Chowing down on dim sum for breakfast in Chinatown, soaring in a seaplane over the site where Godzilla was filmed, holding a real wood and bone weapon in your hands on a ‘behind the scenes” tour at the Bishop Museum: great stuff, but who knew? Most people landing in Oahu head to Waikiki Beach to toast their tans. Nothing wrong with that. But eventually you’ll get bored and will want to go exploring. And the variety is endless: on a recent five-day visit I didn’t repeat anything I’d ever done before. Here’s a sprinkling of things you may not have tried; off-beat things to do, new places to eat, local items to buy and unique places to stay.
Soar Over the Island in a Seaplane
As we lifted off the water with a splash, in Island Seaplane Service’s 6-passenger DeHavilland Beaver, pilot /owner Pat Magie told us stories about how he and his planes have appeared in the movie “Godzilla” and the re-make of the TV series “Fantasy Island.” The sky was a brilliant blue and the water below ranged from deepest navy blue to turquoise, so clear you can often see turtles swimming below, Pat said. We soared over surfers and body boarders at Waikiki Beach, people hiking Diamond Head Crater, Hanauma Bay with its snorkelers, and then veered up the Windward Coast, past the droll island called Chinaman’s Hat and over the North Shore surfing areas, then returned over lush valleys of pineapples and coffee, over Schofield Barracks and finally the saw the Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor below. The ½ hour flight is $79 and the hour is $129. Call (808) 836-6273 to book it or contact them by email at seaplane@lava.net
Go to a Church Service given in the Hawaiian language
At the Sunday service at the missionary-built 1842 Kawaiahao Church in downtown Honolulu, across from the Iolani Palace on King Street, the congregation greets visitors with sincere warmth and aloha, with many women dressed in their best muu-muu’s. Several hymns are sung in Hawaiian and part of the service is conducted in it as well. An hour in this Protestant Christian service will make you feel a real part of the islands.
Service begins at 10:30 a.m. Be careful not to sit in the velvet- cushioned seats in the back, as they are reserved for the descendants of Hawaiian royalty.
Take the Behind the Scenes Tour at the Bishop Museum
Some of the most fascinating pieces in this extensive collection are held in storage areas and rotated in and out of exhibits due to their fragility. But if you take this tour, leaving at 1:30 p.m. each day, you can see the feather cape that King Kamehameha wore when he united the islands, other feather capes of royalty, handle wooden tools and shark-tooth weapons, and see other rich holdings that make the Bishop Museum the world’s premier source of Polynesian artifacts. The tour is $15. You can also choose to take a four-hour cultural tour to learn about Hawaiian history and culture, where you learn how to chant and dance a hula, make a lei, play the ukulele and other Hawaiian cultural skills, and which includes a local-style lunch of hibachi chicken, kalua pork, poi and passion guava juice. Make reservations a day ahead for $30 per adult or $42 per adult with transportation, children under 12 are $20 or $42 with transportation. Call (808) 847-8291 to reserve.
Get a Bargain Hotel Package
The Waikiki Beachcomber Hotel is offering a great package for $140 per night per room, and you can choose the room with a rental car, or with breakfast for two daily. Children under 17 can stay for the same rate, as long as no additional linens are needed. There is a two-night minimum. The hotel has been recently completely renovated, including every room, and is the home to durable island icon Don Ho, who performs in the hotel’s Hoku Hale show room nightly. Ho has recently enjoyed a new popularity with young people, a la Tony Bennett. Call the hotel at (800) 622-4646 or via email at www.waikikibeachcomber.com
Snorkel in Hanauma Bay
Locals tell you to get up as early as you can and drive to Haunama Bay, a sunken volcanic crater open to the ocean on one side, located on the other side of Dianmond Head, for perfect snorkeling. Slender reefs protect you from the open ocean as Yellow tangs, Moorish Idols and Parrotfish swim up to eat out of your hand. If you arrive before 8 a.m. you can beat the tour buses and have the bay more to yourself . Bring bread, because the fish prefer it to the food you can buy there to feed them.
Explore Chinatown
If you’re an early riser and an adventurous eater, have dim sum for breakfast at Sea Fortune, at 111 North King Street in Chinatown. Then later stroll Maunakea street to browse the lei shops which offer the best prices on pikake, ilima or orchid leis, and walk through the Maunakea Marketplace to see island fruits and vegetables. A little later in the day visit a few of the galleries on Nauuanu Street, and don’t miss artist Pegge Hopper’s gallery, with her huge paintings of Hawaiian women riding motorcycles. The best place for lunch is Indigo at 1121 Nauuanu, where chef Glen Chu offers a buffet of Asian dishes with modern twists, such as won tons filled with sun-dried tomatoes and goat cheese.
The Indonesian-inspired café has an airy indoor-outdoor style, Balinese carved wooden doors and lots of plants.
Take an Outrigger Canoe Ride
The best $5 experience on Oahu is a damp but delightful ride in an outrigger canoe paddled by two professional beach boys and eight novice visitors, leaving from Kuhiio Beach on Waikiki. Several times you will paddle out and roll in over crashing waves to the shore. If you’re lucky you’ll see one of the surfer-photographers surfing alongside taking your photo . You can come back the next day and buy a copy.
Buy an Outfit from a Famous Local Designer
Anne Namba is a local girl who went to New York for fashion design training and experience, and is now back home creating her one-of-a-kind contemporary outfits make from antique kimono fabrics. Her clothes are wearable art, and they aren’t inexpensive, but she also makes less expensive sets from fabrics she designs and has printed, usually with images such as cranes or kubuki figures. Several hotel boutiques sell her work, but for the best selection drive up to her workshop and store in Manoa, a twenty-minute drive from Honolulu. Call at (808) 988-9361.
Stay in a Legendary Hotel
The Halekulani is one of Honolulu’s oldest hotels, once a large beach home. Expanded in the 1920s, it now houses five buildings but keeps its luxury-home feeling. In The House Without A Key, the indoor-outdoor restaurant and lounge, you can sit and sip a
mai tai in the evening while you watch a hula dancer sway to the sounds of slack key guitar music under a towering keave tree. It’s expensive, rooms start at $315 a night, but for an anniversary or special trip it’s worth it. Gracious service starts with a concierge taking you to your room to sign in, no standing in line at a desk here. For a splurge, eat in La Mer, where each meal begins with complimentary champagne and offers such dishes as
duck with lavender honey and rack of lamb with Provencal herbs. The service is like Paris, but the ambiance is pure Polynesia, with the sun setting on the sea and the rustling of palm fronds just outside the open windows. Call the hotel at (808) 923-2311.
Eat at a Hot New Restaurant
So many chefs in Honolulu are French that the current style of cuisine combines both Asian, island and French components, which I think of as “Pacific Provencal”. Chef Mavro’s, at 1969 S. King Street, owned by French chef George Mavrothalassitis, is spare and elegant in design. The chef pairs each dish with a wine, such as a Santa Barbara Chardonnay, Au Bon Climat, with the Charbroiled Keahole Lobster and Molokai Sweet Potato Puree. The Fall three-course dinner is $39 or $50 with wines at each course. Try the grilled veal sweetbread with thyme-tomato coulis. Call (808) 944-4741. Padovani’s Bistro is a new restaurant in the Alana Double Tree Hotel on Ala Moana Blvd. In a formal and very elegant room chef Phillipe Padovani serves items such as perfect Muscovy duck breast with sauteed endive and pickled ginger plum sauce. Upstairs is a wine bar with hundreds of wines by the glass and there’s a cigar room, too. Call (808) 946-3456. At Hoku’s, in the Kahala Mandarin Oriental, every table has an ocean view, and when the sun goes down you can watch the fiery woks in the open kitchen. Thai Beef Tenderloin on a Lemon Grass Skewer and Steamed Opakapaka are popular items. Call (808) 739-8779.
Get a Hawaiian Spa Treatment
The Ihilani Hotel and Resort is located at the far western end of the island, 25 minutes from the airport in the Ko Olina Resort development. There’s a great golf course, but most people head here for the spa treatments. The spa building is a separate structure with sections for men and women. Sea weed wraps and sea water treatments are big here, but their signature treatment is the Botanical Body Polish, using jasmine scrub and a pineapple body wash. Call (808) 679-0079.
Chowing down on dim sum for breakfast in Chinatown, soaring in a seaplane over the site where Godzilla was filmed, holding a real wood and bone weapon in your hands on a ‘behind the scenes” tour at the Bishop Museum: great stuff, but who knew? Most people landing in Oahu head to Waikiki Beach to toast their tans. Nothing wrong with that. But eventually you’ll get bored and will want to go exploring. And the variety is endless: on a recent five-day visit I didn’t repeat anything I’d ever done before. Here’s a sprinkling of things you may not have tried; off-beat things to do, new places to eat, local items to buy and unique places to stay.
As we lifted off the water with a splash, in Island Seaplane Service’s 6-passenger DeHavilland Beaver, pilot /owner Pat Magie told us stories about how he and his planes have appeared in the movie “Godzilla” and the re-make of the TV series “Fantasy Island.” The sky was a brilliant blue and the water below ranged from deepest navy blue to turquoise, so clear you can often see turtles swimming below, Pat said. We soared over surfers and body boarders at Waikiki Beach, people hiking Diamond Head Crater, Hanauma Bay with its snorkelers, and then veered up the Windward Coast, past the droll island called Chinaman’s Hat and over the North Shore surfing areas, then returned over lush valleys of pineapples and coffee, over Schofield Barracks and finally the saw the Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor below. The ½ hour flight is $79 and the hour is $129. Call (808) 836-6273 to book it or contact them by email at 
Some of the most fascinating pieces in this extensive collection are held in storage areas and rotated in and out of exhibits due to their fragility. But if you take this tour, leaving at 1:30 p.m. each day, you can see the feather cape that King Kamehameha wore when he united the islands, other feather capes of royalty, handle wooden tools and shark-tooth weapons, and see other rich holdings that make the Bishop Museum the world’s premier source of Polynesian artifacts. The tour is $15. You can also choose to take a four-hour cultural tour to learn about Hawaiian history and culture, where you learn how to chant and dance a hula, make a lei, play the ukulele and other Hawaiian cultural skills, and which includes a local-style lunch of hibachi chicken, kalua pork, poi and passion guava juice. Make reservations a day ahead for $30 per adult or $42 per adult with transportation, children under 12 are $20 or $42 with transportation. Call (808) 847-8291 to reserve.
Locals tell you to get up as early as you can and drive to Haunama Bay, a sunken volcanic crater open to the ocean on one side, located on the other side of Dianmond Head, for perfect snorkeling. Slender reefs protect you from the open ocean as Yellow tangs, Moorish Idols and Parrotfish swim up to eat out of your hand. If you arrive before 8 a.m. you can beat the tour buses and have the bay more to yourself . Bring bread, because the fish prefer it to the food you can buy there to feed them. 
Anne Namba is a local girl who went to New York for fashion design training and experience, and is now back home creating her one-of-a-kind contemporary outfits make from antique kimono fabrics. Her clothes are wearable art, and they aren’t inexpensive, but she also makes less expensive sets from fabrics she designs and has printed, usually with images such as cranes or kubuki figures. Several hotel boutiques sell her work, but for the best selection drive up to her workshop and store in Manoa, a twenty-minute drive from Honolulu. Call at (808) 988-9361.
The Halekulani is one of Honolulu’s oldest hotels, once a large beach home. Expanded in the 1920s, it now houses five buildings but keeps its luxury-home feeling. In The House Without A Key, the indoor-outdoor restaurant and lounge, you can sit and sip a 
So many chefs in Honolulu are French that the current style of cuisine combines both Asian, island and French components, which I think of as “Pacific Provencal”. Chef Mavro’s, at 1969 S. King Street, owned by French chef George Mavrothalassitis, is spare and elegant in design. The chef pairs each dish with a wine, such as a Santa Barbara Chardonnay, Au Bon Climat, with the Charbroiled Keahole Lobster and Molokai Sweet Potato Puree. The Fall three-course dinner is $39 or $50 with wines at each course. Try the grilled veal sweetbread with thyme-tomato coulis. Call (808) 944-4741. Padovani’s Bistro is a new restaurant in the Alana Double Tree Hotel on Ala Moana Blvd. In a formal and very elegant room chef Phillipe Padovani serves items such as perfect Muscovy duck breast with sauteed endive and pickled ginger plum sauce. Upstairs is a wine bar with hundreds of wines by the glass and there’s a cigar room, too. Call (808) 946-3456. At Hoku’s, in the Kahala Mandarin Oriental, every table has an ocean view, and when the sun goes down you can watch the fiery woks in the open kitchen. Thai Beef Tenderloin on a Lemon Grass Skewer and Steamed Opakapaka are popular items. Call (808) 739-8779.