50 Reasons I love This Place...

In no particular order:

1. Rainbows (no rain, no rainbows)

2. Fresh Poke (The Poke Stop, yum)

3. Waikiki Beach

4. Fireworks (4th of July, New Years, Chinese New Year)

5. Early mornings

6. no traffic lights in the country

7. 50 mph speed limit

8. Alama Sisters

9. Bishop Museum

10. music

11. Waialua Ward

12. Bon Dances

13. Everyone is family (only state where everyone has 60 uncles and 45 aunties)

14. Plate lunches (2 scoops rice (brown), mac salad and meat...still the best!)

15. Kahuku Corn (drive all the way over there and then eat it all ourselves)

16. Grumbling (no Trader Joes, no In-N-Out, other stuff we don't have)

17. Luau! good times

18. kanikapila (usually done at #17)

19. Mangos from your neighbor

20. Slippers (cause of luau feet)

21. Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (will work to keep them safe)

22. Plastic Free Haleiwa

23. Honolulu Zoo

24. Clean air pretty much all the time (vog :(

25. UH Football, from the perfect season, Colt, June and the rebuilding, Go Warriors!

26. Christmas spirit EVERYWHERE here, hotels, markets, postoffice, gas stations, beach...

27. Plumeria, nothing like that smell

28. "Hawai'i Aloha"

29. Cheaper movies/free soda refills (come on mainland!)

30. clean, warm water

31. Waialua Elementary School, best small school

32. Paalakai Bakery and Market (butter rolls and best diet coke)

33. Kaiaka Beach (secret???!!!)

34. Downtown Honolulu (Town) hidden treasures like Merchant Street and Hawaii Theater

35. Liliha Bakery, yum cocopuffs

36. Preserving the past

37. Royal Hawaiian Band, funky, older, but good

38. Lei Day

39. Nostalgia (old hapa haole songs..."Waikiki" what can I say?)

40. 1 block rain showers

41. Waikiki Shell, sitting on mats on the grass under a full moon!

42. Trees, banyans in Kapiolani Park, rainbow shower trees on King Street, yellow shower tree

43. Rivalries: Punahou or Iolani, Leonards or Paalakai Bakery, Matsumotos or Aokis???

44. Hokulea, showing that the Polynesians did travel great distances

45. Dukes, still my favorite breakfast spot

46. Samoans and Samoan food...panepopo, to die for!

47. rear view mirror mahalos

48. Waialua Library, voted Best Small Town Library

49. Taking mainland guest around the island...the real LOST locations!

50. Aloha (isn't this what it's all about anyway?)

O-Bon Season

Here in Hawaii the summer months are O-bon season. O-bon is a Buddhist tradition, where the spirits of those departed ones return during this time. Bon dances are held during the season because it pleases the ancestors' spirits. The finale of the season is the sending off the spirits in small boats or floating lanterns.

Tonight I went to the Haleiwa Jodo Mission for their bon dance and floating lantern ceremony. Last month a huge (40,000 people) one was held at Ala Moana Beach Park with the releasing of the lanterns. Tonight this was crowded, but very local. I ran into a lot of friends there, ate shave ice the old-fashioned way (in a bowl), got a towel and watched the people dance around the musicans...good fun!

the dancers going around the musicians. Even if you don't know the dance, it's still fun to get out there. There are many different dances that people do. Ladies in kimonos, men with the towels wrapped around their heads, little kids trying to follow along...just fun!

There was some recorded music, but most of it came from these musicians.

A lantern for a friends grandmother who recently passed away.

The towel that you could buy. Guess it would be a sweat towel, but pretty cool.

All of the lanterns floating out to sea.

Asian medicine

I've been suffering terrible pain with one of my knees because of all the hula, getting ready for Na Hula. It's actually not the one I had surgery on, it's the other one. I just want to be able to get through until August 9th, then I'll have to do something.

Anyway, my neighbor who plays a lot of tennis had given me a couple of the patches. I was in such pain the other day, I figured "why not"...it really did seem to help. They're just a stickey patch with menthol and camphor in it. So I asked her what they were called and figured that I'd try and get some tomorrow when I'm in town.

She said that they were on sale at Longs and she'd pick me up some. I figured may $10 for 10. She said, "$2.99/40". I just laughed. What a bargin. Imported from Japan too and the box is even in english!

Gotta love it!

Lychee season

It's lychee season here in Hawaii. Here on the North Shore you don't see too many lychee trees because there's not enough rain down low. Most of the lychee trees out here are up the hill at Pupukea. It's much cooler and wetter up at the top of the hill, so there are a lot of trees up there. There are lots of lychee trees in Hilo (another story) because it's so damp. The other day I was coming back from the market and beside the road, there was was a couple selling bags of lychee out of their car.

I was so excited, these were really fresh and the smell....pure heaven! We got to talking and he told me that they live up in Pupukea and their trees are so full of fruit this year, they decided to try and sell some. They've sold out every day that they've been there. Sweet cold lychee. Once you get the outer covering off this is what you see. Pure bliss. Some other neighbors had also bought some from a roadside vendor, so the other day we spent a good hour just eating lychee.

If you haven't ever tried fresh lychee it's worth the work to taste it!

Turtle Bay 4th

On the 4th of July we decided to head over to the Turtle Bay Resort for their fireworks program. We'd been hearing reports about how crowded every place in town was, so decided to get some friends and stay on the north shore side. We're so glad we did! At one end of the big grass area, they had put up bouncy houses (4) for the kids and
the stage was at the other end. When it got dark, all we had to do was look to the right (towards the ocean) and watch.

the trade winds blew out the smoke, so it was really a great view.

Thank You Turtle Bay Resort for the great food vendors, music (Ka'ala Crater Boys & De Lima Ohana), great grass to sit on, easy exits ("Kahuku bound", "Sunset bound") and actually turning off all the lights so people could watch the fireworks!

Hope you all had a great 4th. God Bless America.