Hawaii Kawaii!! 

“It’s so America!” I thought the first time I visited Hawaii, coming from Japan. 

“It’s so Japan!” I think now all the time, having come from the mainland. 

Today I picked up a tourism magazine in Japanese from a huge stack near Lanikai Juice, where we’d stopped to retrieve the hat Isaac left there a few days ago. I don’t know why I grabbed one; I read zero Japanese. But part of the reason I knew I wanted to live in Kailua is the huge amount of Japanese tourists. Japanese tourists have extremely good taste, in my experience. And three massive tour busses parked nearby must have made me curious. 

Back at the hotel I couldn’t put the magazine down, paging through it right to left (start to finish) while the kids colored on the floor. Shops, cafes, a breakdown of USA coins, English phrases for taxi rides—Lots of great info, and now I have a long list of places to seek out. 

But my favorite part was the adorable (KAWAII!) Japanese Hawaiian cartoon coconuts enjoying the island alongside advertisements for snorkeling the North Shore and whatnot. I feel like I have found something precious that I didn’t realize I’d lost. 

“What is that? I don’t even know what I’m looking at,” said Chris, unfortunately immune to the effervescent sparkle and delight that is KAWAII. 

Hawaii: you’re halfway to Japan…literally and otherwise!