Hawaiian marketplaces are very lush. Unlike drab California Farmers Markets on tired Saturday mornings, the Hawaiian market is open 6 days a week and features brilliant tropical fruits and wares, a bounty of the tropical yearlong harvest and a strong tourist bent. Hawaiian merchants also happen to be very effective salesmen, frequently taking the time to converse, freely giving out fresh samples, and playing the "things in common" card to make things more hospitable for the buyer. However, visitors to the marketplace should be aware of rampant price discrimination between the higher tourist price, and the lower resident price.
This affects me because I'm trying to buy food but I want to evade the tourist price, which isn't always easy. I'm after prominent local food: papayas, starfruit, macadamia nuts, coconuts, pineapples, mangoes, and tangerines. I have found that the best way to go about this is to put up a certain amount of money (say five dollars) and ask how much of "X good" you can get for it. Pictured above is "ranbutan", a fruit similar to lychee that's great on the road. I put up a dollar and got a "handful". The stated price was $5/lb.
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