As a first-time visitor to Hawaii, one thing surprised me most

The Age

07-07-2025

If my preconceptions of visiting Hawaii for the first time could be compared to the Hawaiian surf, they'd be the shoreline ripples at Oʻahu's child-friendly Waikiki Beach, rather than the massive breaks of Banzai Pipeline on the island's North Shore.
I should know better than to underestimate a place. I blame The Brady Bunch, my childhood TV viewing where an episode featured a family visit to Waikiki. Teenager Peter Brady was plagued by a tarantula for picking up a cursed tiki. These were dreadful production blunders: tarantulas are not endemic to Hawaii, tikis represent gods and deities.
I admit that I, too, got it wrong: my five-day trip blows me away. Culture is as embedded as the island's Le'ahi volcano (Diamond Head) that forms the stunning backdrop to Honolulu. Stick your head up from behind a Mai Tai cocktail at a Waikiki Beach bar, and you'll uncover – as I do – rich traditions.
My arrival onto Oʻahu, the third-largest and most populated of Hawaii's eight major islands, coincides with the annual Lei Day, which celebrates the spirit and meaning of the lei, the necklace of flowers (or shells, nuts or feathers) placed over my head on arrival by my host, Noelani.
'Lei is truly about aloha in its purest form,' she says. I'm about to discover what she means.
The first stop is Kapiʻolani Park, site of the 97th Oʻahu Lei Day Festival, where hundreds of locals and Native Hawaiians mingle at the craft stalls and lei-making tables that are surrounded by Indian banyan and monkeypod trees. Most attendees wear beautiful lei or lei po'o, a floral crown, that remain vibrant and fresh despite the humid breeze. Many are milling around a mature-aged gentleman, Master Lei Maker Bill Char. I'm privileged to meet this festival star, a talented ambassador of the ancient cultural practice.
Suddenly, officials start scurrying (usually, locals are delightfully calm and leisurely) and cry 'The queen is coming!' I'm temporarily confused; the Hawaiian Kingdom was overthrown in 1893 and the islands were annexed by the US in 1898 as part of its expansion into the Pacific. Instead, this is royalty of another kind: it is the Lei queen, Ku'uleialoha Llanos, the year's elected 'monarch' who organises the event to keep traditions alive. This custom is far from contrived. Surprisingly, nor is our next stop: Ala Moana Centre, known as the largest open-air shopping centre in the world.
Amid the chain stores, the centre's best shops are owned and run by Native and local Hawaiian designers (Native Hawaiians are indigenous, with Filipino, Japanese and other backgrounds, while local Hawaiians are generally those who live, but are not born of Hawaiian ancestry. Both will distinguish themselves as such). Malie Organics offers an array of beauty products; Noho Home is crammed with a gorgeous range of homeware items, and Big Island Candies, makes shortbreads and the likes of chocolate-dipped dried cuttlefish (the latter, a popular Hawaiian snack). I'm smitten with Manaola, where contemporary fashions feature geometric tribal motifs and Hawaiian flora. Our next stop, 'Iolani Palace, takes us into the past.