Submitted by Nicholas Trainor on the 2014 winter session study abroad program in Hawaii sponsored by the Department of Behavioral Health and Nutrition…
The Nutrition Hawaii Study Abroad Program arrived safely to Honolulu, Oahu on Tuesday, January 7th. Our first day began on Wednesday, January 8th when we had breakfast at Zippy’s, a chain restaurant throughout the island that offers a wide variety of historic local food selections such as plate lunches. Plate lunches date back to the plantation times, where various laborers on the plantations of different cultural backgrounds would share their traditional cultural cuisines with one another. On Thursday, January 9th, we attended the Hawaiian Plantation Village, where we got to experience first-hand what plantation life was like. Later that day, we attended the USS Arizona Memorial which is constructed over the sunken battleship from the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941. We ended the night with a five star dinner consisting of the well known Hawaiian regional cuisine from Alan Wong’s. Along with various tours of Western-style medical centers in Oahu such as Queen’s Medical Center, Wai’anae Coast Comprehensive Health Center, and the University of Hawaii’s Cancer Research Center, we got the privilege of experiencing traditional Hawaiian medicine at Dr. Agnes Kalanihookaha Cope’s Traditional Hawaiian Healing Center. We also toured the Iolani Palace, which was the official residence of Hawaii’s monarchy. We toured and tasted Chinatown, where Vietnamese, Laotian, Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Filipino, Hawaiian, Korean and other merchants work together. On Monday, January 13th, we toured the Bishop Museum, which is the largest museum in Hawaii and is the premier natural and cultural institution in the Pacific.