About Honolulu's Kahala

Japanese billionaire Genshiro Kawamoto, aged 79, is making headlines yet again, and causing quite a stir on Oahu, particularly in the prestigious luxury home neighborhood of Kahala on Oahu. Kawamoto is known to be a little eccentric, bizarre even, and is not favored by many Kahala residents. Kawamoto has been the subject of a lot of negative media coverage over the years with communities and neighborhood boards registering complaints and even individual lawsuits against the real estate tycoon.

Kawamoto first hit the Hawaii real estate scene in the late 80's during what is known as the "Japanese bubble." At this time, the US dollar was down and many foreign investors, especially the Japanese, were buying up high-end luxury Oahu real estate in a frenzy. Kawamoto aquired many properties in the period 2002-2006, and now owns more than 20 luxury homes on Kahala Avenue, most purchased for between $2 and $10 million. Kawamoto went on to purchase, in September 2010, an impressive acre and a half beachfront estate at 4653 Kahala Avenue with a price tag of $22 Million. He had already brought the property next door and also another just down the road. In 2010, he also put several of his Kahala homes for sale on the market. Currently, only one of his Kahala luxury homes is listed, 4767 Kahala Avenue, for $3,200,000. Kawamoto is said to own approximately 200 single family homes and condominiums in Hawaii.

You may recall, Kawamoto was frequently in the news in 2007 when Kawamoto announced that he would provide low income Hawaiian families with the opportunity to live in five of the luxury Kahala homes that he owns on Kahala Avenue. Ultimately, he moved three local families into these Kahala Avenue homes, for very low ($150/mo) or no rent, with a 10 year lease. He tore down fences on these homes to enhance the sense of community and filled in swimming pools to make the homes safer for children. All this was supposedly part of his plan called the "Kahala Avenue Mission." Kawamoto has said that he wanted to bring more people to Kahala Avenue and that he wanted more native Hawaiian families to visit the area, to make Kahala "more fun." The rest of his homes appear to have remained vacant and many have fallen into disrepair and were graffitti-ed, which has angered his neighbors in this multi-million dollar luxury neighborhood of Kahala.

Now, apparently, the next phase of Kawamoto's "Kahala Avenue Mission" is to turn clusters of his properties into a statue garden, Japanese tea house and a museum to hold a European Art collection. Again, his plans are causing great upset with the Kahala neighborhood board who oppose his plan and are again accusing Kawamoto of disrupting the community. In August 2010, Kawamoto was interviewed by Hawaii media and stated he would be making improvements to many of his properties and asked for the community to "wait a little longer, there will be more improvements." I wonder what else is in store??

Kahala Beach. Picture Courtesy of HiCentral MLS.

One of Kawamoto's luxury homes in Kahala. Picture Courtesy of HiCentral MLS.

My Favorite Honolulu Neighborhoods: Kahala, in the Diamond Head Region

Homes in Kahala are some of the most desired in all Oahu and also some of the most expensive. Generally an affluent residential community, it is located on the southeastern shore of Oahu and bordered by Diamond Head Crater and the Waialae Country Club. Kahala is the site of the luxury Mandarin Hotel and is near the Kahala Mall, a large upscale indoor mall featuring Barnes & Noble, Macy’s and the Apple store, as well as restaurants and other boutiques and stores. Kahala is roughly ten minues from down Honolulu making it any easy commute to work for many.

Kahala features both beach front homes and other upscale homes and locations, many with commanding views. Homes were originally built in this area in the 1950′s and 1960′s but many have been either highly remodeled and upgraded, or torn down and replaced with larger homes. Newer, custom luxury homes are more the norm today with average home prices in the mid $2 million range, while oceanfront Kahala Avenue homes continue to command significantly higher prices.

View Current homes for sale in the Kahala Neighborhood of Honolulu

View Current homes for sale in other Neighborhoods of the Diamond Head Region of Honolulu

The Kahala Hotel and resort has been fined over $800,000 by the courts for charging service fees on food and beverage since 2005 and not giving themoney to the service people. They owners of the hotel have been keeping these fees gfor the hotel's expenses. Even after the litigation was filed, the hotel kept charging the fees and keeping the money. The suit was filed by a couple who held their wedding reception at the hotel and wer charged over $4800 in service fees.

How will this affect the hotel and resort longterm? We will see how this plays out. maybe the employees will have a big check right before Christmas?

Each Saturday morning from 8 am - 12 pm is the Kahala farmer's market in Honolulu, Hawaii. You can find fresh flowers, food, coffee, and even t-shirts. The vendors are friendly and they prices are great at the Kahala farmer's Market in Honolulu, hawaii.

Yesterday at the Kahala Farmer's Market in Honolulu, Hawaii, I was able to get 5 tomatoes, 5 ears of sweet corn, 2 avocados, 6 bananas, and some carrots for $6.75. The fresh fruits and vegetable are so delicious from the Kahala Farmer's Market in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Be sure to attend the Kahala Farmer's Market in Honolulu, Hawaii on Saturday mornings.

I love Halloween and up to a few years ago it was a month long event in my life; full of parties, entertaining, and dressing up in costumes, you know the whole nine yards.

Unfortunately, as of late I just don't celebrate All Hallows Eve like I used too but, none the less, I would like to share my enthusiasm for the holiday with my online friends; offering some heart felt treats I hope you enjoy.

So please indulge me for a little while, find your inner child, suspend your sense of reality, and imagine yourself "Trick or Treating" deep in the Wallachian forests of Romania... Suddenly in the long dark shadows of the Carpathian Mountains you stumble upon my haunted castle... don't be afraid, I won't bite...hard.

So you Knock,Knock,Knock...Trick or Treat!
(In a thick and flowing Romanian Accent I answer the castle door)

Ah... children of the night...To all my Friendly Fiends, some thoughtful treats for your candy bag that won't rot your teeth...

I know what your thinking... it's tantamount to getting socks for Christmas but believe me these treats will entertain your brain longer than the sugar high you will get from all the candy your going to eat anyway.

• The first treat is a most excellent Booook... ok, now open your bag, didn't your parents teach you any manners...ah that's better...yes I know it's Halloween and candy isn't everything"

The Haunted House on the Market:

What do Haunted Houses, Witches, Necrophilia, and a Realtor have in common? You'll find them all in this fascinating novel "Lullaby"by Chuck Palahniuk, the author of "Fight Club". I enjoyed this creative, funny, and poignantly profound novel about the nature of love, power and how human beings confuse the two. The premise of the book is about a journalist who stumbles upon a book of children's bed time stories that has the power to kill. He meets a Realtor who specializes in haunted houses and some witches who have an agenda of their own.

The second treat is a Vat of Brains, ha ha ha ha... Don't say eeeww, again with the manners...no your not supposed to eat it, it's a brain teaser...it's food for thought...that's right brain food.

The Brain in the Vat:

With all the political and societal blah blah blah these days it unnerves me to see our country bickering like the Bikersons; blaming this person or that about the state of our society, Real Estate market, government, planet, etc. There are a multitude of political pundits, talking heads, media personalities, and bloggers all claiming to know the real "truth", trying to out shout one another with their particular perspective as being the one and only correct reality. All the while assailing any other perspective as corrupt, conspiratorial, unqualified, insane, or satanic.

Well that got my brain thinking...

Remember the old horror flicks where the mad scientist cuts open the top of a persons head and removes the brain and suspends it in a vat of life-sustaining liquid, and through electrodes connects it to a computer that provides electrical impulses identical to those the brain would normally receive. The computer would then send electrical input to the brain resulting in the brain sensing a virtual world full of sights, sounds, tastes, etc.

The disembodied brain would think that it had a body, arms, legs, eyes, and could move about in the computer generated environment without any ability to distinguish that in fact it was just a brain in a vat. Well it's not all science fiction. The brain in a vat is also a philosophical tool used in experiments of the mind to examine our collective ideas of knowledge, reality, and truth.

The whole idea behind the brain in a vat concept is the notion that ALL perceived reality is potentially false and what we believe to be FACT is merely a figment of our imagination. In other words if our perceived existence is simply the exchange of electrical impulses from sensory organs to the brain and those impulses can be created without the use of sensory organs which is what happens when we dream, then how can we really know for certain of what the truth really is? Does the brain really have the ability to know for sure it's understanding of reality is in fact real? Can it effectively tell the difference between, reality, dreaming, or whether it's merely floating in a vat in a mad scientists laboratory? The answer is no it can't. Sorry Bill O'Rielly, Bu-aha-ha-ha? Think Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" or the film The Matrix.

One of my favorite movies of all time is Young Frankenstein by the comic genius Mel Brooks this is a topical out take from the film for your enjoyment.

The third Halloween treat is a ghastly ghost story from Hawai'i... it's based on a true story that I have embellished slightly for dramatic purposes... no I don't have any candy... yes I'm sure... if you don't keep quite I'll send you to my neigh-boo-r the Count...No he doesn't have any candy either you little junk food junkies, SILENCE before I turn you all into to toads... don't make me reach through the portcullis...

Lets Talk Ghost Story:

The story begins after midnight on a dark moonless night in Honolulu, May 19th 1959. An ambulance rushed it's way down sleepy Beretainia St. towards Queens' Medical Center, as a young woman, writhing from an apparent nervous break down lay strapped to the gurney in back. The paramedic, hunched over the patient, tapped the excess sedative from the hypodermic and pushed it adroitly into the frantic woman's arm as she struggled against the leather straps that securely bound her.

Babbling incoherently she arched her back as her head strained and convulsed from side to side; her dilated pupils made her eyes look like black coals, bottomless, full of terror. "She had no face!" She cackled, "she...no nothing...nothing there..." her voice trailed off and a few moments later the woman's overwrought neck and back relaxed and she lay motionless as the opiates pumped through her body, quieting the nervous system. Her eyes fluttering shut as her frantic heart began to find it's way back to it's normal beat. Her clenched jaw relaxed and fell slightly open, simultaneously her grip released what she had been holding in her bloodless fist since the paramedics first found her.

The crumpled ticket stub precipitated to the floor skirting under the gurney. The paramedic reached down and scooped it up. It was saturated with sweat but the blotted lettering was still legible, the paramedic un- crumpled the stub hoping to find a clue as to why the woman went off the deep end in the middle of a movie. During the frenetic call he neglected to see what was posted on the marquee, perhaps it was a horror film. They had found her in the woman's restroom on the floor; her arms pushing her knees tightly to her chest. She was barely breathing, as white as a ghost.

Waiala'e Drive-In Theater 11:00pm, the stub read the rest was torn away. The theater manager said they had heard screams and a desperate pounding coming from the ladies restroom but the door was locked from the inside. When he finally returned with the key they found her alone, passed out. When she came to she gripped the managers hand and frightfully recounted the horror she experienced before lapsing into a catatonic state. "Some-ting bout' a wahine(woman) wid long red hair", the manger tentatively repeated to the ambulance driver as the paramedic pushed the gurney passed the two of them, "some wahine was already in the lua, standing at the mirror ya, combing her long red hair when dis' poor girl go to use the lua, the red hair wahine turn and look at her but she have no...the hum of the ambulance engine drowned out the managers words as the emergency lights flashed against the projection booth wall.

Speeding through the deserted streets cloaked in darkness the sirens wail reverberated into the quiet neighborhoods of downtown Honolulu as the black slope of Diamond Head and its imposing presence diminished slowly behind them. Scratching his head, the paramedic looked toward the driver who intently stared at him through the rearview mirror. The ambulance rambled through a red light and continued down the empty street.

"Mujina", the driver eventually blurted out nervously. The paramedic looked inquisitively at his partner, vaguely remembering stories from his youth told by the Kupuna about the ghostly Mujina but it was just folklore, tall tales to scare the Keiki. "My Tutu talk story ya..."the Ambulance pitched to the left as it turned right onto Punchbowl St.

"In Japan", he continued his eyes staring toward the port au chair at the hospital entrance."they call em' Noppera-bo, they look human but not quite... Shape shifters ya, look human but no face". The ambulance turned abruptly into the hospital drive, "No eyes, no nose, no mouth, ya... this girl got a real shock whatever she saw... scared her real good...almost to death ya bra. The paramedic finished buckeling the last strap on the straight jacket as the rear ambulance doors flew open. Two hulking orderlies grabbed the gurney as the retractable carriage clattered open and dropped errect to the pavement. The wheels, twirling, repositioned themselves in the the direction of the psychiatric ward, as the two hulks passed slowly through the empty hospital hallways.

The faceless ghost known as a Mujina or Noppera-bo has been spotted several times in places as far away as Hilo on the Big Island. Since the Waiala'e Drive-in Theater demolition in the 1980's the Noppera-bo has been spotted at the women's restroom in Macy's at the Kahala Mall, Zippy's Restaurant and other lua's located near the old Kahala cemetery. It is beleived that the malignant entities purpose is to frighten it's victims and will wait for the perfect opportunity to do so. So watch out ladies next time you go to the toilet you never know who might be waiting for you. Boo!

Spooky Fun & Tasty Treats: Happy Halloween!

Kimo Stowell Copyright ©2009