Foreign Perspectives

Archive for the ‘Places’ Category

Hawaii is a loooong way from anywhere so the best option for most people from Europe is to include it as part of a round the world trip and, all being well, I’ll be doing that at some point in the next year or two once more.

Last time we stayed at the Waikiki Surf hotel which is a few blocks back from the beach and a teensy bit noisy as it’s on quite a major road. I think next time around it’ll probably be one facing the sea: ’tis much nicer to wake to the sound of the surf than the sound of the traffic. Incidently, be careful of the exact name of your hotel as there are untold numbers of Waikiki X hotel, Surf Y and Outrigger Z hotels!

Waikiki is on Oahu along with Honolulu and is probably the most touristy of the islands. Having said that, this means that there are loads of things to do. Don’t miss the Polynesian Centre which is run by the students of the Mormon university on the island. Fans of Hawaii Five-O won’t want to miss the view from Diamond Head. Pearl Harbour still holds the remains of numerous battleships. I’ve an upcoming trips guide which covers all this in more detail.

For something completely different, Maui offers you much more of an ecological location. Less touristy and much more scenic. More of a vacation rental place I think as that gives you more of a chance to wind down after the long flight.

Anything to do with boating is never cheap but if you want a holiday experience that you’ll really remember then a cruise down a canal in your own boat is hard to beat.

A holiday on a canal boat (“barge” doesn’t really seem the correct term for the boats that you find these days) is at a totally different pace. Normal guidebooks are completely useless as they are aimed at drivers and cover a much greater chunk of the countryside than you’d be able to see at the pace of a canal boat. You’ll see all kinds of cute little villages that you’d have zoomed past without a second glance and as the canals tend to go through the older parts of towns you get to see some quite historic sections of towns that you’d never have seen before even if you were quite familiar with them.

You can do this in lots of countries but with the exchange rate being what it is why not try out a canal boat on the Norfolk Broads?

This is the type of holiday that you really need to do at least once in your life.

These days there’s really no excuse if you’re using simple wallpaper that everyone else has to decorate your home.

How much better to display a selection of your own photographs instead? You’ve probably not thought about that before as the normal commercial photographic printers just cater for the typical album size prints and don’t have the equipment to produce a trully impressive work of art for your wall from your photographs.

However, you don’t need to limit yourself to the photographic shop round the corner these days as it’s very easy to transfer a photograph to a printer anywhere. Not only does this open up the possibility of much larger prints but you’ve also the option of printing on various types of “paper” from the usual glossy (not really suitable for large scale photos) through to canvas if you’d like an almost painting like quality to your print.

Particularly for the larger sizes, printing photograph on canvas is really the only way to go. If your image is from a compact digital camera more than a year or two old then it’ll go “blocky” on normal photographic paper if you try to run off a print at the larger sizes but on canvas this disappears into the texture of the material you’re getting it printed on.

What about the subject for your photo? That depends on you. I’m quite taken with this photo that I took of Cordoba and I’ve a heap of similar scenic photos from that particular trip. On the other hand, all scenes would make for a dull home I suspect and it’s probably best to mix them up with photos of the kids and so on. One thing to watch on the landscape photos is that if you’re not careful they can date quite quickly if you’ve included people in them as dress styles change surprisingly quickly sometimes (unless the people are in native dress of course).

Last, but not least, don’t forget that you can update the photos now and again too.

Honolulu and Oahu in general is seen as pretty much all about mass tourism these days but there’s more to it than that as, of course, that’s where Pearl Harbour is.

Whilst you’ll obviously spend most of your time around the innumerable tourist attractions and sightseeing tours that seem to be just about everywhere in Hawaii you should definitely make time to include a Honolulu tour in your schedule to visit the site of Pearl Harbour and make a point of going out on the launch to see the Arizona memorial which you see in the photo here. One thing that I found a little peculiar was that there were a considerable number of Japanese also making that pilgrimmage although far fewer than you’ll encounter elsewhere in Hawaii.

Geography has contributed to that sense of difference as, whilst it’s a very interesting place to go in it’s own right, it’s a unique place and not in a region that’s particularly touristy. Consequently, you’ll find that the the New Orleans tourist people are able to concentrate on the city and it’s immediate surroundings rather than the nebulous type of tourist promotion that you get in areas such as Florida.

That’s no bad thing on the whole as it’s very much a spot that deserves to be seen but it does have the downside that you need to consider booking accommodation quite a bit in advance. For example, one of the very best times of year to visit is during the annual Mardi Gras which has parades running from January 25th to February 5th but you would need to book your hotel rooms quite a bit in advance to reserve your spot (actually, now is a good time to book for next year).

The colourful nature of Mardi Gras is quite typical of the city. After all, where else do you get funerals accompanied by lively jazz music? That’s a development of the African American roots of the city but there’s an equally strong French presence felt throughout the city and it’s the mixing of such different cultures that provides the rich tapestry that is New Orleans.

Given the concentrated nature of the attractions, the hotels are pretty thick on the ground here. The varied cultures around the city is, for once, reflected in the wide range of hotel styles that you’ll come across, even within the same hotel chain. For example, you can have typically southern Style (with a capital “S”), French quarter or super-modern (with a French twist too) and that’s just a few of the hotels on offer from Marriott.

Perhaps the biggest downside of New Orleans is that the rich history of the city provides just too much too see. It would be easy to spend a couple of weeks here and barely touch the surface.

Photo courtesy of New Orleans Tourism