A young Japanese couple experiences a dream Hawaii vacation. They start the day riding horses along a dusty mountain trail at Kualoa Ranch. Then they cruise down Kalakaua Avenue in a convertible, lounge on Waikiki Beach and end the day parasailing.…
For an hour each month for the past four years, Shelley Umeda has put her face in the hands of aesthetician Susan Snyder, who steams and massages it, plucks out impurities and skims off a layer of dead cells to…
It was dark and raining when my plane touched down in Honolulu for my mini-vacation, so I used my GPS to guide me to where I would spend the next two nights. But, instead of taking me to Waikiki’s well-lit,…
Retail rents on Oahu have climbed more than 50 percent in the past decade, while in Waikiki, the increase has been 65 percent. And the biggest increases have come in the primest of Hawaii’s prime real estate: a half-mile of…
When Lawrence and Zachary Hester were booking activities for a family vacation in Hawaii, they noticed it wasn’t always a smooth process – so they took it on themselves to make a change. Their solution is FareHarbor, an online booking…
Aaron Okubo says organizations like Legacy of Life Hawaii saved his life. “Indirectly, I feel I’ve benefited from their efforts to encourage others to donate their organs and tissues for transplant,” reflects the 61-year-old senior program development manager at MC&A…
The state’s Professional & Vocational Licensing Division is one of those government agencies that operates quietly, without much public notice – until people need its help. In 2012, a hailstorm damaged hundreds of roofs in Kailua, which meant hundreds of…
"Are you breathing?" Emergency-room doctor David Williams leans over a “patient” covered in realistic-looking ash and blood. Surrounding him in the pop-up hospital tent lie a dozen more volunteer victims, ready for triage after a plane has crashed at Kahului Airport.…
Disappointed with a neighborhood Santa Claus as a kid, Mike Ching has made it his mission for three decades to offer a better Santa experience for his clients. It’s all in the details. Some of his custom-made Santa suits weigh…
