Tropical Zone Gardening: Visting Hawaii - general information thread , 1 by lourspolaire

lourspolaire wrote:
Speaking of genuine hawai'ian leis, that was one of my wife's requirements while we were in Hawai'i. She had visions of disembarking from the plane and having girls in aloha dress drape a lei on her shoulders. Well, our plane got to Honolulu airport at 2:15AM and there was noone there giving away or selling leis. She was a bit disappointed.

So, the day we left the hotel to board the ship, I took a cab with my friend Denis to get genuine leis for our wives. The taxi driver had been instructed by the hotel's doorman to take us into Honolulu's Chinatown, where they make leis by the hundreds every day.

The girl who served me could not have been more helpful. When I told her that my wife was a natural redhead, her eyes became as big as saucers. Natula' ledhai' she said. Oh, how wondefu'. I have jussa ting forya. And she proceeded to get a box from one of the many refrigerators behind her. It was larger than the others, for some reason. She opened it and showed me this lei made from 500 green orchid blooms. "This is most beautiful rei for natula' ledhai ", she said.

I had to agree that it was absolutely stunning. I bought it for next to nothing, considering the work and the amount of blooms in there. My friend ended up buying a dendrobium bloom lei that lasted 3 days at best. Gail's lei lasted 11 days, with refrigeration and misting. She wore that thing 3 or 4 times a day on the ship. Every time he visited our cabin, our cabin steward would pull it out of the mini refrigerator to mist is for her.

Gail boarded the ship wearing her lei and she got off the ship still wearing it. This was a 10-day cruise. Back on land, when it finally wilted, we went to Ala Moana park, where she broke the string and dropped the blooms in the sea. Here is a picture of her as she opened the box and realized what was in there.

Take care, all.
Sylvain.