Hawaii 2009, Day 4 (Now With Crackers)

The Kapiolani Community College farmer's market was our goal for the morning.

The vendors do slow food, plants, honey, coffee.

The college has a dry garden that we were looking forward to seeing. Mrguy likes the Seussian plants. I like the juxtaposition of spines and flowers.

We took a drive up the coast, where the water was uncharacteristically turquoise for this time of year. I don't think we've ever seen it that beautiful.

And we made a pilgrimage to this spot, where many bad guys met their end in episodes of Hawaii Five-0.

And to Sandy Beach, where we watched the surfers and recharged our batteries a bit.

We can't really go past Waimanalo without stopping in at the nut store. We chatted with the woman behind the counter for a while and played uke. She said she only knew three chords, which she uses to play Pearly Shells. Then she realized that they were also the chords to... (and I assumed she'd mention another hapa haole classic) ...Love Letters in the Sand, by Pat Boone.

We drove the Pali Highway, and fed fish food to the reef fish at the docks at Aloha Tower Marketplace. Then we walked toward Iolani Palace and found ourselves a spot on the Chinese New Year Parade route.

A little bitty girl across the street from us was obsessed with princesses, and when the various princesses and queens came by, she would do her own princess wave and yell really loud. I hope that some day she grows up to be Narcissus Queen :) Another little one kept sitting on my foot. It was kinda cozy.

We met ms scandiwaiian and mr finn at Sarento's. Akasaka was our dinner choice of the night, then we rendezvoused at their hotel to catch the last hour of Hatsu Basho. Baruto did a wiggy move on Harumufuji and lifted his leg off the ground to get him off balance. Asashoryu paused after the the initial charge and was tossed off the dohyo by Hakuho. Visibly upset at first, Asa summoned the powers before the tie-breaking match to win it handily.

All this, and friends, and sumo...

Nice!

2/1/09

Mrguy asked that I update Day 4 to tell you this story. Our last attempt to find sumo in public took us to a sports bar across from the Ilikai. When we asked whether they had TV Japan at the bar, the hostess said she didn't know and turned us over to a barfly named "Crackers", who she said was the only person in the bar who could operate the remote. In the background, the world's worst Beatles / Stones cover band did their sound check. Crackers wandered off, and we scrammed.