We landed in Honolulu, on the island of Oahu. It was raining. Midnight came and went, the sun came up and it was July the 12th again. Such are the confusions of crossing the international dateline. My diary couldn't cope with this either, but a few seconds with a biro created a July 12a and a July 12b.

This is the remotest place on earth. For thousands of kilometres in every direction there is only the unfriendly expanse of the Pacific Ocean. But then again, it isn't remote at all. This is Hawaii. This is the United States of America and shipping lines, flight corridors and satellites link the 50th state to its siblings on the mainland.

It's odd but, over the past 27 years, US culture has drip-fed its way into my consciousness. And here it is. Icons of the US that I had never whole-heartedly believed. Cornerstreet newspaper vending machines, fire hydrants, oversized automobiles, yellow schoolbuses, The National Enquirer and the unique obscure currency. The small silver dime coin has the words 'one dime' stamped on it - a spectacular piece of unhelpful self-reference. The notes are oddly stretched, sporting an elongated 4:9 ratio. They also seem rather antiquated by European and other standards. No fancy metal foil threads, embedded holograms or other accoutrements of modern currency fashion; they look tantalisingly forgeable.

It's only here that I realise I'm a metric man. I may still measure distance in miles and buy my apples in pounds - but on the whole my sense of the world is resolutely SI. The US has escaped, or rather resisted, this non-imperial imperialism by remaining imperial (so to speak). I have no feeling for what a Quart is or how hot 75 degrees Fahrenheit is. In British compromise, Centigrade and Fahrenheit are always quoted but I mentally ignore the latter. Here the weather forecasts permit no such concessions and so leave me none the wiser. Road signs are in miles - but after months of seeing everything in kilometres I'm still unconsciously multiplying by 5/8. They drive on the right side too (that is to say, the wrong side) - out of a randomly picked seven countries I have visited, the US is, remarkably, the only one to do so. Nearly everywhere I've been I've had a sense of external influence. In India it was Britain, in Hong Kong - Japan, in Japan - America. In the US the only influence I see is from the US.

A thin strip of sand stands between the Pacific Ocean and the ring of high-rise hotels that crowd the coast at Waikiki. East of Honolulu, this is the main tourist area on the island. The sand is soft and golden. Even at 7.30am the water is already full of surfers, gliding along the curling rolls of surf. Purposefully planted palm trees line the beach and their fronds rustle in the cool morning breeze. Along the shore, groves of surfboards grow from the sand and expensive looking tourists lounge, eating breakfast with clinking cutlery in the shade of verandas of expensive looking hotels beside expensive looking immaculate lawns. Thankfully, no one is allowed to own beach real estate on the island - it is all public property - the best the hotels can do is build practically on top of them.

Further north, along the coast road, the beaches continue but the hotels subside and the tourists dwindle. Here the wider, greener beaches are virtually empty. The golden sand is occasionally interrupted by a jagged outcrop of black bubbly rock - reminders of the island's volcanic ancestry. The sea is clear and blue. The beach's steep gradient produces continuous crashing surf that bubbles and sizzles around my ankles as I walk barefoot along the shoreline. This is Sunset beach, so called because it faces west. As I sit, perched on the edge of a sandy ridge with the crashing and tumbling surf racing up the beach below, the clouds on the horizon are outlined in the bright vermillion of the dying sun. I am in a new world.