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Another Unforgettable "Where Were You When You Heard" Moment

5/31/2024

Yesterday at 2:19 Pacific Time - I've been in Los Angeles for the past week - I was sitting alone at the kitchen table of my California hosts, eating a sandwich and reading my book, "O Jerusalem,"

...when onto my phone screen popped the news:

I immediately clicked on the link:

...and was hit with a shock. I lost my grip on my sandwich and it fell apart onto my plate. "Oh my God, he's guilty!" I said out loud to no one. I sprung up from the table wanting to tell someone, to have another person to share this moment with, but there was no one in the house except me.
I called my husband Tom who was at home in Columbus. Yes, he just heard. Yes, he was shocked. No, he didn't know what was going to happen next. I began texting with family members and friends, our texts joining all the the other texts pinging back and forth across the country, across the world, the chain reaction of our reactions to this moment in history that we were all living.
I felt like this moment needed more to be happening around me: It needed noise, pyrotechnics, bottle rockets, people out in the streets shouting in jubilation or protest. But in the empty house where I was there was no noise except for the continued pinging of my phone, and nothing out of the ordinary was happening in the streets, sidewalks, and yards of this tranquil neighborhood where I found myself.

And I wondered, how could such a momentous moment be so quiet?

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Hula, The Beautiful Dance Of Hawaii

5/21/2024

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Hula, The Beautiful Dance Of Hawaii

How do I love Hawaii? Let me count a few of the ways. I love Hawaii for its palm trees,

...along with its other vibrant tropical flora,

...and fauna;

...for its brilliant blue sea;

...its velvety mountains;

...its rainbows;

...and for its spirit of aloha that in the Hawaiian culture means the gentle power of peace, friendliness, and caring that binds us all to each other.

And I especially love hula, the lovely, expressive dance brought to Hawaii a thousand years ago by the first ancient sea voyagers to arrive on the islands and still alive and present today.

On a visit to Honolulu a few years ago I discovered the Halekulani Hotel in Waikiki,

View from the lobby

...where every night on the patio cafe musicians and dancers perform Hawaiian music and hula.

And so on this trip, as on past trips, we went one evening to the Halekulani Hotel patio with its twilit ocean view,

...and panorama of Diamond Head off in the distance,

...for some splendid desserts,

...and for the sublime singing and dancing.

We were fortunate to be in Hawaii for the week of the Merrie Monarch Festival, a cultural celebration held every spring in Hilo on the Big Island. The premier event of the Festival is the hula competition held nightly and televised on all the islands.
And so each night when it was time for the hula competitions I was sure to be back in our hotel room in front of the TV in time to watch the competitions. As always, the dancers were captivating,

...enchanting,

...mesmerizing.

On the Sunday that was our last day in Honolulu Tom and I walked into downtown Waikiki to the Royal Hawaiian Center,

...and stopped to have a look at the historic pink Royal Hawaiian Hotel.

While we were cutting back through the courtyard of the Royal Hawaiian Center,

...a group of little girls entered the area.

We learned that they were a group of young hula dancers, accompanied by some older dancers, performing in honor of Merrie Monarch week. They were accomplished,

...graceful,

...and lovely.

I believe that hula is the most beautiful dance in the world.

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Breakout Waikiki And Other Places

5/20/2024

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After our visit to the Hawai'i Cat Cafe (see post from 5/18/2024, https://www.ailantha.com/blog/a-tale-of-two-cat-cafes),

...Tom and I walked back to Waikiki,

...where we joined the crowds out on Kalakaua Avenue on this balmy evening.

In preparation for a parade the street had been closed to traffic and subsequently taken over by us pedestrians.

It was dinner time, and so we stopped at the California Pizza Kitchen on Kalakaua Avenue and were given a nice balcony table with a great view of the parade, which started soon after we arrived.

After dinner we walked back to the Hale Koa.

Around the corner from our hotel was a breakout room called Breakout Waikiki. For the uninitiated, a breakout room is a game that takes place in venue full of puzzles, each of which must be solved within a certain amount of time in order for the players to win the game and "break out."
On Friday, April 5 we were invited by a few other willing players to come along with them for a session at Breakout Waikiki. We decided to give it a try. (Or rather, I did. Tom waited out in the waiting area).

One had the option of choosing from among half-a-dozen scenarios.

We opted for "Patient 57," the creepiest-sounding storyline of them all.

We were led down an eerie, blacklit hallway,

...to the "Patient 57" room,

...which was quite creepy.

A voice on a screen gave us instructions and informed us that we would have an hour to solve all the clues needed for the breakout.
Alas, by the hour's end we had managed to solve only half the clues and so we didn't pull off the breakout. But they let us leave anyway - and it was lots of fun.
Next on the agenda was lunch. We went to a nearby ABC store with a great deli,

... from where we procured some great carryout.
Then we walked back to Fort DeRussy Beach Park next to the Hale Koa and had a picnic.

After lunch Tom and I walked to downtown Waikiki to the Royal Hawaiian Center,

...for our afternoon cream puff from Kulu Kulu Honolulu.

That evening when dinner time rolled around we walked to the Ala Moana Center,

...for dinner at Olive Garden, where we had a lovely view from our table.

After dinner we strolled around the mall for a bit until we came to the Oreo Cafe, an ice cream and cookie store selling all things Oreo,

...that was part of a mega-candy store called IT'SUGAR selling all things candy,

...and displaying the most whimsical jelly bean sculptures.

Then we walked back to the Hale Koa,

...another day done.

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A Tale Of Two Cat Cafes

5/18/2024

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On our last trip to Honolulu we visited the Hawai'i Cat Cafe, a shelter and adoption center for rescue cats where visitors can come in, have a snack and a drink, and, if they wish, play with or just spend time with the resident kitties.

This year we considered a return visit to the Cat Cafe.
Now, the Hawai'i Cat Cafe was a good two mile walk from our hotel but I had in the meantime discovered that there was a new cat cafe in town half that distance, the Cat Cafe MOFF located inside the International Market Place, an upscale mall on nearby Kalakaua Avenue.

And so we decided to give the Cat Cafe MOFF a look.
We walked the mile from the Hale Koa down Kalakaua Avenue to the International Market Place,

and the Cat Cafe MOFF.**

The entrance fee was $23 per person for half an hour, though one could buy an hour of playtime for $28, and the price included a can of soda. (The cost to play with the cats at the Hawai'i Cat Cafe was $21 per hour or $17 per half hour for adults and $17 per hour or $12 per half hour for children).
The interior was bright and stylishly decorated and there were two staff members present in the cat playroom.

The cats were gorgeous,

...fluffy,

...exotic,

...and thoroughly uninterested in - in fact make that recoiled from - any human interaction unless they detected a treat. Small cups of cat treats were sold by the two staff members for three dollars a pop.
The cats mostly kept to themselves, resisting being approached by humans until they spotted a human proffering a cup of treats. They would then converge upon the treats,

... and seconds later when the treats were gone they would wander away,

...and wait, like nervous cat-zombies, for the next treat sighting, fending off the non-treat-bearing humans who had paid a lot of money to come and play with them.

After spending a ridiculous amount of dollars on several rounds of treat cups, each round gone in seconds along with the cats, we spent the rest of our visit mostly sitting around waiting for our half hour to be finished, along with our fellow visitors, who also appeared to be sitting out their remaining time rather than opting to buy more cat treats.

I heard one visitor say to another, "I wish we had only bought half an hour instead of an hour." I was at least glad we'd gone with the half hour option.
I noticed that from time to time cats would congregate around the curtain at the back of the room as if they were trying to get to whatever was on the other side.

At one point one of the staffers came from behind the curtain with a container of cat kibbles which he dumped onto the floor and which the cats fell upon.

That's when it hit me: These cats are addicts. They've been turned into cat treat addicts who are hooked on their treat fix and respond to nothing else so that the customers will have to keep buying three-dollar cups of treats to get the cats to come over to them.
I felt really badly for the cats. They weren't there to be sheltered or adopted into a home where they'd be loved and cared for. These were boutique cats who'd been put in this room for the sole purpose of making money off of tourists like ourselves for Cat Cafe MOFF.
After we left the place we felt sorry for the cats. We agreed that this had not been an enjoyable experience. We wished we'd gone to the Hawai'i Cat Cafe after all.
But in truth we had nowhere else to be, and so we decided that there was no reason why we couldn't go to the Hawai'i Cat Cafe now.
So we walked another mile out towards Diamond Head,

...until we came to this unassuming building,

...and the even less assuming door,

...behind which was the Hawai'i Cat Cafe.
Unlike Cat Cafe MOFF this was an actual cafe.

One could sit in the cafe and watch from behind a window the kitties in the playroom,

...or one could pay to go into the room and join the folks who were playing with the cats, which is what we did.

These were ordinary rescue cats who were there so that they might be adopted, which would then make room in the shelter for more cats who would also, hopefully, be adopted.

The visitors could not buy food to feed the cats,

But we could buy food from the cafe to feed ourselves,

...while spending time with these obviously more relaxed,

...happy,

...and far more fortunate cats.

**We learned that Cat Cafe MOFF is a franchise. A second Cat Cafe MOFF will soon be opening in Honolulu at the Ala Moana Mall.

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The Beaches Beyond Honolulu

5/15/2024

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The Beaches Beyond Honolulu

March 31, Easter Sunday, began for Tom and I in the wee hours when we got up very early to attend 6 am mass at St. Augustine By The Sea church, about a mile walk from the Hale Koa. It was quite nice, though, to walk through the dark, quiet streets of Waikiki at this hour,

...to the church, decked out with Easter lilies,

...and the traditional feather standards of Hawaiian chiefs known as kāhili.

By the time mass was finished the sun was coming up,

...and Waikiki was already awake.

After breakfast we drove 27 miles west along the sea coast to the beautiful calm lagoon of Ko'olina set between the sea,

...and the mountains off in the distance.

I took a dip in the lagoon then went for a walk along the shoreline,

...where I came upon another mountain panorama,

...and, about a quarter of a mile later, not surprisingly, a Marriott Hotel.

The next day, Monday, April 1, we drove to the North Shore area of Oahu to Shark's Cove,

...where there is a tide pool known for it's abundance of sea life swimming and playing among the lava rock formations that waders and snorkelers can watch in the crystal clear water.

For those who, like myself, would prefer to snap pictures than to frolic among the sea creatures, there were plenty of scenic vistas to capture.

When lunch time rolled around we walked to the food truck court across from the beach,

...where we snagged some hot dogs and met the food truck cat.

We stayed at Shark's Cove until the sun began to head toward the horizon.

...then we drove back to Honolulu, sighting a rainbow along the way.

We also found along the way a place for dinner near the Honolulu airport called Big Kahuna's Pizza where the decor was fun,

...the pizza excellent,

...and the message on the straw box heartening.

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Honolulu Beyond The Beaches, Part 3: The Ala Moana, The Bishop Museum, And Other Places

5/11/2024

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Honolulu Beyond The Beaches, Part 3: Sand Island, The Ala Moana And The Bishop Museum

...Continued from previous post:
On Tuesday, March 26, we drove 8 miles west along highway H-92 in search of Sand Island, an island across from Honolulu harbor that was used as an internment camp for the Japanese American citizens of Honolulu who were arrested after the 1941 attack by Japan on Pearl Harbor.
Today Sand Island is a state park.

We went there in search of some historical marker or information regarding the Japanese internment camp that used to be on the island. But all we could find was an urban sea port area that opened to a public beach and picnic area where families, probably on Spring break, appeared to be enjoying themselves,

...which is, of course, a far better use of the island.
On our way back to Waikiki we stopped for lunch at the food court at the Ala Moana Center (see post from 5/4/2024, https://www.ailantha.com/blog/eating-around-waikiki), the first of quite a few visits we would make there during our two weeks in Honolulu.
Located just about a mile from Waikiki beach, the Ala Moana is the largest outdoor mall in the world.

Sometimes on the mornings when the New York Times didn't arrive - which was often - at the Post Exchange of the Hale Koa, our military post hotel (see post from https://www.ailantha.com/blog/another-spring-another-visit-to-the-hale-koa), we would walk the mile from the Hale Koa to the Ala Moana, as the Barnes and Noble there was apparently the only other place in the vicinity where one could procure a print copy of the New York Times.
It was a nice walk,

...down Ala Moana Boulevard.

...until we reached the mall.

We generally headed first for Barnes and Noble to get our newspaper,

...where the magazine racks were covered with the face of this guy, whom I'd never heard of,

...leading me to wonder, who the heck is Pedro Pascal and why is he on all the magazine covers? (I never did look up who he is. Sometimes it's more fun to just not know).

Usually after we got our New York Times we'd stroll around the mall for a bit.

...where we'd sometimes stop at the food court for for lunch if it happened to be lunchtime,

...or if it wasn't, sometimes we'd just sit at a table for a while and read the paper while splitting a thoroughly mediocre Cinnabon.

One of my favorite places in the Ala Moana Center - just because I got a such kick out of it - was a cafe that was under the mall in the parking garage, where folks nonetheless gathered and sat outside on the patio - even though it was in the parking garage.

The walk from the Ala Moana back to Waikiki was also a pleasant one.

On Wednesday, March 27, we visited - make that revisited - another of my favorite Honolulu gems, the Bishop Museum, Hawaii's largest museum of the culture and natural history of Hawaii and the Pacific Islands.

The original historic museum building, constructed in 1898.

Feather standards used to honor the high chiefs.

Fish hooks.

The Polynesian Islands room.

Models of the canoes used by the ancient Pacific voyagers.

Here's Kaneikokala, the eerie, ancient shark god carved in rock, which was set in this spot in concrete when it arrived at the museum in 1908 and has stood here ever since.

The story goes that when the museum was being renovated in 2009 the museum staff attempted to move the statue for safekeeping during the renovations. But no matter how hard and deep the workers dug and drilled beneath the statue they couldn't dislodge it. It was as if Kaneikokala had rooted itself into the ground and refused to be moved. And so it was decided that Kaneikokala did not wish to be moved, and so remained in its place during the renovations, which were carried out respectfully around it.

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Honolulu Beyond The Beaches, Part 2: Chinatown

5/7/2024

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Honolulu Beyond The Beaches, Part 2: Chinatown

...Continued from previous post:
From the Izumo Taisha Mission (see previous post) we could see off in the distance what appeared to be the roof of a Chinese temple.

We walked over, passing a couple of interesting buildings and shops along the way,

...and discovered the Kuan Yin Temple,

...a place that radiated color and joy.

We also discovered that behind he temple, right in the heart of downtown Honolulu, was a vast, beautiful botanical garden we'd never heard of, the Foster Botanical Garden.

Admission was only $5.

After our visit to the Foster Botanical Garden we walked along Nu'uanu Stream,

...until we were deep in the heart of Chinatown.

As it was by now well past lunch time, our destination was a Thai-Lao restaurant on Hotel Street we visited last year and liked called Olay's,

...which looks rather typical from the outside,

...but inside is charming and whimsical,

...and which opens into a likewise charming, whimsical garden patio,

...where there's a koi and turtle pond.

To our surprise, our server asked us hadn't we been here last year? When we told her that we had she said that she thought so, because she recognized us. We figured either we're a couple of unforgettable old folks or our server was just serving us some typical Hawaiian aloha, or friendliness.

For lunch we split an order of Pan Woon Sen, a dish made with glass noodles, veggis and chicken, which was very good.

After lunch we strolled around Chinatown, looking at the shops, markets, and plazas.

The Maunakea Marketplace on Maunakea Street

Gifts left for the statue.

We then took the bus back to Waikiki, where we arrived in time for dinner at Happy's

After dinner we walked into downtown Waikiki,

...joining the crowd,

...and stopping for a shave ice at the Island Vintage Shave Ice,

...which surely makes the worlds most delicious shave ices,

...and which are best when eaten in the Royal Hawaiian Center park.

...where we did in fact eat ours.
To be continued...

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Honolulu Beyond The Beaches, Part 1: The Izumo Taisha Mission

5/5/2024

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Honolulu Beyond The Beaches, Part 1: The Izumo Taisha Mission

...Continued from previous post:
Along with its beautiful beaches,

...and other natural wonders,

...Honolulu also offers visitors gems of Hawaiian history and culture that Tom and I never tire of visiting and revisiting on our trips to the island.
On my "to visit" list on this trip was the Izumo Taisha Mission of Hawaii, a historic Japanese Shinto shrine built in 1906 and located in downtown Honolulu next to the Chinatown area.
And so on the Monday morning after we arrived in Honolulu we walked a block from the Hale Koa to the bus stop,

...from where we took the bus to downtown.

We got off at Beretania Street and walked a few blocks towards the Honolulu hillside,

...then made a left and walked towards Chinatown until we reached the Nu'unanu Stream on Kukui Street,

...on the other side of which is the shrine.

At the door of the shrine there are instructions on how to pray here.

The wash basin.

The bells.

The offering box.

Interior of the shrine.

Next door to the shrine was an office where one could purchase Omamori Ofuda, or protective amulets.

One could also purchase an ema, a small piece of wood on which one writes their prayer then hangs it on the side of the shrine. There were a number of emas hung on this shrine,

...in various languages.

Some of the prayers were quite touching.

May not all the prayers be answered.

To be continued...

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Eating Around Waikiki

5/4/2024

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Eating Around Waikiki

...Continued from 4/28/2024:
Our days always started at the Hale Koa restaurant Koko at Kalia,

...were we would dive daily with our fellow breakfasters into the glorious breakfast bar.

Now, everyday after breakfast Tom and I swore we'd be able to sail through the day until dinner. And yet by the time lunch time rolled around we'd find ourselves thinking about eating again. And so we inevitably did.
Our principle - though not exclusive - lunch and dinner go-to spots were either the on-post eatery Happy's,

...where one can find some quite good carry-out:

...or at the food court at the Ala Moana mall, a mile walk for us from Waikiki.
Along with being the largest outdoor mall in the world,

...the Ala Moana is also known - among local folks and those of us tourists lucky enough to know about it - for its vast, fabulous, reasonably priced food court.
The first time on this visit that we went to the Ala Moana food court was for lunch on Tuesday afternoon of this Spring Break week (see post from 4/15/2024, https://www.ailantha.com/blog/if-you-wanna-be-where-the-people-are-come-to-honolulu-during-spring-break). To say the place was crowded was an understatement.

However, confident that we'd find a couple of seats somewhere in this sea of people, we sleuthed around until we "aha'd!" a lone empty table with two seats.
We hurried towards the table and arrived at the same moment as a young woman who appeared to be in her late 20's.
"You go ahead," said chivalrous Tom.
"Yes, take it," said chivalrous me. "We'll find another spot."
"No, you," said the girl with a smile, nodding towards the table.
"No you take it," Tom said, then he joked, "we're from Ohio."
"I am from Amsterdam," said the girl with the most lovely lilting accent.
We then absolutely insisted she take the table for herself and her friend, who was heading towards her with their food. We welcomed the two Dutch youngsters to the U.S. and the girl graciously thanked us.
Soon afterwards we found ourselves two seats at one of the long community plank tables,

...where we enjoyed our pizza.

This exchange with the Dutch girl was my favorite moment at the Ala Moana food court. My second favorite was the moment that I discovered that the Lahaina Chicken Company didn't only serve chicken,

...but a $14.95 prime rib plate with great gravy and three sides big enough to share.

Our other favorite eating spot was the aforementioned Kulu Kulu Honolulu Bakery in the Royal Hawaiian Center food court where we often stopped for an afternoon double cream puff (see post from 4/28/2024, https://www.ailantha.com/blog/kalakaua-avenue).

Honorable mention goes to the Mahaloha Burger, also located in the Royal Hawaiian food court,

...where one can procure the juiciest, most delicious burger and the hottest, crispiest fries.

The only problem is that the delectable burger and fries are served in a minimal cardboard dish that is 'way too small to hold its contents.

Also, one tends to need half a dozen napkins to neatly negotiate the whole burger and fries affair. But then, that's not a terrible problem.

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At Last Something We Can All Agree On: Kristi Noem Is A Puppy-Murdering Meanie

5/2/2024

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Every conservative Republican I know loves dogs. Every progressive Democrat I know loves dogs. In fact, everybody I know loves dogs. The only person I know who doesn't love dogs is me.
So shoot me, I'm a cat person.

But even I'm horrified by the report that Kristi Noem, pistol-packin' governor of South Dakota,

...shining star in the MAGAverse, and short-lister for Trump VP pick,

...shot her 14-month-old poochie Cricket.

Apparently when Noem took Cricket on her first hunting trip, instead of keeping to the task at hand Cricket ran all over the place, thus proving herself useless as a hunting dog. Cricket also got into the neighbor's hen house and ate some chickens, proving herself useless as a chicken-guarding dog. And so, since Cricket couldn't hunt and liked to chase chickens, Kristi Noem took her to a gravel pit and shot her to death. And left her there.
Now, if this cold-blooded killing of her puppy seems pretty heartless (for a dog 14 months old is still considered a puppy. Dogs don't reach full adulthood until 24 months. I looked it up), writing about it in her upcoming autobiography was pretty stupid. Granted, Kristi Noem was likely trying to present herself as a tough outdoorswoman capable of making hard decisions. But this maneuver backfired bigly and now all the world sees her as merely an irresponsible dog owner and puppy-murdering meanie.
In any case, her chances of being Donald Trump's running mate just fell off a cliff. In fact her whole political career may have fallen off a cliff: even Trump disapproves of Kristi Noem shooting Cricket.
Who ever would have thought that Donald Trump and I would be in agreement about something?
Stranger things, huh?

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​The Beaches Beyond Honolulu

​​Honolulu Beyond The Beaches, Part 1: The Izumo Taisha Mission

​Eating Around Waikiki

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The Beaches Beyond Honolulu

Honolulu Beyond The Beaches, Part 1: The Izumo Taisha Mission

Eating Around Waikiki