The Weekend, Ukulele Style

Fri: half day of work, drive south, stay with cuz, go out to dinner, stay up late talking story, sleep in sleeping bag in the living room. It's kinda like being a kid again!

Sat: brunch at cuz's house with grandmamoo guy, big sis, and middlesis guy, delaware punchy and more cousins. Clean up, short nap, drive to middle sis's art opening, stay for an hour, drive back north.

Sun: Sleep from 2-7am, then off to the ukulele festival. Whew. We were beat.

The festival was tremendous. Lots of vendors, lots of great food.

Backstage was cool. From the set list for the previous night we learned that the entertainment for the police benefit the previous night had included magicians and ventriloquists.

The gig itself was fun. We were the first act, or as mrguy modestly remarked "The foamy first pour from a keg".  Even that early there were plenty of people in the audience, including Auntie Spunky, who I could hear from the stage. The reception was warm and friendly. We got some compliments from friends and strangers, and it was lovely.

After playing we took seats in the balcony and saw various bands play. The balcony is THE BEST! Kinda informal, which will come in later...

Playing first? Also THE BEST because you get to see everybody else and hang out with zero nerves. This was the most fun I've had at the festival since before we joined the big uke band. And we ran into friends from the band and caught up on life. One of them asked us to play for her halau at another festival, which I hope comes to pass. That would be a treat.

After chatting came lunch. Look at my yummy chicken lau lau plate! The mac salad had a little tuna in it. And it came with poi. Heaven.

The afternoon acts were varied and interesting. I wish I'd brought a book, though, because when they were not so good they were really not so good. I feel like I learned a lot from watching, and I'm definitely going to buy the dvd.

So here we are in the balcony again. Some bandmates still there, some not. Mrguy put in his earplugs and went to sleep after the wrinkly bag and whiny child people sat behind us. Right behind us, though, was this lady Auntie C. Real initial. I know this because she called out her own first name during the raffle, and all the performers' names are listed in the program.

When she didn't win a raffle prize but it went to a little old lady, her husband joked that he was going to beat the lady up. And when one of the sponsors was onstage Auntie C. commented that he'd lost weight, his face used to be rounder and now he looked like a haole. Goes without mention that she also booked it for the exit when they started Hawaii Aloha. 

That's o.k., lady, I didn't want to hold your hand anyway ;)

Hawaii 2012, Day 6

Our last day. We visited the farmer's daughter at her workplace. She and I want to find a project together, so it was a little work, a little play.

We spent the afternoon going to the Spalding House Museum. There's a really weird Hockney installation there that we enjoyed -- all black light and choir music. After that we enjoyed a new installation in the garden, which was as if Christo's The Gates was made out of neon-colored inflatable pool rafts. Somewhere after walking through it, mrguy started getting a migraine. This happened once while he was viewing a Chuck Close painting. So we headed down the hill.

Recovery was quick and we went in search of the Guy Tai. The Chart House is a cool throwback to the 1970s. I definitely want to go there for dinner some night.  Lots of wood sculptures. Very old school. The bar faces the water, which is both cool and blinding. 

There were musicians playing, but they played along to recorded tracks. Somehow they seem to have a coterie of elderly female followers. Very sweet. On to the Halekulani.

It started to pour and I was not in the mood. Outside the Ilikai we grabbed a cab and were at the Halekulani in what felt like seconds. The rain had cleared the tourists out of the outdoors area and we got the best seats we'd ever had there. Sadly, this was the worst band we've seen there. They mumbled and had zero energy. The lovely Kanoe Miller, however, was fabulous as always.

Matsugen was fine. It doesn't have that spark it had when it first opened, so I might not need to go back. But the bowl was pretty tasty.

There you go. That's our last night in Hawaii.

A hui hou.

Hawaii 2012, Day 5

We took it easy for the rest of our vacation. It was quite a while before we recovered from the excitement of poistravaganza 2012.

The next day we got up a little late, ate some breakfast and went to Jelly's to shop for records. Who did we see but our friend from the other night. They'd already started working through my list and had gone to La Mariana Sailing Club the night before. They were also planning to join us that evening at Waipuna. I left the menfolk talking about the best equipment for digitizing LPs, and went back to my local record hunting.

Later we ate lunch at Kaka'ako Kitchen. Their really weird veggie burgers are oddly comforting. I haven't the faintest idea what's in them, but they're groovy.

Then I bought a pohaku. I now have the means to make my poi!

Rest, then on to Waipuna. It was their last gig at the Ilikai Bar and Grill, which has now closed (again). Waipuna never disappoints. Unlike a lot of other bands we tend to hear playing Hawaiian music, they have energy. And Kale likes to talk story, which helps give audiences a deeper appreciation for the music. They are definitely my fave band playing today.

Our new friends from St. Louis came to share our table. They were suitably impressed. They gave us a recommendation of their own, which was that we should try the Guy Tai at Chart House. It's right next door to the Ilikai. I'm surprised we'd never been there.

The next day, we did.

Hawaii 2012, Day 4: Poistravaganza

This was one of the best ideas I'd ever cooked up.

First I decided that it would be fun to take a tour of the Taro Brand Poi Factory. When an email to them returned no reply, I looked for other poi-centric ideas. My search on the Intertubes brought me to the Johnny Appleseed of poi. We'll call him Johnny. I contacted him and he and his business partner, Rain, cooked up a day for us.

Rain picked us up at our hotel at 7. We ate banana pancakes and fruit at the park, then headed to the Windward side. 

 We met Johnny and Uncle Johnny at a native Hawaiian plant nursery, got an introduction to native species and picked out some plants to plant later on at the house. Unfortunately the moon was wrong for planting. The moon advocated relaxing, which was the opposite of what we were about to do, but whatever.

At the nursery I also met a dog.

 

We headed for the kalo patch, a little ways away. We changed into different shoes and walked up the hill. Somewhere near a Board of Water Supply station sits a very old set of kalo terraces that these guys are rebuilding. They were getting close, when the storms of last month ruined the water supply. Our part of giving back to the project involved helping restore the water flow by moving large rocks out of the way. For a few hours. In the heat and mud. I had a surprisingly good time, while also covering myself in mud and wielding a pick axe. After a while I got to the point where I couldn't lift anything else that was in the way. I was pau.

The before picture met with misfortune, which means that this after picture isn't quite as exciting as I'd hoped.

They decided it was time for lunch. We stopped by the fish pond on the way, to see where boards were soaking for a few weeks before being carved into papa ku'i'ai (poi pounding boards). Then on to the house.

The pressure cookers were steaming two different things: one had laulau and the other had kalo. It smelled heavenly. First, poi.

Mrguy and I sat on either end of a two-person papa ku'i'ai making pa'i'ai for a few hours. The most important thing is cleanliness. Cross-contamination is easy and I had to start from the beginning several times. They have special ionized water there that helps with the cleanliness. We learned how to clean our kalo, pound (good technique is more difficult than it seems) and go through the various steps to making it acceptable. All the while we talked about culture, legislation related to poi, what kinds of documents and legal services are available in the Hawaiian language (not many) and many other things. Our heads were swimming with all of this.

Toward the end of pounding poi, you add a little water and knead. The starch of kalo has begun to release its sugars and it takes on the color and sheen of Silly Putty. My pounding arm was really sore for a few days. Surprisingly, my back and knees felt great the next day.

After pounding we ate laulau and played a few tunes for our hosts. Rain took us home with our pa'i'ai vacu-sealed in bags. Nobody looked twice when I carried it on the plane with me.

You'd think that we would just crawl into bed after that, but we went to a Japanese soup restaurant instead. I wasn't sure I could hold chopsticks after our workout that day, but we made it fine. You'd think we'd walk out when we saw that ordering involved a flow chart, but we didn't. 

I'd  never seen nabe cooked over a flame in what looked like a coffee filter before (not that I'm an expert). 

It did catch on fire a little bit at the end.

 

After our day's excitement it was time for bed :)