New Year in Hawaii

(I thought geckos were green??)

Spent this past New Year celebrating Hawaiian style. It was SOO nice to get away from everything--work, chores, Oakland. Our time in Hawaii revolved around food. There would be an activity, and then it was time to eat. Activity, eat. Rest, eat. Heck, the first thing they did on the plane was feed us. I love meals in boxes. They're like opening little presents that you put in your belly:Our first task was to pound mochi. I've never actually done that before. The vast majority of mochi I've ever eaten comes in little cellophane packages from Marukai. But this year we pounded it ourselves. Most of us hadn't done that before, but we had adult supervision. Here are some really old mochi pounding hammers being soaked before the pounding--I think they must be 100 years old, no exaggeration:
This is me wielding one of those bad boys (no one lost any fingers):And heck, why not a video:

I also helped with the actual forming of mochi. Think really sticky play dough:We made about 8 batches. The first batch was fun. The second turned out the best, and all the rest got harder and harder. It was raining a beautiful, tropical rain and it was WARM there, compared to the near freezing temperatures we left behind. In order to recover from all our hard work we ate traditional Hawaiian food--handmade lau lau, kalua pork, and poi!The next day was New Year's eve and food prep day. I helped make maki-zushi rolls (sorry no pic) and helped taste test Okinawan sweet potato tempura. I have had tempura all over the world, but no where did it taste as good here (oh, and that's someone making tako--octopus--on the right):That night we said hello to the ancestors, and I attended my first Buddhist service. I'm sure God won't mind. It was interesting, and not particularly different in structure than your usual Catholic service. There was standing and sitting and chanting/singing. It was short and sweet. Afterward we had a sake toast to the New Year as well as soba, which apparantly is some good-luck tradition. They also handed out bouquets of freshly picked mizuna, which we added to the traditional ozoni soup (made with our own mochi!) you eat on New Year's. Everyone gets to ring in the New Year by pounding the bell:In Hawaii, fireworks are not illegal, and one of the funnest parts of New Years was going to the supermarket, buying a bag of fireworks, and throwing it in the communal pile. We spent a good couple of hours putting flames to those babies and lighting up the night. I'm happy with a sparkler or one of those spinning flower things, but we also had fountains and crackling things and really loud things. Here is me enjoying a sparkler:They seemed a lot funner when we were kids.

This one was a crazy idea:
And here is a strand of firecrackers. These things are tres-illegal in California, except maybe on Chinese New Year, but even in Hawaii these things required a permit. We strung them from the roof and lit them. They were quite a sight and created so much smoke it looked like a war zone:



I mean literally, we stopped traffic with that amount of smoke.

After New Year's, the festivities slowed down, which gave us time to take in a little bit of the beach. I thought that the beach in January would be cold and rough, but it wasn't that bad. The waves were a little big, but after a little coaxing I dove in, under the waves, past the breakers, and bobbed up and down in the water with the rest of them. The water is clear and warm there.The sunsets are beautiful, and I didn't want to leave. Ah, but alas, I am back in town. We have a show this Friday at the DeYoung, and I was in rehearsals for that today, but more on that later.

Here is my last view of the islands from the plane. I'll be back!