2014年3月12日水曜日

Honolulu Festival!!! and other events

Twitter and Facebook are great for recording life events, but sometimes you just have way too much to say for 140 characters or 300 characters or however many they limit you to!

This year has been a whirlwind of activity every day for me, working a full-time job 5 days a week, and since from November of last year until the end of February this year, I worked on my days off at a Japanese daycare, filling in for the owner/head teacher as she went on maternity leave. It was just from 7-12:30 in the morning, but since I try to wake up around 3 or 4 am on my days off anyway, it wasn't that much trouble. The week after I finished at the daycare was the annual Honolulu Festival, which the company I work at plays a huge role in, so we were busy! Plus, Spring Break is coming up and we have so many tour bookings coming in from Japan.

When I was still a student at University of Hawaii, I volunteered in the Honolulu Festival for three years. The first two years I volunteered with the Japanese Culture Club and as a team, we worked on the Daijya-Yama float and danced in the parade with it. The first year I learned the dance, and the second year, me and one other girl were suddenly chosen to teach and lead the dance as there were no other people who had experience! The third year I volunteered individually and helped carry a mikoshi through the parade. And then finally, this year, I was able to actually attend the parade as a spectator with my daughter.

Before that, however, there were two whole days of the festival to enjoy. On Friday, as part of my job, I led a group of elementary school students through the Honolulu Convention Center as a special program that allows the students to enjoy a preview of some of the different things they will see on Saturday and Sunday. My tour group was a class of well-behaved 3rd graders from Hokulani Elementary School. About half of the students had some Japanese heritage and more than a few could speak the language conversationally. I think I would like Chinami to attend Hokulani!

On Saturday, I went out with Chinami to the Convention Center after her nap for a couple hours of fun and music. She enjoyed the taiko and shamisen performances and got to hug one of those giant fuzzy mascot things, and had so much fun just running around.

On Sunday, we went out as a family, rode the bus to Waikiki as traveling in a car was just not an option with the main road being closed, and Chinami loved holding Daddy's hand as I carried her on my back. She got bored of the parade, so after walking around and looking at some of the floats that were waiting, we went to Wailana Coffee House and ate a pleasant, yummy, CHEAP dinner (click on the name for my Yelp review!) and then we walked over to the beach by the Hilton just as the fireworks started. The fireworks were amazing.  We had been debating whether to watch them or just go home early as I had work the next day and Chinami needed to go to sleep when I did, but staying out a little later and watching the 20 minute show was definitely the right decision to make. Chinami was satisfied with all the food she had eaten and watched the fireworks intently. Suddenly, out of nowhere, she began to clap, still watching the fireworks. They were that spectacular. I have watched fireworks on New Year's Eve, July 4th, etc both in my hometown (The Penn's Landing fireworks, fireworks on the baseball field at a Phillies game, etc, pretty big budget things) and in Hawaii, and been to several fireworks shows in Japan.....Japan has turned fireworks into such an absolute art that it leaves our American fireworks in the dust, or smoke, if I may. The fireworks on New Year's Eve and July 4th are usually just big gaudy "lets celebrate by blowing things up in the sky and making lots of noise WOOOOO" events....This was a carefully calculated and well crafted work of performance art in the form of fireworks.  Apparently there was also music that it was synced to but we did not have a radio with us. Around the 15 minute mark, the fireworks that seemed to endlessly sparkle and keep exploding as mini-fireworks, over and over again were particularly stunning.

The Honolulu Festival embodies one of the main reasons I want to live here and raise Chinami here. Sure, the traffic sucks, the parks are overrun with homeless, and it is literally impossible for most people to work for minimum wage and afford housing, but at least here she will be able to experience both my culture and her father's culture, with a bunch of other ones just for fun that I hadn't even thought about (How many people can say their child understands English, Japanese, Tongan and Samoan??) I'm excited to be a part of a company that takes such a huge part in it as well. Maybe Chinami will be in the parade some day too.

So now the Honolulu Festival is over, and I have Tuesdays and Thursdays off. So I decided to get in contact with the owner of Segway of Hawaii again. I miss zipping around on those things and sharing history and aloha with guests to my (new) home so much! She welcomed me back, and I will be working there Tuesday and Thursday mornings on an on-call basis. I went and saw her on Monday after a hectic day at work involving a delayed plane, juggling a tour dispatch, a big workload, and a flat tire on my bicycle that ended with me ripping the tube out and leaving it on the side of the road as it started to rain, and biking home with just the tire on the rim singing Cee Lo Green's song, you can guess which one.

On top of all this, yesterday morning I had all four of my wisdom teeth removed. I had been having pain in them and it was just time for them all to go. Luckily, they were all in straight so the whole procedure took about an hour. No pain, plus I was watching Avatar on their movie screen goggles. And all I had to pay afterwards was the tax, thanks to dual health coverage. (Ironically I paid the tax with my tax-free medical allowance from my paycheck....ahh benefits!)

Well, I have to get ready and go to work, it is almost 3am!