Sujata Massey - Visiting Hawaii

How to visit Hawaii and get beyond a tourist experience

To research this book, I had the pleasure of spending three months on the Leeward (western) side of Oahu, an area far from the glitz of Waikiki. To me, it's the real Hawaii, full of working- and middle-class descendents of Japanese and other Asian sugar plantation workers, Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders, and US military personnel and their families.

Upon arrival, I knew very little about the Japanese experience in Hawaii beyond what I'd seen in the movie, "Picture Bride."

Fortunately, new friends in Hawaii opened their lives to me, sharing memories of life in the old Japanese neighborhoods. I stayed in Hawaii for most of the summers of 2005 and 2006, bringing my whole family along. I found our housing through rent by owner websites, including VRBO.com. We paid a monthly rate for a 3-bedroom, 3-bath house in a beautiful resort community called Ko Olina that was about what it would cost for 30 nights in a typical hotel room in Honolulu's Waikiki tourism district. The catch: we were a 40-minute drive from Honolulu, which is considered far, on a small island. You can't have it all, can you? I went for the fairly-priced, large place in a beautiful setting, and never regretted it.

Ko Olina had an interesting heritage; it is 900 acres of former sugar plantation land initially developed by a Japanese investor hoping to combine a golf course, luxury hotels and time share towers, and townhouse and condominium housing. Things haven't gone quite as planned—the development was taken over by an American developer, created a number of attractive residential communities within the resort, but has seen projects like extra hotels and a marine theme park not come to fruition. There is an upscale Marriott spa hotel, a few condo towers and the time share building, but it's pretty easy to avoid all that, if you want. With its series of gorgeous, safe, swimming lagoons (open to anyone who wants to come swim, per Hawaii law), and a bona fide marina where lovely yachts and sailboats came to dock, this was a great place to run, walk and explore.

The closest town is 7 miles away, Kapolei, where Rei's family goes to eat and shop, as we did. My favorite features in Kapolei were its gorgeous new library, and the farmer's market which takes place most Sunday mornings outside the elementary school.

We did, of course, go to Honolulu a lot. I drove east almost every day for research and interviews, and some of my favorite experiences there—as you might guess—were of a culinary nature. I ate very well in Honolulu Chinatown, especially at restaurants like Little Village Noodle House and Mei Sum. The food shopping in Chinatown and other parts of Honolulu is outstanding and not as expensive as you'd expect. I brought home delicious fish from the Tamashiro Fish Market to grill on our hibachi. I fell in love with the cooking at Hiroshi's Eurasian Tapas and Alan Wong's and was taken by the Korean retaurants of Keeamoku Street, and okazu snack stands all over Oahu. My favorite sushi—and admittedly I didn't make an exhaustive study of Oahu's offerings—was Yanagi on Kapiolani Boulevard near Queen's Medical Center, which is featured in the book. There's also a terrific little old Japanese district with ramen shops near the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii, where a brilliant exhibition on the history of Japanese plantation workers helped lay the foundation for my story.

I was on my own for most of the second stay in Hawaii, so my children accompanied me everywhere, including interviews with the Honolulu Fire department, and many trips to Waipauhu's Plantation Village, and other old plantation housing communities. We braved the turbulent surf at Mahaka Point and watched old cartoon films at night outside the Kapolei Public Library. Both times I was in Hawaii it was O-bon, the season of ancestor remembrance, so we were able to dance to wonderful drum music, and eat Okinawa andagi donuts, at a Buddhist temple in Waipahu.

Most visitors to Hawaii don't make it to the Leeward side, despite its perfect, sunny weather, lower congestion, and delightful, non-touristy environment. It's a shame, and my suggestion to anyone visiting Oahu is to rent a car, drive up the Leeward coast and get the picture of how people in Hawaii really live.

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