Ikiki Beach. Time traveler Chanel-6 learned about it from some old, torn postcard she got hold of in the year 2176. She saw it with her very eyes in 1976.
Is the plot familiar? Do I remember it correctly? I would have watched this flick in my early teens. And a couple of decades after, I found myself madly Googling for the title (to prove it doesn’t just exist in the far depths of my imagination) prior our trip to Hawaii. Simply to pay tribute to what introduced me to the renowned Waikiki Beach.
The Spirit of ’76 isn’t one of them travel movies that’ll make you book a plane ticket once the closing credits roll (it ain’t like you could fly to the 1970s anyway), but the fictional character’s search for a factual place (plus her recognizing the song The Hustle) stuck with me. Obviously.
We landed in the island of Oahu, third largest of the Hawaiian Islands, on the fourth of July last year. It wasn’t our first time in Honolulu International Airport, but it was the first time we got out of it. We hired a car and drove to the Polynesian Hostel Beach Club, just two blocks off Waikiki Beach. Every street in the neighborhood was packed with swimsuit/inflatable tube-clad (yep, chicks wore them like they’re the new belly chain!) pedestrians shuffling to and fro.
Despite the lively holiday buzz, we went straight to bed after finishing takeaway meals. We slept through the Fourth of July party on Waikiki Beach. That’s what an all-nighter layover in Japan does to you. Or maybe, hubby and I are just old.
It was the next sun-drenched day, after much recuperation, that were we able to explore Oahu Island beyond Waikiki Beach. It’s an absolute stunner. We’re already set to go back.
We didn’t get to swim. The day after, we already flew to mainland America. I know. Ridiculous ei? That’s why we shall return.
