Opinion

I am fortunate to live on the beautiful Windward side of the island, but for the past few weeks not so fortunate because of the variable winds conditions resulting in stifling weather conditions.  I had been praying for the trades to come back and about to dump a glass of cold water on my head when it dawned on me, variable winds = good surf on the East-side!

Now when I mean “East-side” I  am referring to the East-side of the island of Oahu such as Kailua, Kaneohe, Ka’a'awa, Punalu’u, Hau’ula, Laie, and Kahuku.  I have been living on this side of the island in Kahalu’u for the past 7 years and I have been honored to surf some of these secret local breaks.  I exclude Sandy Beach and Makapu’u simply for the fact that there is currently a surf report done on these surf locations and they may be considered “East-side” breaks but there are no secrets here.  As for the rest of the areas for those who know where to go and when to go, these places can produce some of the best surf on the island with NO CROWDS!

To catch great surf on the East-side many factors must be just right.

#1. The right winds.

#2. Large swells generating from either the north or the south.

#3. The right tide.

#4. No hungry sharks around.

If one of these factors are just a little off the surf won’t be right and most times un-surfable.  I have driven out to a particular break many times and have not paddled out because the conditions were wrong.

There are also other factors to consider when thinking about surfing the East-side.   Firstly, most of the surf breaks cannot be seen by the untrained surfer eye.  The surf breaks are either so far out that most people don’t even notice surfers or to get to the break you have to go through parks or even people’s houses.  Next once you’ve found the break, there are no surf reports for any of the breaks from Kailua to Kahuku, so you must physically be standing in front of the break to know how it is.  Once you decide you should paddle out most of the East-side breaks have no formal parking area, so you must park your car at your own risk, which is usually on the side of the road or in a neighborhood.  Another thing to remember is that the locals who surf these spots don’t like foreigners (anyone else that didn’t grow up surfing there) so be prepared not to be welcomed and even hated on.

Lastly and most importantly, if you are lucky to spot a break with ideal conditions, find a parking, and decide to go out, understand that whatever wave size you think it is the actual height when you paddle out is usually twice that size and double the strength.  East-side breaks tend to be very deceiving and usually not in the new-comers favor.  East-side breaks tend to barrel on the reef and waves come with lots of speed and power behind it.  Trust me, over the years I have learned all these things out the hard way.

As I took the 20 minute paddle out to an undisclosed surf break this weekend I got into “serious surfer mode.”  After the stare down by the locals and without any smiling I took a spot off the peak out of the way.  Surfing with “east-siders” is one like no other.  There is a very different vibe with a focus on catching as many waves as possible and not getting killed on the reef.  These guys are about ripping it up, safety, and camaraderie, not about showing off, dropping in on someone, and bragging about it.  It was an amazing day with head high waves and some of the best glass-est surf I had seen in months and months.  Even I got a few choice waves and I even saw one smile come my way from a local.

I would like to warn tourists and new surfers of East-side breaks.  These spots aren’t for the light hearted and in my opinion because of all the sketchy variables the East-side can be a tougher place than North Shore.  I respect the locals in cherishing these untouched spots and will never publish the actual locations or names of the breaks that I have been to for fear of ruining their spots.  If you surf the East-side consider yourself lucky, always respect the locals and the beaches, and don’t forget to watch your back for sharks.

My young sons were thrilled when President Obama was elected. They knew he had lived in Hawaii and the buzzing excitement of the adults around them was contagious. The night the polls closed they watched, in perplexed fascination, as their father wiped the tears streaming down his face. Reassuring them that they were tears of happiness, he explained to the boys that they had just witnessed a wonderful moment in our history. He explained to them that Senator Barack Obama would soon be the first non-white President of the United States. They continued to look puzzled. Their father tried a more personal approach: “We’ll soon have a President who is like us—not white.” Surprised, the boys looked at their hands and arms and asked, “We’re not white?”

My children are Korean. Their father is Korean and Irish. I am a mixture of European and American Indian. Every year I teach a class on skin color in the boys’ classrooms. I bring a box of 30 “people color” crayons and have a chart that shows how melanin is produced. The children and I talk about the areas of the world where skin color is light and where it is dark. At the end, the children are provided paper and crayons and asked to draw a picture of themselves. Interestingly, most of them reach for the pinks and pale beige crayons and push aside the darker ones.

In Hawaii, race is rarely an issue for our family. With a 75% non-Caucasian population, Hawaii is remarkable in its ethnic diversity. A snapshot of the children in a typical Hawaiian classroom would show a rainbow of skin colors. Being diverse here is the norm. Which means that teachers, policemen, coaches, doctors, and parents all look familiar to our children—who literally see in themselves the very features of their role models. So why does a five year old, living in Hawaii, identify with the lightest color crayons?

My sons’ father grew up Asian in a white world. He was acutely aware of being different. For children, being perceived as different is confusing and painful. The weight of that burden shapes who they will become. My children do not yet know that their life here in Hawaii was created so they could grow up free from the perception that they are “different.” Perhaps once they make their way out of this Hawaiian sanctuary our country will have rejected the idea that lighter is better. The fact that we elected a non-white President is evidence that our idea of “different” is changing. Here in Hawaii it is a blessing that children can grow up unburdened by the perception that they are different.

copyright © 2009 by Johanna Kim

“A water main break on Date Street between Lukepane and Ekela avenues shortly before 1 p.m. Tuesday has closed the Mo’ili’ili area roadway, police said, “We have our troubleshooter there now, and he’s trying to shut off the water,” said Su Shin, spokeswoman for the Board of Water Supply. “And after that our crews will get there, and they’ll begin work on the main repair.”

In the meantime, police say traffic is being rerouted to Olokele Avenue, onto Winam Avenue and back to Makaleka Avenue, and vice versa. It was not immediately clear when Date might be reopened to traffic.

What is shocking about this January 7 Honolulu-Advertiser story is that it has been repeated ad-nauseum for more than two decades and NO ONE seems to care. Absolutely everyone in a position of Authority (Mayor Hanneman, the Honolulu City Council, Members of the Board of Water Supply) simply yawn, fret a bit about traffic woes, and then go on as if it were normal for underground pipes to break making it mandatory for bull-dozers & back-hoes to hack up roadways, back up traffic and generally further a mess. Completely ignored are the homeowners & businesses frequently flooded by the more severe water main breaks.

Guess what happens when someone suggests the only logical game plan? Guess what happens when someone, such as myself, suggests that ALL water mains and piping ought to be housed in maintenance tunnels? Imagine a quote along these lines, “Eh, too expensive, cost too much money, cannot be done.”

Is it inexpensive to repair ruptured water mains on a near daily basis by digging up roadways, rerouting traffic?  Is there no cost associated with flooded homes & businesses? Rude, perhaps, but I never accept the verdict that nothing can be done. A multi-billion dollar space station is being constructed in the vacuum of space orbiting above Earth. Certainly water mains and essential pipes & wiring can be buried beneath the Earth.

In fact, (here is a wild thought) why don’t we start with the next water main break, instead of just tossing the pipes on unstable sandy soil, burying all beneath a mix of shifting soil & gravel, covering all with a thin membrane of asphalt ,and praying that it lasts a while til the next break? Let’s take the opportunity to place pipes inside a vaulted corridor designed to eventually connect with more vaulted corridors. And while going about the task of properly housing water mains, let’s seize the opportunity to place power transmission lines below ground.

It can and should be done.  Please, I implore my fellow citizens: don’t just sit in traffic wasting gas and worrying about adding another nasty gash to the side of your vehicle when you swerve into an emergency lane twisting around yet another City & County crew hacking up a perfectly okay roadway! Placing water mains & transmission lines in properly constructed maintenance tunnels saves money in so many ways. This is one is a basic principle apparently over the heads of public officials. Water mains in protective tunnels are less prone to break than water mains when simply laid on a unstable mix of gravel & dirt.  If those mains do break, it is a lot easier crawling down a ladder into a tunnel than it is to tear up the roadway. The engineering specifics are beyond the scope of what is clearly solely the opinion of this writer, but please, O’ahu, think about it.

Mahalo.

A  crack in the road shut down Date Street near Ekela Avenue. Traffic is being rerouted through Winam Avenue.

ANDREW SHIMABUKU | The Honolulu Advertiser

On October 15 2006 a 6.7 Earthquake rattled the Hawai’i’an Islands triggering island wide power outages. What did O’ahu learn from these power outages? Apparently very little, perhaps nothing. A harsh judgment? Consider this list of failure:

1) The City & County of Honolulu in spite of available technology has resisted using solar powered street lamps & traffic lights relying instead on a system dependent on a centralized power source, compounding the problem by not having this archaic system on its own independent power grid.

2) Major Retail Stores, Shopping Centers, Malls all in spite of inherent self interest continue to resist supplying their own power needs through a combination of solar panels and/or wind turbines and/or electrical generators.

3) A majority of bars, cafes, restaurants, etc continue to rely on one source for all their needs (electricity) even when common senses tells them that they should have one or more propane stoves and canisters stored in a safe place.

4) Many Waikiki Resort Hotels continue to resist advances that would enable them to generate their power needs through a combination or solar and/or wind technologies, not even having back-up electrical generators.

5) A majority of businesses & homes continue to ignore the need for rain catchment systems, not only unnecessarily increasing their water bill all year, but succumbing to the fear of having no water when the electric dependent water system is down compounded by

6) the fact that the Board of Water Supply does not insist upon catchment systems, relies upon deep water wells requiring electrical pumps, and does little to fill those reservoirs during periods of heavy rainfall.

Perhaps it is all too easy to blame bureaucratic ignorance and stupidity, but what about the personal factor. How many citizens heed the warning to always have on hand a seven to ten day supply of food as well as flashlights, lanterns, and propane stoves with a minimum of three canisters stored in a safe place? How many citizens own a hand-cranked self generating flashlight and radio? How many citizens can simply relax when the power goes out, having all they need to wait out the ‘emergency’ for a few days, thus resisting the urge to spill into the streets or take to darkened roadways devoid of traffic lights and in far to many cases police officers at major intersection.

One thing staved off potential crisis & chaos and that is Aloha. The common sense of driver treating intersections darkened by bureaucratic bumbling as a four way stop, slowing down and even allowing pedestrians to cross. Aloha as in neighbors helping neighbors. Aloha discouraging looting and criminal acts. Aloha and the calm steady voices of Perry & Price in the dark doing their best to help their fellow citizens. But how long can O’ahu count on Aloha especially if a future incident blackens the island for days perhaps weeks. A scary yet real scenario when government & businesses ignore the lessons enumerated previously, falling back on the lame excuse that improvements are way to expensive, trusting that their losses will be covered by insurance, ignoring the very real fact that insurance is not an inexhaustible resource.

A debate that has been unresolved for one-and-a-half years is whether or not to drug test teachers in Hawaii’s public schools. In return for signing over some of their rights to privacy, the teachers will receive a 4% raise in salary — to what is already considered an underpaid job. It should also be noted that there is a teacher shortage as it is, and placing further demands and restrictions would be discouraging to narrowing the gap between supply and demand.

The most confusing part about this debate is that the foundations to carry out a decision were not laid. The HSTA (Hawaii State Teachers Association) and the government did not specify who would foot the bill for drug testing- an estimated $2.3 billion tab. In addition to not being able to carry out an agreement either way, many teachers are unhappy with the idea of drug and alcohol testing.

There are two factors that directly acted as the impetuses for this issue.  The first factor is that two teachers were caught smoking marijuana on an in-service day in 2006, and 8 weeks later another teacher was caught selling crystal methamphetamine to undercover officers.  With only a two month span between incidents, that is discouraging to the Board of Education, as well as parents.

The second factor is that Hawaii has consistently ranked in the lower ten states in terms of student standardized testing. The added pressure (and often unrealistic expectations) of No Child Left Behind has teachers scrambling to do more than is humanly possible.  Also, there is an overwhelming number of factors that go into ranking. It does not measure the teachers’ abilities, necessarily. If a child comes from low-income housing or parents with little or no education, it will have a huge effect on the student’s standardized score.

Certainly there must be an appropriate response to teachers using and selling drugs or underperforming. There is no reason to argue otherwise.  But what is the appropriate response?

In a weak economy, where cuts are being made to bare-bone budgets, why is $2.3 billion going towards drug testing ten to twenty percent of Hawaii teachers? Governor Lingle says the State Board of Education has the financial resources to cover the testing; the Board of Education is claiming that shoring up costs would require taking money away from classrooms. It could be argued that perhaps drug testing teachers is a luxury afforded by a healthier economy.  $2.3 billion could put computers in school labs, replace badly damaged textbooks, and allow schools to take advantage of advanced technology for classroom instruction. Ultimately, money that is put into education now is an investment in saving for the future. The better the education we provide students of Hawaii with in the present, the less money will be spent in the future restructuring of the system.

In terms of faculty morale, this perpetrates a poor attitude on behalf of administration towards their teachers. One is innocent until proven guilty, not the other way around. It is a paradox to entrust a person with the education and safety of hundreds of school children.  However, say that those in charge don’t trust the teachers enough to live their own private lives and make professional decisions. In this case, the students should be drug tested as well; there have been a striking number of school shootings and murders, from as young as kindergarten straight into college. Should all students be drug tested, then?

HSTA voted 61% in favor of drug testing. A majority of the remaining percent feel that drug testing should only be warranted upon reasonable suspicion. Of course, this statement was made without any clear definition of what could warrant ‘reasonable suspicion.’  Would a parking ticket, frequent absences, erratic behavior warrant ‘reasonable suspicion’?  There is a very gray area with this term.

I believe that those reasons of suspicion can be drawn up and agreed upon by the disagreeing parties. This saves spending unnecessarily, as well as more accurately targeting those that garner suspicion.

A mass wave of McCarthy-esque paranoia is not the answer to the problem. Teachers that disagree with drug testing simply on the basis of privacy and misplaced funding start to sound like they are guilty. The immediate reaction is usually suspicion at the refusal to drug test, and that reaction allows people to ignore the reasons for refusal.

The means to an end should model our law system: Behave, and if you don’t, then there will be consequences. The fear of those consequences has led most people to live their life within the boundaries of the law. It works on a smaller scale, too.

From microcosms to macrocosms, it is important to remember how many people we allow to have an impact on the safety of our lives: city bus drivers, construction workers, food preparers, and government workers. Many politicians (our President included) have not provided a shining track record. So why, then, is this spotlight on those who have chosen one of the hardest and most thankless professions?

This weekend’s conditions at Diamond Head were like nothing I have ever seen before on the stand up paddle surfboard.  It had been raining for days like cats and dogs.  There was so much rain the trees were losing their weaker branches (so don’t park under any big trees). Also, the ocean was brown and dirty (so if you are a traditional surfer, have fun sitting in the murky water).

Is it better to rent or own real estate with your hard-earned money? Unless you live in a car, boat, or some other form of housing, real estate is something worth considering now if you haven’t already.

Everyone has a lot of common interests in life: everyone eats, drinks, laughs — the list goes on and on. Everyone likes pretty songs, pictures, stories. Whatever it is, everyone likes something. Everyone also has a gift that s/he may or may not discover in his/her lifetime. Folks are going to find out about themselves one way or another whether it’s through seriously looking at themselves in the mirror or figuring it out through trial and error.

My intention here is to remind all of you healthy, active locals of the benefits of owning a home as opposed to renting a home in Hawaii. Now, more than ever, is the time to own a home. With this new year, I hope to lay out reasons for why it’s important to capitalize on the opportunities right here in Hawaii, right now.

2009 is a year of change. As you know we have a new president and new approaches to living cleaner and healthier.  On the cusp of a new decade, both new and experienced homebuyers are eager to understand the latest trends in real estate. Out of all the new things happening in 2009 my favorite is the new housing market.  During the last quarter of 2008 we have witnessed numerous new homeowners taking advantage of the buyers market we are in right now.

Let’s face it.  There are some really great things about renting.  As a tenant, you are not responsible for the mess you make, the light bulbs you break, or the dryer that you burn up.   As a renter you will never have to worry about the value of your assets.  You won’t have to get all the tax deductions associated with having a mortgage.  And (my personal favorite) you won’t have to worry about all the capital gains tax you would make over the next 5 to 10 years depending on how long you live Hawaii.

We are in a transitional period.  While things look grim to some, others like ourselves couldn’t ask for a better formula. Today, the market is filled with motivated sellers who are entertaining reasonable offers.  The mortgage lending industry has tightened its guidelines drastically to make sure only qualified homeowners can buy.  The real estate prices are dropping, making buyers — qualified or not — more interested.  More people are going to be moving to Hawaii in the next decade.

Now let’s get down to business. One of the main advantages of owning a home is that you will not have to answer to anyone.  Ever been your own boss before? How did that feel? There are also healthy tax benefits for homebuyers, as interest on your mortgage can be written off. Owning your own home is like making the best investment in your lifetime: you’re returning equity to yourself; your money is not going down a drain. People’s belief that renting stands for “Return Equity Not to Tenant” is one of the truest statements today. As opposed to other prices in the nation, housing prices are appreciating here in Hawaii, and it is crucial to capitalize on this trend now, when prices are as low as they’ve been for over five years.

So, to summarize: owning a home gives you the peace of mind that you have been seeking. While you may have cold feet now, take that leap of faith and trust your instincts. It may appear to be a huge cost to you, but think about what you’re getting in terms of financial freedom in the long run! Home owning really is part of that “American Dream.” Feel free to contact me for more information (milyak808@gmail.com).

I have always wanted to float down the Grand Canyon in a raft or kayak for a week or longer or shorter. I have just always wanted to do it. I have always wanted to climb the Grand Teton that I saw on a road trip with my friend in Jackson Hole, Wyoming when I was 18 years old. What a trip!  We packed up the F150 truck and started the 6,000 mile trip when gas was still around a dollar a gallon.  At the time, I never even heard of Hawaii or the North Shore or Obama.  Later, I saw and dreamed about climbing Yosemite. I stared at the base of the Half Dome for hours when I was traveling as an independent young man and said to myself I can do it.

I don’t know what it is about being out there and hanging by your fingertips or balancing on the balls of your feet.  Maybe it’s that feeling of flirting with nature.  I always just started to do what I wanted to do and as long as no one caught me or stopped me I have usually done it.

Now I want to talk about what I have done. I have lived in Hawaii for six maybe seven years now without leaving the islands.  You know how time flies. I left a good paying construction job to chase my dreams of being independently wealthy in the real estate business so that I can travel and play in the most extreme arenas that mother nature offers thrill seekers.

…and we all know the story of the real estate market. So, I bought, owned, operated, and sold a landscaping company on Maui while staging people’s homes to get a commission. That didn’t work, so I packed my bags to move to the Big Island to sell timeshares. I lived there in a vog-infested environment, lost my health, put on a little weight, and lost a few months of surfing on Oahu to chase that dream of becoming independently wealthy.

The one thing I can say is that I did it. I have done all these things and, in the last year or so, I lived and worked on building a nursery in Waimanalo. I bought and built a music club which has been a great and fulfilling business and musical experience. I broke the first ever C4 waterman stand-up board. (If you know someone else who broke one let me know.) I tried to start a tour company here is Hawaii and failed miserably but guess what — I tried it.

Now that I am thirty and almost thirty-one, I must say I have lived a fulfilling and beautiful life based around one small principle: I do what I want to do and I love doing it. This love came from my parents — mainly my dad.  Like father, like son. He bought me my one way ticket to Hawaii not knowing where I would work or where I would stay. He got me the ticket because I wanted to do it. Key note to homeless island travelers: Don’t sleep at Magic Island overnight because the sprinklers will come on.

Anyways back to the conclusion of this article. Now that I am almost thirty-one, and now that I’ve spent the last year doing what I want to do, I have had the chance to step out of my own narrow line of vision and look at what everyone wants to do and what everyone is doing. So far, I seem to have a little bit of fog in my goggles or water in my eyes because I am not sure what the majority of people my age are looking to do in life. When I look at the whole population of people my age that are in Hawaii I must say some are surfers, some are baby makers, some are business owners (usually of a family business), and the rest are blue collar workers. What I am looking for is some clarity on what people really want to do and the actions they are taking to make it happen. Do other people really have a seed of prosperity they are growing in their own gardens to produce bounty or are they going to continue to shop at someone else’s store of prosperity? Do others have visions like I do?  Are they acting on those visions to achieve their goals or are they just talking about it or saying, “when that happens or all when this happens I do this…” — the old cause and effect?

Well, let me tell you one thing I’ve learned in my near decade of life in Hawaii: You are the cause your reality and life is the effect.  Life effects you and all the people around you as long as you are alive. That is one thing that is as true as Hawaii being the greatest place on earth to live — for a few months out of the year anyways.

The world is a big place.  Let’s go play.

I had to write about the airport’s restaurants for PlanetEye, another travel website that I write for, and was surprised to find two decent reviews of a place called “Stinger Ray’s,” located in the central lobby.  If you’re looking for a place with edible — even “good” — food, then this restaurant might be your only option.

One foodie over at Epinions.com writes that the chili cheese fries and clam chowder were surprisingly tasty, while Claire Walter, a food critic from Colorado, reports the Caesar salad is salty, but the nachos are not terrible.

Wherever it is you’re eating, I would advise ordering your food out and eating it in the courtyard on the bottom floor of the main concourse.  Let me know if you’ve eaten there yourself — or if there are other airport restaurants that are diamonds in the rough.

I’ve been to Side Street Inn a total of three times already. The first two times were pretty good, but the most recent time, I don’t think I’ll probably go back again.

Let’s start of with the wait. Yes, we should have put in reservations like we did in the past, but when we got there, it wasn’t super packed and when we asked the seater, he told us about 20 minutes. How long did we wait? Around 50 minutes. Yes, about an hour, as we see other people who arrived later WITHOUT reservations get seated first. They didn’t really have an answer when I asked when we will be seated. That was only the beginning.

Finally we sit down and we IMMEDIATELY order because we were really hungry by then. We ordered house salad, kal-bi (korean braised short-ribs), fried rice, and pork chops. It literally took about 30-40 minutes before our SIMPLE SALAD arrived. After scarfing that down, I asked the waitress (who never came to refill our water) how much longer it will take to get the rest of our food, because we waited almost 50 minutes after ordering and haven’t received anything. Her answer? “Oh, the kichen is really backed up” then she left. Thanks. She didn’t apologize, didn’t try to update us on our food, or offer us anything. She pretty much expected us to just accept it.

Finally our food comes a few minutes after I asked her. By then, the food was anti-climatic as we were already pretty upset that we got our food so late, didn’t get good service from the waitress (who wasn’t even running around like she was busy), and she never refilled our water until we basically finished our food. She wasn’t even around for us to call her to refill the water.

The first two experiences were good. This third experience was so horrible, it might cancel out how great the first two experieces were. Would I return? I would probably consider another place first, then if I’m peer-pressured to return, I might just cave in. But if this situation repeats itself, count me out for good.