.

It sometimes seems to be a change in mood rather than a stark seasonal change.  There are fewer people on the beach, fewer large groups in stores.  The tourists who are here aren’t in quite as much of a hurry.  Only a few families relaxed on the beach Sunday, enjoying wide spaces of empty sand.

My Hawaiian moon calendar says we are mid-way through the month of Welehu, which marks the beginning of the Hawaiian winter.  It advises: “As the weather is stormy and rough, this is the time to relax.”  It is not yet time to prepare for winter holiday celebrations, so the advice is right on target. This is a pleasant and relaxing time to enjoy Hawaii, whether on vacation or just on an evening beach walk.

Posted by Cindy Scheopner  Follow me on Twitter @Scheopner

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While I am still a Hawaii newbie by any standards — just entering my second year here — this week provided two powerful reminders of how comfortable this island has become.  They both had to do with my feet.

First, I saw a conference that looked interesting and related to my studies.  Then, I noticed it is in Ontario, Canada.  In March.  This is a problem.  I moved here after over a decade in Colorado, so I have seen snow and have experienced winter weather.  But I had proper clothes there.  I suddenly realized that I now have no coat, just a summer hoodie and a winter hoodie, mostly for the air conditioning on buses and in classrooms.  I also have no cap, scarf or gloves: items that used to be essential.  But the real deal-breaker, the one that dissuaded me from applying for the conference, is that I have no shoes.  I have several pair of slippers (flip-flops) that serve quite nicely all year long in Hawaii.  I have purchased a pair of sneakers, allegedly to use in the gym (but that hasn’t really taken much tread off over the past year).  I wore them when we returned to the mainland last summer and that was fine but I don’t think I’d like to brave Canada snow in a pair of sneakers.

The second foot experience begins with a confession.  I am addicted to cable cleaning, decorating and remodeling shows.  I know.  But anyway, this weekend one of the remodeling projects was in a place where there was snow.  That’s fine, I can WATCH people in snow all day.  They carried a new rolled up area rug into the living room and were standing on it to kick the roll out.  With their shoes on!  I shuddered.  The sight of people walking on carpet in their shoes seemed so wrong!  In Hawaii, a shoe rack sits either outside or just inside the door.  Even though most footwear is slippers, they are not worn inside local homes.  Knowing that and feeling a physical shudder are two different things.

At some point, I’ll gear up for a winter mainland trip.  But for now, I am happy to kick off my slippers at the door in October.

Posted by Cindy Scheopner  Follow me on Twitter @Scheopner

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Posted by: Jamie Winpenny

With the recent release of the fictional biography Barbarian Princess, controversy surrounding the legacy of Princess Victoria Kaiulani has swirled in Hawaii. Many groups have taken issue with aspects of the film ranging historical inaccuracies about the time surrounding the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy, its depiction of Hawaiian leadership as ineffectual, and even the title itself.
 
A beautiful and tragic figure, Kaiulani died at the tender age of 23. Educated in England and an accomplished speaker, Kaiulani fought for the rights of the Hawaiian monarchy to which she was heir. She spoke with US Presidents and influential lawmakers and businessmen in English, French and German about her desire to look after her people. And while much can be made about the social and political intrigues of her time, Kaiulani and her estate at Ainahau in Waikiki (now the Sheraton Princess Kaiulani Hotel) remain shining examples of the sophistication she embodied then and represents now.
 
The ten-acre estate of Ainahau was deeded to Kaiulani by Princess Ruth Keelikolani, a direct descendant of King Kamehaeha the Great. Kailuani’s father and former Royal Governor of Oahu, Archibald Cleghorn, built a two-story home on the estate and furnished it with elaborate ornaments and two grand pianos. Kaiulani’s family often entertained prestigious social circles and became friends with the author Robert Louis Stevenson, who stayed periodically at Ainahau during Kaiulani’s childhood.
 
Archibald Cleghorn was an avid horticulturalist, and brought plants and flowers from all over the world to Ainahau for study and for pure enjoyment. The first banyan tree to come to Hawaii was planted at Ainahau. Kaiulani was known to ride her pony frequently at Ainahau, presumably when she wasn’t tending to her many peacocks, a hobby that earned her the knickname of the Peacock Princess.
 
When Archibald Cleghorn died in 1910, the Territory of Hawaii refused his gift of Ainahau for use as a public park. Reasons for that refusal are still debated today, but eventually the estate was subdivided and sold to real estate developers. Matson Navigation Company purchased some of the property, and in 1955 cleared the land to build the Princess Kaiulani Hotel (the famous banyan tree was cut down, but clippings were taken and transplanted to another site on Oahu).  The Princess Kaiulani Hotel now sits on land that was once the entrance for the storied parcel of land at Ainahau.
 
Posted by: Jamie Winpenny

Autumn has a different smell in some places:  the scent of dried leaves or pine, the crisp feel of breathing cold air.  In Hawaii, it smells like flowers.  The flowers that adorn trees, bushes and hedges are still in full bloom, sending out their wonderful aromas.
 
I pass by a hedge with these very small white flowers on my way to and from the bus each day.  On their own, they don’t have a powerful smell.  But the entire hedge exudes the light scent of gardenia in a gentle wave as I walk by.  Plumeria trees are the same – they are still very happily full of leaves, producing the flowers that burst with popcorn-like enthusiasm into clusters on the branches and then litter the ground beneath.  The flowers do not have a strong scent but the trees full of them smell vaguely floral and pleasant.

One of my professors was reared on the east coast of the mainland.  He said he always thought that air with a smell was a bad thing, until he moved to Hawaii.  Here, it is a delight to experience the subtle differences among plants, most of which seem to sprout flowers.  I had never seen trees with leaves and flowers before I came to Hawaii.  It is still a treat to look up and see an enormous bouquet with a tree trunk as a stem.

Different flowers flourish at different times, but it seems that something is always in bloom, even through the winter season.  The floral scent lingering in the air provides another dimension to Hawaii’s natural beauty.

Posted by Cindy Scheopner  Follow me on Twitter @Scheopner

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