HONOLULU -- With the growing interest in President-elect Barack Obama's childhood in Hawaii visitors and residents are signing up for the first walking tour of his old neighborhood.

Tour guide Jack Christensen begins the hour and a half walk across from the Punahou high rise where Obama lived with his grandparents, Stanley and Madelyn Dunham.

It is a neighborhood that Christensen knows well.

"You couldn't miss Barack Obama because we didn't have any (African-Americans) in this neighborhood at the time and he had an afro hairdo that was fairly outstanding. So, you would see him at Foodland and Times (supermarkets)," Christensen said.

The walk goes to the upper gates of his alma mater, Punahou School, to Poki Street, where he lived with his mother and sister for three years.

There is also a stop at the hospital where Obama was born at Kapiolani Medical Center for Women and Children. Christensen's two children were born there, too.

One woman along for the tour hails from Kansas. She was intrigued since she shares a bit of shared history with his grandmother.

"She worked in an aircraft factory during the war, and I remember that because I was 13 years old and the men were all in the service," a Waikiki resident said.

There is also a stop at the Baskin Robbins ice cream store where Obama worked as a boy and the neighborhood plate lunch hangout Zippy's.

The tour goes to a University Avenue residence where he stayed with his grandparents and mother. The home owned by a church is a rental. Its current tenants couldn't be more thrilled to know its history.

"I thought it was pretty cool since I voted for him, too," Manoa resident Virginie Ching said.

The news is a great connection for her young son and many others in the neighborhood who can now follow in Obama's footsteps.