Post #528334 by Wayfarer on Thu, May 6, 2010 8:50 AM

I've always been into Hawiian shirts, boonie hats and World War II aviation and have loved Hawaii since I visited it on cruise a few years ago. I hit other ports that deployment- Japan, Malaysia and Australia, all of which I enjoyed but I loved the personality of Hawaii, despite the tourists. Japan too, but that's a different story.

Anyway, fast forward a few years, now I'm Iraq and killing time on duty, so my love of WWII aviation spills over into the jet age, art deco, streamline modern, googie and... tiki. So when I get home I order the Book of Tiki. My next set of orders take me to Diego Garcia, a tropical paradise in the middle of nowhere. It's beautiful, there's a wrecked PBY, the people are all wonderful, I'm learning Tagalog but only one thing is missing: No one on this island can make a drink to save their lives!

So I pick up Trader Vic's book and some mugs. It's nice to start with but I need more. Then Beachbum Berry's books, more tiki mugs and a 1947 copy of Trader Vic's. (side note- the drinks I pull out of that one really seem to surprise people). I've the only bottle of orgeat on the island. Next stops? The Philippines and Guam. I've got the tropical island fever and I don't ever wanna go home! So I'm working on building a tropical 1930's-1940's themed tiki bar on a tropical island.

Oh, and 100 posts. Yay me.

[ Edited by: Wayfarer 2010-05-06 08:53 ]