After a week of roads being closed off, fights breaking out, hundreds of secret service agents and police officers, and motorcades, the locals of Oahu are relieved for it all to be over. The Asia Pacific Economic Corporation really caused an uproar for locals who were just trying to resume their normal lives during the conference, but with all the road closures and intense police force, it made it quite difficult. Even though I did my best to avoid the hectic craziness of Waikiki, the traffic and police force still caught up with me to interrupt and alter my plans for the day. For example, after dropping my boyfriend off at work one day that's just a few minutes from our house, I sat in traffic for 45 minutes so that protestors of APEC could cross the roadways. There were at least 70 people walking in the protest, and while the police force kept them under control, they couldn't do anything about the blocked traffic. The same thing happened on a day where I had class and was unable to get downtown because off the delays, I ended up turning around and not even bother going after sitting in the same location for over an hour.
I really feel that they could have done a better job controlling the roadways during the weekend, a lot of major intersections were blocked off and everyone had a difficult time getting to the places they needed to be. Even tourists who were on vacation had to walk several blocks to get to tour vans because the vehicles were not allowed to approach certain hotels. In the future, if I know another major event like this is going to take place in Hawaii, I might take a vacation to another island just so I won't have to deal with it again!
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