Hawaii Day Two! Ukuleles and more!

Day Two – Ukuleles and More!

It was a cold and drizzling morning. We got into a stretch limo cab and said “take us to the KoAloha Ukulele Factory (we saw it on a trolley brochure and the Travel Channel). The driver said “where”? We showed him the address … he said OK. We drove for 15 minutes … out of the tourist part of town and deeper and deeper into an industrial section of the city of Honolulu. Hmmmm ….

Soon, he turned into a parking lot … then drove through it and into another … uh-oh, he’s lost. We’re giggling and starting to wonder what we were getting ourselves into…. Finally the ‘cab’ turned around and pulled up in front of a tiny little KoAloha sign (that we had to point out to him so he’d stop going from parking lot to parking lot), but the sign was in front of a Credit Union building and no Ukulele shop/factory was in sight. So we called their number (yay cell phones!) and they said they were BEHIND the Credit Union we were staring at. Uh-oh.

The driver gave us his number so he could come back and get us (if we survived). We walked in, beyond the chain link fence, and were greeted by the friendliest of people … seemingly just thrilled to have someone show up! They said we’d begin by making our own souvenir wooden keychains. Dave says “Oh, boy … arts and crafts!”. We’re all laughing at the silliness of this whole situation.

But then, it all turned wonderful! Just the four of us … walked through the 10 person factory that makes what is apparently considered one of the top 3 ukuleles in the world, by one of the folks who is an apprentice to the master ukulele maker (Poppa). We met Momma (the sales manager), and sons Paul (the master woodworker) and Alan (the GM). We met everyone else, too, and spent 2 hours learning everything you’d ever want to know about a ukulele. It was fantastic! Check out the video at the end of this post to hear a small snippet of music from our tour guide. For now, here is a slide show of our tour...

At the end, they helped us with maps and helped us realize the obvious next stop! … a chocolate and macadamia nut candy factory!

Four blocks walk through the industrial zone found us at Menehune Mac. Behind a very factory-like entrance door was a showroom of candy and cookies, a window into the candy-making room, and about 30 rugrats, all hyped up on candy. The manager immediately greeted us, told us to go to the back of the showroom, and eat all the sample candy we would like. (really?) So, we did, tasting perhaps 10 of the 30 or so kinds of candy and cookies. We bought some for the rest of the trip (Strawberry Cream and Macadamia, Coconut Cream and Macadamia, and Dark Chocolate Kona Coffee … yum), picked out one to ship to Jenna (alias: “stuck in AZ”), and discussed with the staff what else we could see in that part of town (it worked pretty well so far!). [Click here to view our web album of the Menehune Mac Candy Factory. ] They gave us walking directions to the Bishop Museum, specializing in Hawaiian history and science … seemed an interesting combination. [It is also part of the Bishop school where only those students with Hawaiian ancestry and pass the vigorous entry exams may attend.]

We walked just under a mile, mostly uphill … didn’t have a huge amount of time there, but focused on the history (feathered ceremonial plumes (called Kahlil), some 15 feet high, and masks, pottery, all the stuff you’d expect) and the planetarium show about the telescopes at the observatory on Mauna Kea, the highest mountain in the Pacific. This is where the mirrors came in … during the presentation, everyone in the audience was to aim a reflected beam of light, from a single source, on a single point on the ceiling to demonstrate how much brighter the 50 reflected beams appeared than one single beam … the principle of the reflecting telescope. Of course, some of us had other principles to demonstrate before the presentation … like how to make multiple bunny and puppy shadows on the ceiling with a mirror and fingers. A stop in the gift shop … a call for a taxi … a un-rushed, rush-hour ride back through downtown Honolulu to Waikiki and we were back at the hotel!

Enjoy the slide show of our visit to the Bishop Museum.

We met with Byron, our Dune Buggy Adventures rental agent (and owner and cleaner and mechanic of his 3 car “fleet”). After deciding to not care about the embarrassment of hopping in a bright orange dune buggy with no doors and a roll cage in front of our ocean-front hotel in ritzy Waikiki, Dave and I rode with Byron to a private garage where we could keep the car without paying a parking fee (and not have to be seen driving it out of the valet parking garage of the hotel). We locked it up (not easy with no doors) and headed back to the hotel, picked a place to have dinner on top of a 30 story hotel farther west in Honolulu made famous by Jack Lord from Hawaii Five-O standing on the balcony looking out into the ocean (for you youngins’ Hawaii Five-O was a television show back in the ….um, you get the idea), had a a very nice dinner, and once again crashed in our hotel room.

Up next ... Pearl Harbor. Enjoy the short video..... :)