But, our good friends Shelley and Samuel ("Sandy") live here!
If you visit, you should try to visit the Big Island which is called Hawaii. Hawaii has an active volcano on it and you can drive into the park and see all the old lava flows and cauldera's, and then you can go with a ranger and see the lava go into the ocean. They did this a couple of years ago, and they told us it was great.
Hawaii 5-0 was filming around the island for an upcoming pilot show in September. Gary Busey was one of the lead actors. Good old Jack Lord was too ill to be a part of this remake -- he has cancer. But the series will not be on the Fall 1997 schedule as expected, and the best that can be hoped for is it appearing as a mid-season replacement. It seems that a New York test market did not like the show! (Too used to N.Y.P.D. Blue and N.Y. crime instead of palm trees and hula girls, we guess).
Gloria Estefan came to Hawaii for a sold-out one-concert performance on May 3, 1997, and they went to it. They don't get that many big acts here -- and usually they by-pass Hawaii and go to New Zealand or Australia. The concert was held in Aloha Stadium. It was the last concert of her "Evolution" Tour, and she performed all of her famous songs. Unfortunately, this did not get taped as a live concert performance.
There are a lot of contemporay Hawaiian groups who are good. There is a group here called the "Daytrippers" and all they play is Beatle music -- if you close your eyes you'll think you're really at a Beatle concert. Shelley & Sam went to see them once.
Shelley likes the Beatles and the 60's groups and Samuel likes Classical. Shelley's getting into some of Beethoveen and Vivaldi. Sandy likes Mozart mostly.
They also have a New York Jewish Deli here. A guy named Bernard from N.Y.C. opened a Jewish deli here about 10 years ago, he flys the meats in and bagels, etc... Lox and Bagel costs $6.99! The cost of paradise! Every now and then Shelley gets her fix. It's like the "Stage Deli" in N.Y.C.
A gallon of gas here is $1.60 for regular (1997 prices) -- the cost of paradise!
There is one synagogue in the islands and it's on Oahu. It serves as a reform and orthodox temple. It's really nice but small. We were told there are 400 jews in Hawaii.
For night life, Hawaii has a comedy club that is pretty good.
When Shelley was in the Jaycees in the1980's she traded her kukui nut lei for the tom-tom from an Oklahoman Jaycee.
Hawaii also has a lot of military bases. One military base here had an open house in 1996 and they saw a B1 Bomber 
and so many other planes it was hard to remember. They saw the B-2 Stealth plane. It was really Sci-Filooking, and all black in color. The military here at Pearl Harbor in 1997 let the public in to see two Chinese Ships that came into port for four days. They went down to see the ship -- the radar is modern and their ships didn't look like they were in that good of condition. They looked like they were from the 70's or so.
If you come to Hawaii, the summer is the low point for visitors and the high point is December through March. October is a good time to come. Airlines run good specials at that time of year from the mainland to Hawaii.
The Hawaiian Islands are composed of 7 major islands: Kauai, Oahu, Molokai, Lanai, Maui, Hawaii, (the "Big Island"), and Niihau. Niihau is privately owned and is populated only with pure-blooded Hawaiians and they have no telephones or electricity by choice. Kauai, which is a couple of hundred miles to our northwest, is home to Mt. Waialeale -- its only 20 minutes by jet. We read that the greatest average yearly rainfall in the U.S. is in Mt. Waialeale, Kauai, Hawaii -- 460 inches. All that rain sounds depressing.
During the month of April, it's 85 degrees in the day and 70 degrees at night!
Sandy works at Luko Realty. They use a Tandy 2500, which has e-mail and a realtors program called "Boris", which has the MLS service, and realtors bulletin boards stuff, as well as performs basic word processing. Sandy once served in the Navy aboard a ship.
Don Ho ("Tiny Bubbles") is still doing his bit in Waikiki -- he is 70 or close to it. He is a bad alcoholic and he has been getting help for his problem. He lets a lot of younger singers take over the show now. Don sings a few songs and then he is gone for most of the show.
Thanks to Shelley and Sam for contributing to this webpage!
A free advertisement for Luko Realty will appear here in the future.
Aloha Nui (Aloha with Love) to All!
