Black Friday is over. So is Cyber Monday. Now the real holiday season shopping begins!

If you're planning some shopping on Oahu in the weeks before Christmas, we'd like to help check a few items off your holiday gift list.

HAWAII Magazine is giving away a $100 Ala Moana Center gift card each week until Christmas Day, to lucky members of our Facebook ohana. Use the gift card to shop during the holidays. Use it to treat yourself to something nice after finishing all of your holiday shopping. It's up to you.

But we do want you to have a chance at winning.

To qualify you to win each week’s gift card prize, we’ll be posting a question here on HawaiiMagazine.com, and asking our readers to answer it on our HAWAII Magazine Facebook page.

For this, the 2nd week of our contest, our gift card question is:

“What activity are you most looking forward to experiencing on your next visit to Hawaii?”

* If you're a Hawaii resident, answer this question instead: “What activity haven't you done in Hawaii yet that you still want to experience most?”

Here’s how to leave your answer:

1.    Go to HAWAII Magazine’s Facebook page and click on the “like” button at the top of the page to become a member of our Facebook ohana. (If you're already following us on Facebook, you can skip this step.)

2.    Leave your answer to this week’s gift card question in the comment box for this story.

It’s that easy.

We’ll select one winner, at random, from all entries received by midnight (Hawaii time), Fri., Dec. 3, and notify the winner via Facebook. The contest is open to Hawaii visitors and residents, but winners must be able to pick up their gift card in-person at the Ala Moana Center Customer Service Center by Dec. 31. Only one gift card will be awarded per winner through the run of the contest. Gift cards will not be mailed to winners.

Ala Moana Center is Hawaii’s largest shopping center, and a long-popular shopping destination of residents and visitors alike. For the holidays, Ala Moana Center’s more than 290 stores and restaurants will be open for extended hours until Christmas Eve. A big mahalo to our friends at Ala Moana Center for the gift card prizes.

If you don’t win this week’s $100 Ala Moana Center gift card, we’ll have three more chances to win in the weeks ahead. Be sure to check out HawaiiMagazine.com next Tuesday, Dec. 7, for our 3rd week question.

Happy Holidays! Happy Shopping!
 

The USS Arizona Memorial Visitor Center was sinking slowly into the waters of Oahu’s Pearl Harbor.

Not the actual USS Arizona Memorial, which since its 1962 dedication has rested solemnly in the middle of the harbor above the sunken hull of the famed World War II battleship. But the 30-year-old visitor center on the shores of Pearl Harbor, which annually prepared 1.5 million visitors for the ferry ride to the Alfred Preis-designed memorial.

The center was built on filled-in waterfront land, which engineers hoped would eventually settle just 18 inches. Instead, over the years, areas of the center’s foundation had dropped up to 30 inches, bringing it perilously close to water level. In 2003, engineers gave the visitor center a life expectancy of five to 10 years.

There were two choices: Commit the existing structure—already lifted four times in its history—to major renovations, or construct a brand-new visitor center that wouldn’t sink. Whatever choice was made, the center’s exhibits also needed updating to the standards of modern museums.

On Dec. 7—the 69th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor—the National Park Service will open the doors on its completely rebuilt and expanded $58 million USS Arizona Memorial Pearl Harbor Visitor Center. A morning invitation-only ceremony will honor Pearl Harbor attack survivors and World War II veterans, then welcome them for the first tours of the center’s completely redesigned exhibits and interpretive displays. Both the visitor center and memorial will also be open to the public later in the morning.

The new facility will also serve as a one-stop shuttle hub for other historic Pearl Harbor sites that either weren’t open or weren’t accessible to the public when the visitor center was first built. Among these: the National Park Service’s World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument sites at Pearl Harbor—which include the USS Arizona, USS Oklahoma and USS Utah Memorials—and the U.S. Navy’s Pearl Harbor Historic Sites—which include the Battleship Missouri Memorial, the Pacific Aviation Museum and the USS Bowfin Submarine Museum and Park.

The USS Bowfin itself, once across a parking lot from the old USS Arizona Memorial Visitor Center, is now part of the new center’s campus, which has expanded from 11 to 17 freshly landscaped acres. 

The centerpieces of the new visitor center, however, are two modern exhibit pavilions, designed to offer a more comprehensive history of the Dec. 7 attack—from events leading up to it, to the salvage efforts and Pacific War that followed. There’s been a generational shift in visitors to the center in the years since it was built. The Arizona Memorial's fastest-growing visitor age group is no longer from the Greatest Generation, which experienced the World War II era first-hand, or the Baby Boomers that followed. It's Gen X and Gen Y visitors with more distant connections to the war.

 

’Tis the season! The season, that is, when a bite in the air and the sudden manifestation of twinkling lights nudge you into revisiting the best of your Christmas music collection. You dive into the collection.  Maybe the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Perry Como, Burl Ives, Ella Fitzgerald, Elvis Presley and, in this writer’s case, Bruce Springsteen, are the tunes on your holiday playlist.

But do you have any Hawaiian Christmas music?

We thought not. Let the Hawaii-made Christmas albums here and on the following pages sleigh ride into your season of giving soundtrack. You can find all of them on Amazon.com and on Apple iTunes.

Here, in no particular order, are HAWAII Magazine's picks of the 6 essential Hawaii Christmas music albums.



Robert and Roland Cazimero’s love of Christmas is well known in the Islands. Their annual Cazimero Christmas concerts are a popular holiday season tradition. They’ve put together four Christmas albums since 1984. So why is this mix of modern and traditional tunes the best of the bunch? Robert and Roland’s exceptional arrangement skills have only grown more accomplished over time, and their harmonies increasingly sublime. Infused with imaginative twists that are the Caz’s calling card, Caz Christmas sounds fresh every holiday season.




Take the chicken skin-inducing harmonies of Makaha Sons’ Moon Kaukahi and John and Jerome Koko. Add the trio’s signature uncluttered acoustic arrangements—six- and twelve-string guitar and stand-up bass. Then mix with a playlist matching up classic holiday songs (“Winter Wonderland,” “Silent Night”) and a handful of originals (Moon Kaukahi’s lovely title track). What’s left to do after the gift shopping is done? Sit back in your favorite chair, press play, close your eyes and Christmas in Hawaii is suddenly wherever in the world you are.

 

Planning some holiday season shopping on Oahu in the weeks ahead? We can help you check off some items on your Christmas list.

HAWAII Magazine is giving away a $100 Ala Moana Center gift card each week until Christmas Day, to lucky members of our Facebook ohana. Use the gift card to shop during the holidays. Use it to spoil yourself after finishing all of your holiday shopping. It's up to you.

But do enter to win.

To qualify you to win each week’s gift card prize, we’ll be posting a question here on HawaiiMagazine.com, and asking readers to answer it on our HAWAII Magazine Facebook page.

For this week’s gift card, our question is: “What Hawaii gift do you want most this Christmas?”

Here’s how to leave your answer:

1.    Go to HAWAII Magazine’s Facebook page and click on the “like” button at the top of the page to become a member of our Facebook ohana. (If you're already following us on Facebook, you can skip this step.)

2.    Leave your answer to this week’s gift card question in the comment box for this story.

It’s that easy.

We’ll select one winner, at random, from all entries received by midnight (Hawaii time), Sun., Nov. 28, and notify the winner via Facebook. The contest is open to Hawaii visitors and residents, but winners must be able to pick up their gift card in-person at the Ala Moana Center Customer Service Center by Dec. 31. Only one gift card will be awarded per winner through the run of the contest.

Ala Moana Center is Hawaii’s largest shopping center, and a long-popular shopping destination of residents and visitors alike. For the holidays, Ala Moana Center’s more than 290 stores and restaurants will be open for extended hours until Christmas Eve.

If you don’t win this week, be sure to visit HawaiiMagazine.com again next Tuesday, Nov. 30 for our second week question.

Good luck! Happy Holidays! Happy shopping!
  

Recently, Peter Merriman rang us asking if our Mainland HAWAII Magazine readers might appreciate a few recipes that would add a bit of Hawaii flavor to their holiday season meals. We were all ears.

Merriman is one of Hawaii’s most successful and celebrated chef/restaurateurs, and a longtime champion of using fresh, locally procured ingredients from Island farmers, ranchers and fishermen. Peruse the menus of all four of his Merriman's restaurants and cafes—two on the Big Island, and one each on Maui and Kauai—and you’ll find dishes proudly boasting their locavore credentials.

“When I’m creating our restaurants’ Thanksgiving menus, I begin thinking about traditional dishes, and then which locally sourced items are in season and how those ingredients highlight, not disguise, the traditional hand-crafted Thanksgiving dinner,” says Merriman (pictured). “If you eat in a Merriman’s restaurant for Thanksgiving, you’ll enjoy a traditional Thanksgiving menu with a touch of Hawaii.”

The ethos Merriman followed in compiling the Hawaii-inspired holiday season recipes shared here was making sure ingredients could be found wherever HAWAII Magazine readers were in the world.

“Bringing a touch of Hawaii to your Thanksgiving Day menu is easy,” says Merriman. “The basic flavors of Hawaii—coconut, macadamia nuts, and pineapple—all go great with traditional Thanksgiving favorites. You can keep your family recipes and add these for a fun, tropical twist.”

On the following pages, you’ll find Chef Peter Merriman’s recipes for Molokai Sweet Potato Palau, Cranberry Pineapple Relish, Macadamia Nut Stuffing and Kalua Turkey.

Mahalo for the recipes Chef Peter! And Happy Holidays to our entire HAWAII Magazine reader ohana!  

 

HAWAII Magazine has an iPhone app!

It’s new. It’s free. It's mobile. And it’s connected to all the things you like about HawaiiMagazine.com, including our most current daily web features and our Facebook and Twitter pages.

If you've got an iPhone ... download it. Try it. And let us know what you think.

Really.

Our new HAWAII Magazine iPhone app is your app. And it’s a work in progress that we’d really appreciate input from you—our reader ohana—for expanding and improving.

Open the app and instantly scroll through the 25 most recent articles from HawaiiMagazine.com on everything Hawaii—from news, events and activities to the latest travel deals and tips, dining advice and our readers’ favorite Island things to do.

The app’s Hawaii Guide offers a growing collection of statewide places of interest to consider whether you’re planning a vacation in Hawaii, or already here and looking for stuff to do.

The HAWAII Magazine iPhone app also has small, but always-expanding listing of deals for Hawaii shopping, dining, activities and entertainment. Check it out when you’re in the Islands, and receive notifications on the latest deals, collected by HAWAII Magazine sister company Talisman’s mobile marketplace Milan. (Talisman also designed our iPhone app).

You can even shoot a Hawaii photo with your iPhone and send it to us for consideration in our HawaiiMagazine.com Reader Photo of the Week contest.

Here's how to get the HAWAII Magazine iPhone app:

On your iPhone: Enter a search for "Hawaii Magazine" in the iTunes App Store, then download.

On your Mac or PC: Click this iTunes App Store direct link.

Finally, let us know what you think about the HAWAII Magazine iPhone app or, more importantly, what you’d like to see on the app, with an e-mail or comment on our Facebook or Twitter pages.

Mahalo for checking it out!




 

One-way flights between California and Maui for $139? Round-trip flights between Seattle and Oahu as low as $318?

If you can squeeze in a pre-Christmas, pre-New Year holiday vacation in Hawaii, Hawaiian Airlines and Alaska Airlines are posting flight deals you should know about. But you'll have to book right away.

Here are the deals ...


You read that right. Two days.

Alaska Airlines is offering one-way flight deals from eight Mainland cities to Oahu, Maui and the Big Island for as low as $139. The catch? You have today and tomorrow to book the fare deals, for travel between Dec. 1, and Dec. 15, 2010.

Among the one-way fare deals, posted on Alaska Airlines’ website:

• San Jose, Calif. – Kona, Big Island            $139

• San Jose, Calif. – Kahului, Big Island        $139

• Oakland, Calif. – Kona, Big Island            $139

• Oakland, Calif. – Kahului, Maui            $139

• San Diego, Calif. – Kahului, Maui            $139

• Sacramento, Calif. – Kahului, Maui            $139

• Anchorage, Alaska – Honolulu, Oahu        $149

• Fairbanks, Alaska – Honolulu, Oahu        $199

• Juneau, Alaska – Honolulu, Oahu            $199

• Kodiak, Alaska – Honolulu, Oahu            $199

Seats are limited. For reservations and ticket purchase, terms and conditions, visit Alaska Airlines “Hawaii 2-Day Sale” web page.


Hawaiian Airlines “Travel More Spend Less” Sale

You have a bit more time to book Hawaiian Airlines’ round-trip flight deals from 10 Mainland cities it serves to Oahu and Maui. Deals here start from $318 for flights between Seattle and Kahului, Maui and Honolulu, Oahu, and you have until Mon., Nov. 22, 2010, to book your reservation. Travel dates for the deal are from Dec. 3 to Dec. 15, 2010.

Here’s the list of flights and “as low as” round-trip fares:

• Seattle, Wash. – Honolulu, Oahu            $318

• Seattle, Wash. – Kahului, Maui            $318

• Oakland, Calif. – Honolulu, Oahu            $328

• Phoenix, Ariz. – Honolulu, Oahu            $328

• Portland, Ore. – Honolulu, Oahu            $328

• San Francisco, Calif. – Honolulu, Oahu        $328

• San Jose, Calif. – Honolulu, Oahu            $328

• Portland, Ore. – Kahului, Maui            $328

• Los Angeles, Calif. – Honolulu, Oahu        $358

• Las Vegas, Nev. – Honolulu, Oahu            $388

• Sacremento, Calif. – Honolulu, Oahu        $388

• Las Vegas, Nev. – Kahului, Maui            $388

• San Diego, Calif. – Honolulu, Oahu            $418

Seats are limited for these flights, as well. For reservations and ticket purchase, terms and conditions, visit Hawaiian Airlines “Travel More Spend Less” web page.

 

If you’re on Oahu or Maui this week, you need to eat out.

Away from your hotel room or vacation rental. Away from your home or condo.

It’s Restaurant Week Hawaii—a full seven days dedicated to showing off the Islands’ ever-interesting, multifaceted dining scene and locally-produced ingredients while supporting Hawaii's future generations of chefs. The third-annual edition of the Hawaii Restaurant Association-sponsored dining abbondanza happens this week, through Nov. 21.

The best part of all this culinary goodwill for folks always looking for a good excuse to get out of the home kitchen and into the dining rooms of some of Hawaii’s best eateries? Deals, of course. Lots of ‘em.

This year, Restaurant Week Hawaii is offering dining deals from more than 60 Oahu and Maui restaurants on special or discounted prix-fixe menus, signature dishes, appetizers and more.


The list of participating restaurants covers a wide-range of tastes and cuisines—from fine dining and fast food, to casual eateries, take-out and bars and lounges. Among the deals:

• Prix fixe dinner menus at Nobu Waikiki, Azure Restaurant, Alan Wong’s Honolulu, town, BLT Steak, Roy’s, Le Bistro, Beachhouse at the Moana on Oahu, and Haliimaile General Store, Pineapple Grill at Kapalua Resort and Cane & Taro on Maui.

• Special menu items at Morimoto Waikiki, J.J. Dolan’s Big City Diner, Wailana Coffee House, P.F. Changs and Kani Ka Pila Grille on Oahu and The Flatbread Company on Maui.

• Dine-in/take-out specials at Diamond Head Market and Grill, Hank’s Haute Dogs, L&L Hawaiian Barbecue and Maui Tacos.


There's a lot more, too. Click here for the full list of participating restaurants, with links to each eatery's Restaurant Week special menu. A bit of advice before you head out the door, though. We recommend contacting restaurants first to ask if reservations are recommended, and to confirm their Restaurant Week specials.

A portion of proceeds raised from every dining deal you purchase during Restaurant Week will go towards the Culinary Institute of the Pacific at Honolulu’s Kapiolani Community College, the state’s premier cooking school.

For more information about Restaurant Week Hawaii, click here or call (808) 734-9539.

 

Hawaii’s big waves of November aren’t here just yet.

But that won’t stop the 28th annual Vans Triple Crown of Surfing from kicking off its official holding period today on Oahu’s North Shore. The 38-day, six-event professional surfing competition (three for men, three for women), is the surf world’s most prestigious annual contest. It’s also the final stop for surfing’s best on the 2010 Association of Surfing Professionals yearlong world tour.

Each Triple Crown event keeps an extended holding period, with competition happening only on days with big surf—in general, sustained wave heights of 15 feet or higher. The holding period for the first jewels of the Triple Crown—the Reef Hawaiian Pro and Cholo’s Women’s Hawaiian Pro—begins today and runs through Nov. 23.

With today’s North Shore forecast calling for somewhat miniscule one- to three-foot surf, fans shouldn't count on seeing the pros hit the waves just yet. The first decent swell of the competition, in fact, isn't expected until Monday morning.

Triple Crown pros have to compete in all three events in their respective gender categories, with each event crowning an individual champion. The male and female surfer who gains the most points over all three of their events wins the Vans Triple Crown of Surfing overall championship.


If you’re on Oahu over the next month, Triple Crown competition is worth the drive to the North Shore—especially when surf is at its monster best. Click here to check on surf conditions and the status of events. All events run from 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Expect thousands of surf fans, media and the just plain curious on days when the waves are kicking.

In honor of Hawaii world champion surfer Andy Irons, the Triple Crown is halting all competition on Sun., Nov. 14—regardless of wave conditions—to allow surfers the full day to attend the Irons family memorial services and paddle-out on Kauai. A second memorial service and paddle-out ceremony before the start of the Triple Crown’s Billabong Pipe Masters on Dec. 8 at the Banzai Pipeline will also honor Irons. The Kauai-native won the monster wave contest in 2002, 2003, 2005 and 2006.

Anything else you need to know before you go?

On the pages ahead, you’ll find our HAWAII Magazine Spectator Guide to the Beaches and Events of the 2010 Vans Triple Crown of Surifng—full of tips on getting to each beach, where to park, bathroom availability and videos from last year's competitions. We also tip you off on each event’s defending champion to watch for, and the surfer perils and pitfalls each beach is most famous for.

All Triple Crown surf competitions are free and open to the public. Beat traffic and get the best spots on the beach by leaving town for the North Shore early. And keep our Triple Crown Guide bookmarked.

Now ... let the guide begin ---->

 

Family memorial services for Hawaii-born world surfing champion Andy Irons will take place on Sunday, Nov. 14, in his hometown of Hanalei, on Kauai’s north shore.

Services will begin at 11 a.m. at “Pine Trees” surf break (Waioli Beach Park) on Hanalei Bay, and include a traditional surfer “paddle-out” ceremony in honor of Irons. During winter wave season, Pine Trees is a favorite break of pro and amateur surfers. The beach is also home to the Irons Brothers Pine Trees Classic, an annual kids surfing competition started by Andy and his brother Bruce Irons, also a world-renowned surfing champion.

Irons, 32, was a lifelong resident of Hanalei.

The three-time world champion surfer passed away in Dallas, Texas, on Nov. 2 after reportedly being stricken with the viral illness dengue fever. Irons had dropped out of the Rip Curl Pro Search competition in Puerto Rico due to the illness, and was attempting to return home to Kauai to check in with family and his regular physician when he died. The cause of Irons death is still undetermined.


The Kauai-raised Irons was one of surfing’s greatest and fiercest modern competitors, having won 20 titles in a 12-year professional career. He won the Association of Surfing Professionals world champion title three years in a row between 2002 and 2004, and most recently the Billabong Pro in Tahiti on Sept. 3. A four-time winner at the annual Vans Triple Crown of Surfing, Irons was entered in this year’s series of big wave contests, slated to begin this Friday, Nov. 12, on Oahu's North Shore.

In honor of Irons, the Triple Crown is halting all competition on Sunday—regardless of wave conditions—to allow surfers the full day to attend the Irons family memorial services and paddle-out on Kauai. A second memorial service and paddle-out ceremony before the start of the Triple Crown’s Billabong Pipe Masters contest on Dec. 8 at the Banzai Pipeline will also honor Irons.

Irons is survived by his wife Lyndie, brother Bruce and parents Phil and Danielle.


UPDATE, 11/15/2010: Below is a video of the Nov. 14 Andy Irons Memorial Service and Paddle-Out on Kauai: