The big island of Hawaii is one of contrasts; whether it be climate, soil, lava, clouds, sunshine or coffee plantations. All the time the island ringed by the Pacific at its most beautiful and blue.

There is a downside to island life; jobs don't appear plentiful and seem to follow the rythym of tourism. Wealth is not obvious in the housing. The service industries, other than coffee shops, run on Hawaiian time. Which means you will be served when they get around to you. Not promptly.

The island is also young geologically so the East coast Australian and Southern Californian beaches only exist in one place; Hapuna Bay. However the island is largely peaceful swell wise and wonder ful for kayaking, snorkling, scuba diving and all manner of water pursuits. The coral reefs are easily accessible and give instant wonder as to the variety of marine life.

A lot of fun.

Our favourite coffee shop on the big island was the Green Flash. It had good coffee, good food and excellent service. The only places in Hawaii where we got good service was in the coffee houses; the restaurants and bars were atrocious. You were left dangling often for twenty minutes at a time.

To get to the Green Flash we would often run four miles down Ali'i Drive to the coffee shop from where we were staying and then grab coffee or a protein smoothie - or both. We got asked if we were here for the ironman contest as apparently the competitors start filing in around now for the race around the island. While I am in good shape for my age, sadly I am not that fit.

On the run back there were a couple of small big island style beaches with small sand spits and very, very mild waves. We would stop at one of the beaches about the two and a half mile mark and then go for swim in the surf for a while. It was a relaxing way to break up the run.

The local delicacy is Kona coffee grown on the hills in the south of the island. It goes for a premium. I am a daily coffee drinker but my palette was not good enough to pick up the differences in the taste between house coffee and Kona.

Anyway props to the Green Flash for being an excellent coffee house especially as most Hawaiian restaurants, bars and service is quite ordinary to the point of disappointment.

CNN has the top ten most livable cities which is amalgam of different reports on livability. For the antipodeans Auckland comes in third and Sydney ninth. However, of all the American cities to choose from Honolulu is a weird choice.

I would not live in Hawaii. My experiences of Hawaii was that service was slow and dismal. The towns aren't particularly clean and the urban and suburban landscape is dominated by large resorts that are cut out of the ground. The beaches are not even particularly good either. Sydney and Los Angeles crush Hawaii for nice beaches.

As for other livability issues such as high end technical employment, high quality restaurants, etc. That isn't happening in Hawaii. When we were on the Big Island we found one restaurant - a Thai place - that was up to Phoenix standards. The rest were atrocious.

The United States is a big country with a lot of fascinating cities and places. Hawaii isn't even ok as a vacation because the service and food is so crappy. To live? I don't think so.

I have lived and worked in the North-East in New Jersey just outside of Manhattan. I have lived for many years in North Virginia just outside of Washington DC. Now I am living in Phoenix. All three of them are way, way better than anything Hawaii has to offer. California is more desirable and livable in my opinion than Hawaii - and it is flat broke, poorly governed and super expensive.