Hawaii, part 2

Neither of us having ever visited Hawaii before, we naturally hit some popular places on Oahu. But it’s always a highlight when we see people we know, and we were lucky enough to do so in Honolulu. Readers may remember that we have been chasing our fellow travel bloggers, Lawsons on the Loose, around the world for some time now. First Roy got in touch because he and Joy were in London, but we were already in Vienna. Then we were about to leave Southeast Asia for Melbourne, where the Lawsons had been staying, but Roy hurriedly booked them tickets in the opposite direction, so we missed them by a day!

Third continent lucky, though. On an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, we connected with the Lawsons at Kaimuki Christian Church, where Roy is currently preaching. We are pretty casual these days, and I felt comfortable right away, as the service began with one of my all time favorite hymns: “Great Is Thy Faithfulness.” It’s an old revival hymn that I’ve worked into an otherwise contemporary service myself. Its lyrics are reassuring and were especially appropriate on this Sunday, Father’s Day.

Dr. Roy Lawson is one of my parents’ oldest friends. That is not a comment on his age, by the way! If I couldn’t be with my own dad celebrating Father’s Day, then one of his favorite professors, colleagues, and friends was the next best thing. He and Joy had so many stories of their travels, as they’ve been on the road longer than we have. Two years ago they sold their house, unloaded virtually all their possessions, and basically said “let’s travel till we drop.” No sign of dropping yet.

Hawaii no longer greets every visitor with a lei fresh off the plane, but some women of Kaimuki Christian Church made up for this. We felt very welcome at lunch with the Lawsons, and almost Hawaiian!

Kaimuki is one of the oldest neighborhoods of Honolulu, and the congregation is very reflective of Hawaii’s ethnic diversity. No one group seems to make up a majority, although I did sense that haole were a minority. It was like being a mzungu all over again. 

Nearby were two other attractions, and we were fortunate enough to be in town on Saturday morning for the first one. The Kapi‘olani Community College Farmers Market was a delightful start to our first full (not jet-lagged) day in Hawaii, starting with locally grown Kona coffee. We found a few other treats to energize us, such as macadamia soft serve with “crashed” macadamia nuts.

We needed energy, because the other thing to do near KCC was hike up Diamond Head (not to be confused with Diamond Hill in Ireland). This is not a natural trail, as it was built in 1908 to service military installations at the top of the hill. Looking out for a possible naval assault was important although, as we learned at Pearl Harbor, it did not help much with an assault by air.

T. and I labored up the trail that military families had been using for leisure for more than a hundred years. There were probably a few on the trail with us this hot day, too. And one show-off guy who ran up and down, passing us at least four times! He certainly earned his shaved ice at the bottom of Diamond Head. 

At the top, we took the option to go up through the bunker. It was a very steep climb, but we were rewarded by 360-degree views of the Leeward Coast, the Wai’anae Range, and southeast to Koko Head.

The most famous beach, or rather stretch of beaches, in Hawaii is Waikiki. It was once a royal leisure center, and our hanging out here is as good a moment as any to remark on the unique history of Hawaii.

At Waikiki

Long before it was one of the United States, Hawaii was an independent kingdom. Kamehameha I, after whom the highway around Oahu is named, united the islands under his rule, whereupon he was presented with the Union Jack as a token of friendship with Britain. This unofficial flag of Hawaii is incorporated into the state flag even today.

The kingdom came to a sad end, though, when U.S. business interests decided it would be better if they controlled Hawaii. Queen Liluokalani, the last reigning monarch, was arrested in Washington Place, which is now the state governor’s residence. 

I remember reading about Queen Liliuokalani when I was a child, never having realized before that one of the American states had been a kingdom. I always remembered the ignominy, so had to find the statue of her that stands today in the courtyard of the state capitol building.

We went back to Waikiki until we’d gotten too much sun, which took some doing after all those months in Australia. June was Pride Month and wouldn’t have been complete without at least a drink in a gay bar. Overlooking the beach is Hula’s Bar and Lei Stand, a friendly spot where one can, indeed, buy leis—or just enjoy a mai tai.

Note the British flag incorporated into the Hawaii state flag.

To be honest, this wasn’t our favorite type of beach. Waikiki is a great area to buy Aloha shirts not made in Hawaii, but a little crowded. In the enclosed swimming area, fish are so used to people that they swam right up to us. Hawaii and Australia are apples and oranges, though. Hanauma Bay is a lot busier place to snorkel than Ningaloo Reef, but I’ve never seen such a variety of colorful fish.

Snorkeling there, we saw a phenomenon we'd never seen before: schools of fish swimming in circles, apparently when they wanted to stick together. If you ever go to Hanauma Bay to snorkel, they say to get there early in the day (it opens at 6:00!) before the crowds arrive. We ignored this advice, and it wasn’t a problem on a weekday, but we did have to wait in line. They make you watch a video about not standing on the reef, etc. It is actually quite difficult not to touch the reef, as the water is so shallow in places you can barely swim over the coral. But if you are careful and get out into the deeper water, you can have the reef practically to yourself.

They offer “prescription” masks in Hawaii, meaning magnification for people who wear glasses. I’d never had this option before, but I think it helped me see more. And do take advantage of the trade-in for “reef safe” sunscreen if you go to Hanauma Bay. Better yet, wear what the Australians call a “rashie”—a swimming shirt that protects from ultraviolet rays. All the time we spent in the sea in Australia, and we never had to buy rash guards till we got to Hanauma Bay!

Having been talked into the convertible, we did take a couple of scenic drives around the island. You can cross it on the Pali Highway, which cuts through the Ko‘olau Range. It was pretty spectacular to look out at emerald cliffs the whole way.

We also went round much of the Windward Coast, winding between this wall of volcanoes and the Pacific. Here on the two-lane Kamehameha Highway, we passed neighborhoods, every one of which seemed to have its local beach. Families were just down there picnicking, with no hotels or commercial buildup in sight. I didn't see any public BBQ grills, though.

We’d had so much fun swapping tales with the Lawsons over Japanese food that we set up another lunch with them (this time Nepalese). We were able to report on a couple more things they’d recommended we visit. One was the North Coast where, Roy had assured us, we might get the car going over 55 mph! Alas, the day we went around there it was so choked with beach traffic we had to close the roof rather than burn up. We also regretted not being hungry, because that part of the island abounds in fresh pineapple (wonderful here, as kiwi fruit is in New Zealand) and trucks selling shrimp. 

Here’s my verdict on Hawaiian food specialties. Plate lunches (e.g., loco moco, which is hamburger with fried egg and the usual sides of macaroni salad and white rice) are delicious, but not the healthiest. Portions, being U.S.-sized, are too enormous. We can’t get used to them. Even the local Chinese restaurant deep-fried chicken wings! Hawaii is also famous for poke (raw fish) bowls and shaved ice, both of which I tried, but found forgettable. As for spam fried rice, I know that Spam is a favorite food of Hawaii, but I cannot imagine why! 

We’d also made time for one more veteran-related site: the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Punchbowl. Punchbowl is the nickname of a volcanic crater, and we could see it clearly on maps. It was remarkably hard to find the cemetery, though, because of the peculiar way Honolulu highways are set up. There is something called an interstate highway here, though of course one cannot drive from Hawaii into any other state. Perhaps this explains why it was unlike any other interstate I’ve ever seen. Normally if, say, an exit is marked Punchbowl in one direction but not in the other, and therefore I miss it going west, getting off the interstate and getting back on going east is no big deal. I would expect to exit and turn.

Not in Honolulu. Here, you can see the highway, but getting back on it going the other way takes you meandering all over some neighborhood before you even see a “TO” sign again. This happened to us an amazing number of times. Our host assured us she lived only ten minutes from Pearl Harbor, but whether coming or going, we never took less than half an hour of wandering around.

In any event, we finally reached the cemetery. A number of famous veterans are buried here, including Daniel Inouye, Hawaii’s long-serving U.S. senator, and Ellison Onizuka, the first Asian-American in space who, along with his fellow astronauts and teacher Christa McAuliffe, died in the Challenger explosion on 28 January1986. 

In a memorial wall lie the remains of Stanley Dunham, President Obama’s grandfather, who helped raise him.

Perhaps the most affecting gravestone, though, is that of Ernie Pyle, the World War I veteran who famously wrote dispatches from World War II, and was killed in its final months. On either side of Pyle’s grave are two of the cemetery’s many gravestones to the “Unknown” soldiers of the Korean war.

The National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific is full of tributes from many wars, including from other countries. Some, like the one from South Vietnam, made me uncomfortable. Just the volume of memorials gave me mixed feelings, as it represented so many conflicts and so much death. It is a very peaceful place, though.

When Barack Obama was president, he remarked that the thought of beautiful places in Hawaii was what sometimes kept him going during tough days. One of the places he mentioned always returning to was Manoa Falls. We set off to hike to these and were surprised to find few people on the trail. A "shaman" who said he lived in a picnic shelter told us we were on the right trail, so we carried on, but soon people coming in the other direction said it did not lead to the falls. I'm glad we passed on the shaman's tarot reading.

Eventually we got directions (again) to the Manoa Falls Trail. Perhaps because President Obama made it famous, I suspect it is a little more crowded than during his childhood. But we still enjoyed the views on a humid day.

Way back in the 2008 presidential campaign, Michelle Obama said that to understand her husband, you had to understand Hawaii. Now I know what she meant. Hawaii is not like other states, and not just because you can get rice with everything. I can see how a Honolulu native, who grew up here and in Indonesia, and began his career in Chicago, could see possibilities in America that others just couldn’t see.

Perhaps Hawaii is the only state from which such a vision of America could have emerged. Barack Hussein Obama is a brown man in a country that insists on black and white, a Christian with a Muslim name, with an African father but raised by his white mother and grandparents, the Dunhams. It is at once what made him appeal to so many different people, and what so frustrated others. Many people, not just Americans, want someone to be like them, someone they can understand without trying too hard. Coming all the way to Hawaii is not the simplest field trip to take in the U.S.A.

It’s worth it, though.

All in the family: Hawaii, part 1

When we were at the pro surfing competition on the Gold Coast, certain surfers were identified as being from Hawaii, as distinct from the U.S.A. I thought this was odd, since—birther liars notwithstanding—Hawaii has been a state since 1959. But having now been there, I can see why the birthplace of surfing has its own identity. Hawaii is proud that its greatest Olympic athlete, Duke Kahanamoku, actually introduced the sport of surfing to Australia.

Portrait of Duke at Hula's Bar and Lei Stand, Waikiki Beach, where we celebrated Pride

We arrived in Hawaii on an endless Friday. I say “endless” because we left Sydney on Friday afternoon, but then crossed the International Date Line, landing in Honolulu on the same Friday morning. Traveling east over all these months, we “lost” the day so gradually that we hadn’t noticed. We sure noticed when we got it back though! 

In a recent post, I addressed the concerns of some travelers to the U.S. (including citizens) who are hesitant even to cross the Canadian border, lest they be interrogated on the way back. It is ironic that on this entry to the States, I was actually greeted with “Welcome home.” It’s touching even though I haven’t lived here for eighteen years. I fully expected more questioning on this trip simply because T. is a non-citizen and we were coming in on a one-way ticket. In these circumstances, it is normal to be asked about one’s travel plans, proof of when one will leave, not to mention how have we been managing to travel in all these countries for over a year? 

But no questions of the kind were asked. Instead, the immigration officer said “Welcome to you as well.” They went through their fingerprinting rigamarole and then he asked if I had a Canadian passport too. It turned out that when we checked in for our flight from Australia, I had presented my U.S. passport (the correct thing to do) but the airline official had asked if I had another one, because she was looking for my Australian visa. The only people who needed to see that were immigration when I left the country, but I showed her my Canadian passport anyway, and evidently she’d swiped it into the Advance Passenger Information—which is how the Americans could see it. In any case, showing my U.S. passport was the correct thing to do in the U.S.

Then he asked about our customs declaration (we had recently been on a farm). “You’ll have to talk to agriculture about that,” he said, and waved us through. We couldn’t find agriculture and were on our way out with our bags when another officer, full of Aloha, saw our cards and said “Do me a favor and speak to agriculture about that.”

“Where are they?”

“Speak to someone without a gun,” he clarified.

Well, who doesn’t have a gun in America? Agriculture officers, I guess. They didn’t ask about the farm at all, just what food we were bringing. I’d heard that Honolulu was a more laid-back port of entry than, say, Los Angeles, but this was as relaxed a time as I’ve ever had—and I was born here.

The Honolulu airport is maintained by the city government and so it has a kind of throwback feel. Lots of open air, not many concessions, a ’70s concrete kind of vibe. This relaxed tone was a taste of what was to come in Hawaii. It’s one of the United States, but it’s not like other states.

At our Airbnb I switched on the TV for a change. All in the Family. It was an episode that, incredibly, I knew of, in which Michael and Gloria get married. If you remember this show you know that it was groundbreaking at the time. Indeed, I wish that Archie Bunker’s bigotry sounded more out of date than it does. In any case, this is one of those shows, like I Love Lucy, that illustrates how the U.S.A. could do good TV. Not to sound like the Lonely Planet guide, but laughing at ourselves is surely Americans’ saving grace.

We were in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and it still felt kind of like Asia. Let’s be honest—parts of Australia felt a lot like Asia too. The stores were full of Hawaiian drinks (guava, etc.) We had supper at a food court our hosts recommended: very local, no chains, mostly Asian foods. Then we crashed.

Not literally, though there was that rare moment when, according to T., I say calmly from the passenger seat: “You’re on the wrong side of the road.” Renting a car had turned out to be such the opposite of our usual airport experience that we were just glad to get out of there—in a convertible, though not at the price it should have been. It was a little wasted on the island of Oahu, though. We never saw a speed limit over 55 miles per hour, and most of the time we were driving more slowly than that.

Neither of us had ever been to Hawaii before, so we decided to stick to Oahu and explore as much as we could. I don’t know about the rest of the islands, but it felt very military to us. We were staying with an army family, around the corner from an army hospital, and there were bases everywhere. And offers for those in military uniform. At Pearl Harbor we learned that Hawaii was under martial law during the Second World War. It’s obviously different now, but I still got that impression that a lot of the Pacific forces came to be based there and just stayed.

Pearl Harbor was a place we had to go, as first-time visitors to Hawaii. The U.S. entered World War II late, at the end of 1941, and the reason was the Japanese bombing attack on the fleet and aircraft at Pearl Harbor. Overnight, the country went from isolationism (let’s stay out of Europe’s wars) to an unprecedented war effort on both the Pacific and European fronts. The museums at Pearl Harbor, which are free, do a good job of showing why all this happened: Japan’s imperial ambitions in Asia, how they threatened colonies such as Britain’s and France’s (Indochina, anyone?), and what they thought such an audacious attack on the U.S. Navy could achieve.

The museums also show that the war did not start off going well for the U.S., any more than for its allies in Europe. What the generation who grew up in the Great Depression, and the Blitz in Britain, accomplished was truly remarkable, and something I feel more thankful for as there are fewer of them left. Tom Brokaw or whoever coined the phrase “the greatest generation” was not wrong. 

Of course, this is personal for me. The members of my family who fought in World War II were in the Pacific theatre. Both my grandfathers were on Oahu during the war, possibly even during the same period. One of them came there some time after being seriously injured; with all the fighting going on, he wasn’t able to get treatment where he was. My great-uncle Clyde was also in the navy, and in fact was already serving when Pearl Harbor was attacked. He was there on December 7, 1941, and badly wounded in the bombing of the U.S.S. Arizona.

It’s free to visit the Arizona memorial. Demand, though, is such that you have to book tickets in advance, or get there early. I got up early the morning before and snagged us a spot. We also were unfortunately unable to dock at the memorial because it is in need of repair, and currently deemed unsafe. But, the navy boat took us around the memorial and we got commentary from a man who was eleven years old at the time, and saw the whole thing happen. He was clearly too young to fight in the Second World War, but he went on to do so in Korea.

Every branch of my family sent men to serve in World War II. When you think that most of the men—more than a thousand—who died on the Arizona were around nineteen years old, it is very sobering. I am not a military buff per se but as in Vietnam, I wanted to understand this story of the war. So we bought tickets and clambered aboard the U.S.S. Bowfin, “the Pearl Harbor avenger,” a submarine that was launched December 7, 1942.

We also toured the U.S.S. Missouri, the last battleship. Many battleships were destroyed in the Pearl Harbor attack, and the subsequent war was fought with aircraft carriers, but the Missouri outlasted the battleship age. She was hit by a kamikaze attack during World War II, and if you tour the ship, you will learn that the captain required the kamikaze pilot to be buried at sea, with his flag, rather than tossed overboard like garbage. “A dead enemy is no longer your enemy,” he told his men, but a brave warrior who fought for his country. Since then, Japanese as well as Americans have honored this act of humanity in the midst of such a vicious war. There is even an exhibition aboard the Missouri about the Japanese pilots and what they—young men themselves—hoped to accomplish with their suicide missions.

That gave me pause. Japan knew by that point that it could not win the war with the U.S., so its only hope lay in making the war too costly; and it did this by showing the Japanese people’s willingness to sacrifice themselves in endless numbers. An invasion of the Japanese home islands would be an unthinkable bloodbath. We all know how the U.S. resolved that issue.

In his masterwork on America in Vietnam, A Bright Shining Lie, Neil Sheehan comments on how much hatred of the “dirty Jap” informed American behavior, not only during World War II but subsequently in the wars in East Asia. The Nazis, after all, had been in power for years, but it took Japan attacking Pearl Harbor to make Americans want to fight. Understandable, but there are less savory reasons too. Germany, not Japan, was an actual threat to the existence of the United States and of free countries. This is literally true. The reason the U.S. developed the atomic bombs that were ultimately dropped on Japan was because of Nazi Germany. Immigrants from Germany told the U.S. government that it had to make nuclear weapons, because Germany was making them. It is thanks to those immigrants that the U.S. got there first. What Japan did to the Allies in the Pacific war was hideous, but can you imagine the world if Adolf Hitler had gotten the atomic bomb?

The U.S.S. Missouri went on to see service in two more wars. She was in Korea, a war that is not talked about as much but which quietly ended the other day—more than sixty years after the ceasefire. Then in the 1980s buildup of American forces, the battleship was revived again. The Missouri fired the first Tomahawk missiles of the Persian Gulf war.

That was the war of my student days. I remember people holding vigils against it. Not the least upset was a young woman in my dorm who had family in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. War looks different when the bombs are falling on you, which I suppose is the lesson of Pearl Harbor. Not for one moment do I think the Persian Gulf conflict was as neat as the videogame version on the War Channel made it appear. But aboard the Missouri, looking at the Pepsi machine and the computer room of 1991 vintage, I thought of the Americans my age who were actually there. And I thought of the Korean war, and of my great-uncle Johnnie, who served there and brought my mom back a little kimono.

Perhaps the finest hour of the Missouri was the day the Japanese surrendered on her deck. She was in Tokyo Bay and Japan’s representatives apparently expected to be killed when they boarded the ship; perhaps that’s what they’d have done to a surrendering enemy. In any case, Douglas MacArthur and some Allied representatives signed some paperwork and it was all over. Imagine the relief of an actual end, a treaty between countries. World War II was the last war the U.S. declared, and V-J Day was the last real victory.

Among them the Arizona, Bowfin, and Missouri represent the beginning, middle, and end of America’s war in the Pacific. Today the Missouri’s big guns are at a 45-degree angle, as they would be to fire a salute. They are in fact saluting the Arizona memorial, beneath which many brothers in arms still lie entombed in their ship.

Of all the brave warriors in the U.S. forces, it was said (by cartoonist Bill Mauldin, among others) that the Nisei were second to none. Nisei were people born in the U.S. (or Canada) whose parents were immigrants from Japan. Some of those parents were interned in camps in the United States, but that didn’t stop their sons from being drafted, or from fighting courageously. The same could be said of the many black troops who were treated far from equally at home, and who were segregated in the armed forces themselves. It’s a great stain on an otherwise honorable time. Somehow America’s largest single ethnic group, German-Americans, did not end up in internment camps.

At Pearl Harbor we met the daughter-in-law of a native Hawaiian, “Uncle Herb,” who was a veteran of that day. Uncle Herb recently passed away, but before that he spent decades volunteering at the memorial and talking to people about his experience. Now his daughter-in-law is carrying on his memory. It reminded me of the stunning tour we had at Auschwitz, where our Polish guide revealed that she was the daughter-in-law of a survivor.

It also reminded me of the uncles in my family. After the war and his injuries at Pearl Harbor, Uncle Clyde was stationed in occupied Japan. There he married Aunt KoKo, one of the most delightful Americans I ever met. That is part of the story too.

Continent (islands) 4 to continent (islands) #5

We had one more stop in Sydney before leaving our fourth continent. This was a treat because none other than VK Powell, my fellow author and our friend from North Carolina, was in town. VK and T. also share a former profession, so we always have lots to talk about. It makes a change from just me talking all the time!

We also enjoyed meeting VK’s best Aussie mate, Lyn. The weather in Sydney was wintry, i.e. rough seas and rain, so when some dry weather broke through Lyn decided we must be getting cabin fever. She drove T. and me around La Perouse, on the edge of Botany Bay, and a beach called Maroubra.

Lyn was also kind enough to arrange for all of us to go to Vivid Sydney at the Taronga Zoo. Vivid is a festival of illuminations all over downtown buildings, and we were lucky not to get soaked, as the rain was pelting down ferociously while we were waiting for the ferry. T. put her rain pants on and from then on, the rain magically stopped.

Sydney Harbour Bridge in the rain!

At Taronga Zoo, Vivid takes the form of illuminated sculptures of animals. The actual zoo animals were off duty, but we enjoyed a cable car ride and a great many vivid creatures, including many native to Australia.

Echidnas

Tasmanian devils

The evening ended on a high note, with fish and chips by the platypus!

Yet some of the enjoyment of staying in one place for a while was the pleasure of cooking our own food. Of course, we do that camping as well, but T. was unable to roast a Sunday dinner in a camper van! Then there was my salmon, and something called “curry soup” that we’d never heard of before, but was so lovely when our friends made it that we’re now loaded up with packets. One more thing to declare at U.S. customs!

VK spoiled us, but we also had family to catch up with in Sydney. Liza was away traveling but we did get in another Thai dinner with Jim. He had lots of good suggestions for our next destinations—Hawaii and his home state, California! We also went out to Richmond one day to meet up with T’s cousin, Emma.

She showed us around the farm where she works, training horses for polo and pretty much everything else that needs doing. Then we had a pub lunch. Emma may have lived in Australia for a number of years, but to me, it felt like going back to Derby for a family party.

That was a fine day, but as I mentioned, there was lots of rain in Sydney. It didn’t matter because there were also lots of movies on TV. I certainly hadn’t seen that many films in the past year—even the airlines we’ve flown lately don’t include entertainment. Among the highlights was Trumbo, a timely depiction of the Hollywood blacklist and what it did to writer Dalton Trumbo. It was good to be reminded that freedom of speech really starts to matter when it’s speech you don’t agree with.

Our “mates” also took us out on the town, including to Tea with the Dames during the Sydney Film Festival. This movie is just the Dames (Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Joan Plowright, and Eileen Atkins) sitting around having tea and talking about their overlapping acting careers. As witty as these four women are, and given that each has been made a dame of the British Empire for services to drama, this was a highlight too.

As was lunch in Spice Alley, the Sydney version of an Asian food court. There was even a tuk-tuk out front!

When I couldn’t bear to sit indoors any longer, I walked all the way down Elizabeth Street to the central business district (CBD). I love walking an unfamiliar street and discovering a slice of that particular city’s life. I passed a Maori Anglican Church and the office of a women’s peace and justice association, missions and museums, an old hotel pub and a place that sold Singapore chili crab. And I didn’t spend a cent.

Not that it’s possible to spend a cent in Australia—they round everything up to the nearest five now.

Although we’ve both been to Sydney a number of times, there are places neither of us had ever visited. We took advantage of another sunny day to take the ferry to Manly. It wasn’t quite swimming weather (though there were brave souls out there in wetsuits), but the beach was lovely to walk on, and of course there’s always coffee—and ice cream! A touch of rain on the horizon was enough to provide us with a stunning rainbow on our ride back across the harbor.

The final day trip we took was to the Blue Mountains. Everyone should do this, as it is effortless—you just catch a train from Sydney in the normal way, using your local transit card, but it’s a real long-distance train and takes you to Katoomba in about two hours. From there, you can get the hop-on, hop-off bus that goes from Katoomba to Leura and many stops in between. The bus and driver were first rate, but we didn’t really get our money’s worth from the bus, as we just walked from hike to hike. The stops turned out to be a lot closer to each other than we’d realized. Still, it was a nice day for hiking—not too warm. And we were glad to have a ride back to Leura train station at the end of the day.

Katoomba Cascades

Three Sisters

Places like Katoomba and Echo Point are built up and have all kinds of facilities, yet a short walk brings you to lookouts over vast forested areas like the Jamison Valley.

There are Aboriginal carvings in the Blue Mountains that are thought to be thousands of years old. We didn't see those, but the features that perhaps inspired some of that ancient art impressed us equally.

Looking down on the tops of the trees

So what will I take from Australia? In some ways, it is a very familiar culture to a North American, which is why the differences can be instructive. We had a look in a gun shop the other day and that reminded me that there is a middle ground between the free-for-all gun culture of the U.S.A., and no guns at all. Recently, there was a terrible shooting within a family in Western Australia; the last mass shooting in Australia was in 1996. As I mentioned in my Tasmania post, Australians saw that their country had a problem, and dealt with it.

We’re off to the U.S. next. We will miss our friends and many family members who so generously hosted us in Oceania, and made it possible for us to stay so long. Australia is the home of my favorite guidebooks, the Lonely Planet series, and in preparation for the U.S.A. I’ve been amusing myself with their take on my native land. In addition to guns, here are some aspects of U.S. culture Lonely Planet feels international visitors should know about:

*Tipping is not optional.

*Never walk away from a police officer (see guns).

*There’s never been a better time to be gay in America. But don’t be “out” in rural or conservative areas.

*Remain calm when answering intimidating border officials (they have guns too).

*Smoking, another dangerous thing that causes death, is barely tolerated anywhere in America, even outdoors.

*But Americans are friendly, so make an effort to meet them.

That’s about how I remember it, too. Bring on the birthplace of President Obama (and no, it wasn’t Kenya! Unless you mean Barack Obama, Sr.)