Around The World in 80 Days 1980
(feel free to catch up on the adventure by checking out parts 1 thru 6, or simply read on from here—we’re just getting started!)
My journal picks up on February 11th after a two-day silence, which isn’t hard to understand, considering the fact that early on the 9th land was spotted: the islands of Hawaii and Oahu.
The sighting was announced at nine a.m. when I was still on duty in the library on the topmost deck. With a panoramic view of the wide open seas at my disposal, needless to say, I spent the last half hour of my shift straining my eyes to study the specks of land dotting the horizon.
Like so many times I would do in the coming weeks and months, I had to pinch myself. Hawaii! And arriving by ship, no less.
Excitement and anticipation steadily built throughout the day as the distant land masses slowly took on shape and distinction. Despite that, we were at sea, which meant it was a class day, Saturday or no, even though focusing on studies was a challenge.
In Geology we learned all about Surtsey, a volcanic island off Iceland named after Surtr, a fire giant from Norse mythology. Surtsey formed off the coast of Iceland in 1963, and our lesson came complete with film. Remember, this was 1980, so I do mean film—a reel of it.
Only then did it occur to me just how much in the way of materials most teachers had to bring onboard. There was no running out to a store, last minute; that was for sure. Remember last week when I mentioned Mr. Rekkord (I tell no lie), the music teacher? He’d brought a dozen or more Balinese Angklung instruments onboard so we could form our band (see part 6).
My mind snapped back from educational logistics to the lesson at hand. Knowing one of my Hawaiian destinations was Diamond Head, I was definitely interested in learning about volcanos, even one in far off Iceland, halfway around the world from where were steaming westward. Still, how neat it would be to go to Iceland, eh? I mused, unaware that—fast-forward 25 years—I would do just that.
Professor Novotny was an enthusiastic and animated teacher whose love for geology was sincere and infectious, but his course was early in the day when distance was still a distraction; we weren’t due to dock until the cusp of that evening at 6:00.
After Geology was Theatres of Asia with Mr. Wilcox, which I powered through, reporting it in my journal as a real snooze that day. I probably just wanted to be outside. Then came Psyche class, the day’s topic: stress. The only thing stressing me out was having to be in class!
The ship had slowed to a crawl in the middle of the night, elevating curiosity throughout the student body; we were still a long way from land. I soon learned why: at our previous speed of the day before we’d have reached our destination eighteen hours ahead of schedule. Docking times are worked out and paid for in advance, so slowing down was the seafaring equivalent of circling the airport till a runway was clear.
One side effect of our greatly reduced speed was incredibly smooth sailing, so smooth, in fact, that the crew had filled the pool to brimming for the first time. Up till then the pool water had splooshed back and forth with the tossing of the ship, making of the pool an amusement park ride for the more daring students (see part six). But now it was like a real pool: calm, inviting.
I heard it whispering my name.
The surrounding day was equally inviting, having become the most brilliantly blue of the voyage thus far, and by far the warmest, as well.
“Sorry, Mr. Rekkord,” I muttered to myself as I returned to our cabin below decks for my bathing suit. “World Music can wait!” Yeah, only a week in and I’m already blowing off classes.
But you can bet your left propeller I wasn’t the only one.
I got in the pool and spent the next hour playing water volleyball with fellow students who’d also been drawn outside by the gorgeous day and the palpable excitement running through the ship like an electric current.
I blew off Sex Roles and Stratification with Dr. Ehlers, as well, my last class of the day, because by then Honolulu was off to starboard and in plain sight, Waikiki just passed. The palpable excitement of five hundred students stirred to a tizzy as almost en masse they began pouring out onto the various decks, snapping photo after photo.
Actual cameras, readers! No cell phones back then.
Captain Woo emerged from the bridge for a rare appearance, and a collective cheer erupted, undulating like a verbal wave across the makeshift stadium of our gathered collegiate body. At 4:10, I report seeing Dr. Ehlers above decks, wondering if even a single student had showed up for her 4:00 class.
There wasn’t a spot left at any rail to watch the ship’s approach until the final moments when other students left to prepare for their evening ashore. I stepped up and watched the tugboats move in, furiously nosing the Universe along the pier and into place. I watched the crew tossing the ship’s great hawsers ashore, then snapped a few photos of my own with the Canon I’d borrowed from my sister.
It was still a good hour and a half till we would be allowed to disembark, so to avoid the frenzy and buzz of students intoxicated with anticipation (and probably a few other things as well), my roomie, Lucy, and I—along with our friend, Linda Lane—volunteered when the call went out for mail sorters.
We got classroom three all to ourselves. No one was allowed in to disturb us till we’d sorted all the mail; it’d been brought aboard in bags as soon as the ship had docked.
No sooner had we finished than that waiting hive of buzzing students swarmed into classroom three and nearly bowled us clean over. Sheesh almighty!
“Maybe other kids’ folks send them money, or something,” I pondered aloud to Lucy and Linda as we made a quick escape. Having sorted the mail, we’d already snagged ours, so made a clean getaway. With everyone else getting their mail, there was no waiting in line to snag our ID’s, so we were down the gangplank and ashore before anyone else.
At least Lucy and I were, that is; Linda must’ve gotten lost in the crowd or distracted by some other bright, shiny object. So much for being the first ones off. We ended up waiting an hour for her to no avail before giving up and heading out to the street through the dockside warehouse. At one point we’d tried to re-board to track her down but were turned away, informed that once off, no one was permitted to get back on the ship till much later.
Huh? Gee, how nice it would have been of them to tell us that little detail in advance. Luckily, we had what we needed for the evening. The only thing we didn’t have in full measure was our balance. It was a weird phenomenon. Without realizing it, we had all grown so accustomed to swaying along with the ship during our first week at sea, that the moment we walked onto land it felt like the ground was swaying instead.
We watched as students stepped off the ship, and unexpectedly struck by vertigo, began staggering as though tipsy. The sensation continued to assail us in waves throughout that first evening on land.
When we finally emerged into the street from the dockside warehouse, there was a commotion to investigate. With 500 fellow college students in close quarters, one soon learns there is often a commotion.
We’d left the last one back in classroom three with their mail, but this crowd was twittering over Leis. It wasn’t like we’d been led to expect from TV, though. No one was putting them on us to welcome us to Hawaii. No sir, if you wanted one, you had to buy one of those suckers with cold, hard cash and hang it around your own neck.
Lucy and I debated, but being the waifs we were decided our money was better spent elsewhere. The darned things were $4 and $6 bucks! That’d be like $20 nowadays! So we lost no funds but we did find a friend, for there stood Linda, having somehow slipped by us. She’d been waiting the same hour for us that we’d been waiting for her—only she’d been smart enough to wait where all the action was.
And in the meantime she’d changed her mind about hanging with us, anyway. She’d gotten a better offer, I guess.
Lucy and I headed down the pier to the street, encountering another gaggle of students that included acquaintances named Muff and Jim, according to my journal. They planned to find a bus that would take them to some mountain for a view of the sunset, which sounded good to us, so we tagged along.
But people are fickle if nothing else and the group soon decided they wanted to find something to eat, instead. The brainwaves of college students focused on food must’ve been like some kind of beacon, because soon twenty-five more kids had joined us, everyone (except Lucy and me) slavering after some place they’d heard of called The People’s Café that was supposedly good.
In short order the target was located but already swarming with patrons. Sure we’d never get seated, Lucy and I decided to walk back to another place the group had passed: The Canton Restaurant. They had lots of seating available. Not being worldly enough yet, we figured that was a good sign—why, we’d get served faster that way, right?
On our way we ran into a woman carrying sprigs of a curious looking plant and asked her what it was. She said it was blow leaf and demonstrated by pinching off a bud, blowing it up like a tiny paper bag, and popping it. She gave us some to try, but apparently it was a minor feat of considerable mastery, and we couldn’t produce the same results, though it was fun trying.
In short order, Lucy and I were seated in the Canton Restaurant, the only caucasian faces there, which suited us fine, except that the waitress was almost impossible to understand. Lucy ended up with some sort of chicken dish, which I commented in my journal I might have been able to force down, as it looked only a “little less than normal.”
But when my heaping plate of Canton chop suey arrived, it looked nothing like food I’d seen before, especially crowned as it was by a bright purple baby octopus—whole. Those eight legs draped down the mound of my dinner like garland on some grotesque Christmas tree that had barely survived nuclear winter, and I wondered if the kitchen staff had merely scrapped the leavings of other customers’ plates onto mine and christened it chop suey.
Lucy’s face filled with horror the moment that congealed mass of oh no you didn’t was laid before me, surely a reflection of whatever expression was vying for dominance on mine: revulsion ineffectually glossed over with a sincere but inadequate attempt to be culturally polite.
I couldn’t eat it.
Lucy could barely contain her mirth after the initial shock, and the moment we were on the street again she burst out laughing so hard she nearly pee’d herself.
Ok, I lie. I did eat some of it. There were noodles, after all. And the scallops were recognizable, but I commented in my journal, “I didn’t opt for my tea, however, seeing as in the first cup I poured I found something hatching in it."
After misadventures in Cantonese dining Polynesian style, we walked and walked, enjoying the warm February evening and feeling amazed to be in Hawaii. We walked through downtown Honolulu and through Chinatown, just missing the giant Chinese New Year’s celebration that had taken place while we’d been staring down Squidward squatting on my supper.
A bus to Waikiki came along, so we tried to board, only to discover we didn’t have the $.50 fare in coin we each needed. One nice fella tried convincing the driver we were University of Hawaii students entitled to half fare, but he wasn’t buying it, so off we went, looking for someplace to get change for a buck.
Unfortunately we were in the business and governmental district at that point, and everything was closed, so we walked on. Before long we were passing through what looked like rough neighborhoods. We tried sticking to lit areas as best we could till we spotted a Jack-In-The-Box in the distance and headed for that.
We ordered chocolate shakes, and when we turned around to pick a seat, there sat Mr. Novotny, sipping on a chocolate shake of his own. We all laughed. In my journal I wrote, “Mr. Novotny has a boisterous, congenial laugh that sparkles in his eyes like the aftermath of fireworks even when he’s through laughing.”
Mr. Novotny had planned to watch a University of Hawaii basketball game across the street but said he changed his mind when he found out the tickets were five dollars. Of course, seeing that in my journal from 1980 made me laugh all over again. Five bucks, baby. Imagine.
After our shakes we all decided to try again to catch a bus to Waikiki. We felt safer in the company of Mr. Novotny. But half a dozen busses went by, all marked Honolulu, so we started to walk again. We never did find a bus to Waikiki, but we did eventually stumble upon the Ala Moana mall—155 stores and lots of buses.
But it was 9:15; all the stores had just closed. It just wasn’t our night.
We window shopped awhile, eventually coming to one store that was still open, a men’s clothing store—ostensibly. What we found when we went in was some kind of mini casino, going strong.
We helped ourselves to punch and shrimp chips I described in my journal as tasting “like bad breath on Styrofoam.” It was sure looking like that chocolate shake from Jack-In-The-Box was going to be the sum total of my nutrition for that day.
We left, taking time to watch giant koi in the ponds between the stores, then parted ways with Mr. Novotny who said he was tired and ready to return to the ship. Lucy and I could see boats at a marina in the near distance and decided to walk down to the waterfront. We crossed the street and entered Ala Moana park, but it was pitch dark—not a single light illuminating the entire park.
We began to notice people parked along the path, many drinking, some making out, and realized we’d discovered the local hangout for Honolulu hoodlums. Where’s Hawaii 5-0 when you need ’em, right?
Our presence drew unwanted attention and we quickly conspired about what we would do if approached. “I’ll speak French,” I told Lucy, still fairly fluent from my high school foreign exchange days when I’d lived in France.
She had a different plan. “I’ll pretend I’m deaf and mute,” she said.
Somehow, we thought it a good plan, that molesters were surely turned off by French girls with deaf companions.
We backpedaled to the mall and well-lit areas, eventually finding our way back to the Universe without ever having to resort to those stinging weapons of French words and American Sign Language that would surely have saved our asses had we needed to resort to them.
It was time to put February 9th to bed knowing the next day would hold adventures of its own.
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I hope you’ll be back next week for the continued tale of our misadventures in Hawaii when Innocents Abroad returns with Part 8. Until then, au revoir mes amis!
And thanks so much for coming along for the ride. I do hope you’ll read some back issues, add comments, then like, share, and subscribe to help my readership grow. I appreciate it so much!
Also, don’t forget to check out my book #giveaways for Shay the Brave currently running; they’re explained in this previous post.
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Your memories are stunning and your telling of these adventures is so much fun reading. I remember those days of real cameras. You hoped and prayed when they were developed you were looking cute in them and not a weird look on your face ,nor your eyes closed! lol