Even cowboys watch the setting Hawaiian sun

It’s sunset on the world-famous Waikiki beach. Is it Monday, or a Thursday, I don’t know. Out on a concrete jetty, local teens are gathered in large groups down the end before individually flinging themselves off the seawall into the ocean below into a giant swell or as it breaks on the rock wall. 

Like the activities of teens anywhere in the world, the practice looks relatively unsafe. Their friends help them clamour up the wooden planks on the seawall so they can do it again.

A blue sign with white writing lists the beach rules. No boozing, no tents, no annoying tourist behaviour, that sort of thing. 

There is a preacher across the road preaching, reading from the Bible. He is being drowned out by the crashing of the surf on the shore and against the sea wall. This week is a super full moon which comes with very prominent tides and swells.

Up on the beach, a young man in mirrored sunglasses and orange swimming shorts jumps onto his tattered red hammock that is perfectly roped between two robust palm trees. Like a cowboy jumping on the back of his mount, he is ready to ride off into the sunset. He has no spurs but there is a pair of sandals neatly placed at the base of one of the trees. He kicks the ground to send the hammock into a low swing. The trade winds will keep it going. Did I mention he is wearing a black cowboy hat?

It’s windy tonight and sea breezes are already working the beach. The persuasive palm trees along this stretch of sand dutifully sway for all the hammocked cowboys and the tourists, their soulful influence mesmerising all beach comers and beachcombers. Their coconuts heavily fortified to avoid any accidents that would make a tourist’s stay in Waikiki even more unforgettable.

It may well be a controlled psychological effect, but I hear a gentle melodic ukulele everywhere I go in Waikiki, or it might be the ukulele shops I have spotted along the strip that sell the popular Hawaiian musical instrument.

On the jetty a trio of teenagers from Oahu are filming for their YouTube channel. That morning they decided to ask strangers to give them money for completing challenges as requested by the strangers for payment, so they could earn enough money for airfares to neighbouring Maui the next day. They are dripping wet, as they have each just jumped off the jetty for USD$5 each. They are USD$40 short of their target when I ask them.

There are all sorts on the beach – some wrapped up in their own romantic love story, oblivious to other tourists, some sitting alone, some with others, some chatting, some sitting together quietly. The fading blue hues change to yellows and pinks as the sun plays hide and seek behind low clouds and all heads turn its way. It’s strange when you think that all healthy eyesight advice tells you not to look at the sun and then you hit a certain time of the day where you are encouraged to look at the beautification of the sun while it disappears.

The sun is playing peek-a-boo now, challenging the photo taking capabilities of hundreds of iPhone users on the beach. There are tourists watching from their balconies right along the strip. Lots of selfies, lots of photos. 

As the sun peeps out for its final decline, many a tourist’s hands reach up to pretend to embrace or cup the sun in the palm for photos, like a giant interpretative sun dance. And then it is gone and many leave the beach for other activities, and the Maui trio walk off and head into Subway. They will all likely be back tomorrow.

WAGs Palace - Hampton Court

This touristy business is very exhausting. As much as I love to move about, away from the ordinary everyday, I also would love to sleep in my own bed every night. But moving around is how tourism works I'm pretty sure. But you know who else was notorious for not wanting to sleep in his own bed every night? King Henry VIII. Which, in my opinion, wasn't an accident.

Actually though, can I live here please.

I hit up his mansion yesterday -  Hampton Court Palace  - famous for being home away from his 59 other homes and his six WAGs, before he killed half of them because they refused to watch Coronation Street with him.  

The WAG Palace is located on the outskirts of London town in Richmond upon Thames, just a train hop away from central London. I stormed through the gates of the mansion uninvited, in what can only be described as in an aggressive manner, because that's how HVIII would have rolled. He wasn't the kind of man who would calmly walk through a door no matter what.

The King looked a lot like my Uncle Frank, who would not be seen dead in woolen tights, tunics, or pointy elf shoes I am fairly certain, which sounds jarringly like a detail you didn't need to know.

The type of man who won't
undo his top button 

The WAG palace is pleasant enough I suppose, in an understated, restrained Tudor type of way, although it is replete with great ornate ceilings which is most definitely a recipe for disaster. Let's just pause for the poor damn cleaner who has been dusting them every week for the last 500 years...

But not even the grand old King of England had nice loot in the 16th century; it was all muted reds and browns.  Or maybe he just preferred simplicity in his furnishings, and kept complexity for his privy relations; trying to keep the WAGs away from each other sounds much like a fulltime job.

The WAG palace certainly doesn't have the grandeur of Windsor Palace, Buckingham Palace, or Alnwick Castle (yes, the Harry Potter one), all fancy establishments I have traipsed through in recent weeks, but I can tell it has drama but also secrets.

The gardens of the WAG palace are beautiful and expansive, as you'd expect from a monarch who reigned before the global financial crisis and Instagram, when people who lived off the public purse didn't pretend to care if they looked wealthy or ostentatious.

I love England. Look at it.

Although I suppose the King looking strong and powerful could be crucial in retaining the empire. Plus, you didn't want some French upstart with a trim girth stealing your monarch moment.

King Henry of the WAGs was a cad, but probably only engaged in behaviour that was expected of him throughout that whole unpleasant era.  His whole palace reminds me a bit of Kayne West, which is a regretability.

He went through multiple WAGs in his quest to produce a male heir and had a few of his exes beheaded - more angrily than was necessary - in his special beheading room, which he later turned into a trophy room with a pool table.  I imagine each of them almost immediately regretted their nuptials.

Two of his conquests, Anne Boleyn and Kathryn Howard, were in fact murdered in the Tower of London, which is another delightful yet disturbing place to visit full of death and torture but also secrets.

I love England, but the more time I spend here the more I am thankful that I was born in the 20th century.

Make Like Christopher Robin

About a year ago I subscribed to Discover Britain, a highly addictive heritage magazine that is best administered in minisculian doses or it will force one to pop over to the other side of The Planet Earth far more times in one year than one can possibly afford, unless you work for the Australian cricket team as Michael Clarke.

I've always had a predisposition to hit up the Mother Country.  I wasn't born there, I don't have one of their fancy schmancy passports bearing the crown jewels on the cover, and any ancestral connection that I have dates back to a bloody long time ago, ol' chap, but I lived there about 15 years ago, and that was enough to win one over.

I'm potentially going to Britain next year for my first time in many years.  I LOVE ENGLAND LOTS.  Can't explain it.  There are only about 22,000 things I want to do over there, so that's good.  You don't want to cram too much in.

Ireland is gonna make an appearance on the itinerary, which will be my first visit, as will lots of old castles, walls and rocks throughout the vacay.  It will be great craic.  Hmm, I suspect the Irish don't use that term at all.

I can't really be bothered writing any more, so I've thoughtfully compiled a list of very serious facts about the Old Blighty.  Some of these facts may not be altogether true and may merely be a product of my imagination.  That's the inherent fun/risk of my blog. 

This:

1. Elizabeth I was the first British monarch to have a fully-fitted flushing toilet.  Anyone with the number 1 after their name likes to be first at everything. So she was presumably the first person to do a number two.  Eww and eww.
2. Next year is Shakespeare's 450th birthday, so if he is still alive, Elvis style, the lucky duck will get four and a half telegrams from the Queen.  
3. Another William, the Conqueror, ordered his peasants to go to bed at eight o'clock every night.  Oh no he didn't!  Oh yes he did.  Presumably that was the time of the evening Eastenders finished in ye old Middle Ages, or whenever it was he ruled the roost.  And this is also presumably why he is often quoted to this day in newspapers like The Guardian as William the Bastard.
4. Another William, Prince William, is currently a little bit pregnant.  It's lucky then that pregnant people in Britain are allowed to relieve themselves anywhere, anytime.
5. Speaking of which, Winston Churchill was born in the ladies toilet during a dance.  Wait a minute... this sounds made-up...

London

Cold one day, foggy the next, grey the next, and the next and the next and the next. And then summer is over and winter is on its way. Winter in London is not for the faint-hearted. It can be tough going, unless you are one of those odd people who prefer a climate with no sun or light for months on end; like Swedes or Norwegians or zombies.

The only people who spend the (really) cold months in the English capital are hard-core tourists, international backpackers who want to experience a London winter, Queen Elizabeth, locals who don't know any better, and homeless people who can’t afford to move the hell out of there.

The tube is the only way to get from one side of London to the other in one hit and it is very easy to understand. Even people from Tasmania could understand it. For comparative purposes, it’s much better than the Paris underground system, because it makes sense, it runs like clockwork, it’s not full of French people and the station names are not in French. Other than those obstacles, the transport system in the French capital is tops as well.

I used to live in Kingsbury, near Wembley Stadium, which is an area that you would mistake for Macquarie Fields whenever Manchester City is in town to play, well, any team in the Premier League. Kingsbury is located in Greater London, which is on the outskirts of cool, inner city London.

In the spirit of the British, who love to segregate everything into class, Greater London is to cheap Indian restaurants, fear, hooligans, random knife attacks and tube station creeps as Inner London is to Chelsea.

Westminster Abbey is a homely little church in the middle of town that you may simply walk past if it wasn’t for the fact that it is about the size of a Westfield Shopping Centre.  It is GORGEOUS. The Abbey was founded in 960, which is mighty impressive, yes?

The Abbey is totally self-supporting, so I imagine its Investment Committee are extremely busy right now organising scone drives to cover the costs of Willy and Kate's shindig in April this year.

And then we have the Houses of Parliament, where a conga line of successive Labor Prime Ministers has spent alot of their time ruining the lives of ordinary British folk. This is my favourite landmark in London, with its beautiful limestone exterior that took 14 hits during the Blitz and still came off better than the other guy. Don’t even try to mess with it.