I missed a portion of yesterday's blog entry. After the tour bus picked us up at the port, its first stop was at Aloha Stadium. Every weekend that the University of Hawaii does not have a home game the parking lot of their stadium is filled with tents of vendors selling their wares. You pay a small price to enter the swap meet and then you shop till you drop.
Before going to Hawaii I read James Michener's book Hawaii to get in the spirit of the islands. As I read I made a little list of things I wanted to find while in Hawaii. On this list was crackseed (a Chinese candy made from dried fruit and seeds) and tapa cloth (cloth made by pounding bark into then sheets of cloth then painting it). By the final Saturday I not found either of these items. One souvenier I really wanted to purchase was a ukulele. I had not done that either. The swap meet turned out to be my answer to all these things.
We found a vendor selling all kinds of Chinese treats in cellophane bags. They had several kinds of crack seed. This is also called li-huang. They sold it made with different kinds of fruit and with or without seeds and some was dry and some was wet. They allowed me to sample a few before I purchased any. I ended up with some cherry crack seed without the seed part. Claude found some dried coconut slivers that we also purchased.
As we were walking down one of the lanes of tents there was ukulele vendor. I popped in to see what he had an learn a little more about shopping for a ukulele. He had all price ranges. I didn't want a really cheap one and I had some concerns about carrying one home to Kentucky. He had a nice one he would sell me for $80 and include a hard cover case. I knew this was a good price for a nice ukulele but I told him I wanted to think and NOT impulse buy. He said he would honor his price if I came back to his store. We walked farther down the row of tents and found another dealer and his ukulele's were much more expensive he only seemed to be giving soft cloth covers. On our way out of the vendors our last purchase was the ukulele from the first vendor. I'm remembering the word ukulele to mean something like cricket or grasshopper meaning something that jumps a lot. It is not pronounced with a long 'u' at the beginning the 'u' in Hawaiian gets a soft 'u' sound.
We also managed to find some small pieces of tapa cloth. Before any missionaries came to the Hawaiian Islands the people made their cloth out of the bark of different trees. The men gathered the bark and brought it home to the ladies. It was soaked until it reached the desired softness. Then they spent a long time pounding on this bark until it spread out and became a soft sort of thick cloth. They would paint pictures and patterns on this cloth and make clothing out of it. Otherwise they went without clothes. This swap meet was the only place I found tapa cloth. The vendor said her mother did all the painting. I envisioned the cost for tapa cloth and was prepared for it to be a very expensive item because of my understanding of the time involved in pounding that bark into cloth. Claude and I were pleasantly surprised to find a small piece with a turtle painted on it and a larger piece with geometric patterns on it. We bought both pieces for $25. Amazing!! The larger one will be framed and placed on the wall in our family room. The smaller one will go in my sewing room.
We also found a most welcome vendor selling fresh lemonade. How thirsty we were and how refreshing his drink. His wife used to come to Kentucky to buy horses at Keeneland. Go figure!!
All of that was Saturday morning before going to Laie, Oahu. NOW...I'm really into Sunday morning. We spent the morning in Waikiki, Oahu. We made sure our treasures were carefully packed so that all suitcases would pass the weight restrictions. We also made sure half our clothing was in one big suitcase and half in the other. This would allow us clean clothing if either suitcase was lost. We even put my cosmetic bag in one suitcase and Claude's ditty bag in the other. By redistributing we were able to get the ukulele in it's hard case into one of the big suitcases and things that would not get crushed in the softsided extra bag we used. It just worked out great and we were very proud of ourselves. Bags were packed and waiting in our room for the 10am pickup by the bellman. We headed off to IHOP for breakfast. Then we wandered down to walk on the beach. We didn't get to do this the night we arrived in Hawaii and were looking forward to some time along Waikiki Beach.
This picture is of the lagoon for swimming behind and to the side of our hotel. Our hotel is the one in the center with a turquoise looking color to it. We watched a family come to swim with a really cute little boy that I'm sure could not have more than just turning 2 years old. They stripped the little guy down to no clothes and he hurried off to splash in the water. His Gramma was watched him while Grampa came up with his surf boat and an oar. They would stand on the surfboards and paddle the surfboard with the oar.
I walked a little further toward the ocean. Claude found a place on the grass under the palm trees in the shade. There was a guy with outrigger canoes to rent. While not interested in time in the canoe they did make a good foreground for a picture of Diamond Head in the distance with some of the hotels on Waikiki on the left side of the picture.
I walked out to where the lava rock retaining wall separates the shore from the ocean. Through 2 palm tree I could see a big ship out in the Pacific Ocean. Once again, a real island picture for me. I watched some people surfing and lots of sail boats.
Eventually a park bench was freed up and Claude and I sat on it watching humanity living its life on the bench at Waikiki. Very pleasant way to begin a day. As it neared time for the bus to come we strolled back to our hotel. Sue Ochoa, our guide, took a picture of us in the orchid leis we got a the luau at the Polynesian Cultural Center. I knew they would fade and wanted to be sure we at least had a picture to remember them by.
We all boarded the bus and headed to an LDS meetinghouse in Honolulu where some of our tour group had headed. Mary Ellen got on the bus at the back where Claude and I were sitting. She kept waving to a little man and his wife standing in front of the Church. It turns out she knew him in the Phillipines. He was Chinese and not respected in that country at that time. They have kept in touch over the years but she didn't know he attended this particular ward (congregation). She was so surprised and happy to see him face-to-face again. He was obviously touched to see her again. He had changed his name to live more easily. Somewhere along his life path he met this wonderful little lady and they were married and now living happily in Honolulu. The world is a very small place really. You just really should treat everyone well because you may meet them again somewhere. He waited on the sidewalk waving continuously to Mary Ellen and her grinning and waving back as the tour bus drove away.
Now Robert, our intrepid bus driver would drive us to Kaneohe, Oahu to the Valley of the Temples for our final excursion in Hawaii. As our plane was not going to depart until 9pm, we had some time Sunday afternoon in Oahu. The Valley of the Temples is out the same direction as the drive to Laie was the day before. It is actually a cemetary with sections for different religions. They even have a pet cemetary portion along the front wall. The section we were going to was the Byodo-In Temple.
The Byodo-In Temple is a replica of the same temple in Japan. It was like stepping into Japan to be there. From the parking lot we walked over a small bridge to the front of the temple. To the left of the temple is an enormous gong. You are to ring the gong and make a wish at the same time. Claude did the ringing and I did the picture taking.
These is a beautiful pond filled with koi (they are like enormous gold fish). The path from the gong winds around the outside of this pond. You can take it up a bit of a hill where there is a nice pagoda with a seat in the center. Claude took a picture of me sitting on the seat in the pagoda but it was really, really wavy. He suggested I check out the view inside the pagoda. I hopped up on the seat and looked down at the back of the Byodo-In Temple to get this shot.
We were allowed to enter the temple if we took off our shoes. On this day I wore my sneakers to keep weight out of the suitcases so I had to fuss with untying and retying my shoes. But it was well worth it to see this beautiful buddha sitting inside the main room of the temple.
There were obviously more rooms than this but we were not to enter any of them. On the grounds I found a plumeria blossom. Such a sweet fragrance. There was a stream from the pond on either end of the temple building and it encircled the temple. Every bridge you crossed over that stream allowed you a view of lots of koi swimming in the water. An artist was sitting painting and selling his paintings under one of the porches of the temple. Everything about this place spoke peace.
In fact I took this picture from the back of the temple on the opposite end from the picture taken from the pagoda. This is the porch under which the artist was painting. You can even see more koi swimming in the water.
There was a gift shop and I found a gold bell with red roping to purchase for a Christmas tree ornament. I add ornaments from places we visit when I can find them. This was a unique and fun one to add to our tree this year.
As we rounded the temple to walk across the front I got this shot of the entire front of the temple with the pond in front of it. Between the pond and the temple front is a zen garden with rocks. Claude pointed this out to me. Years ago when he was working for the Peace Corps I gave him for Christmas a wooden box filled with sand, stones and stone objects, and 4 little rakes of varying sizes and shapes. This was his own personal zen garden. He kept it in his Peace Corp office. Whenever I was able to get into DC and have lunch with Claude I would notice that the sand had been raked into a different pattern and the objects and rocks moved to a new place. Claude liked this larger zen garden. Maybe we should make one on our hill in Sadieville??
Byodo-In was a nice finish to our 1st visit to Hawaii. Robert would drive our tour bus to a mall so we could pick a restaurant to have a nice meal for hitting the airport before our groups travels home. Claude and I found a Farrell's Ice Cream Parlor inside the mall. We used to eat a Gastronomicaldelicatessenepicuriandelight sandwich when we had company visit us in our California days. There was even one in Maryland when we first moved there but it closed. I was telling Leanne about our find when we got back on the bus. I shared my disappointment that these fun eating places seemed to have closed and to find one on Oahu was a real treat for us. Turns out Leanne knows the family that owns this restaurant and they are making a come back. Yippee!! Wonder if they would open on in Kentucky??
Robert shared a story with us as we were driving on Sunday. He and his wife are divorced and he has a daughter he doesn't get to see as much as he would like. There were drug issues and it was all very bad but is gradually getting better. He had a conversation with his little girl and she expressed to him how much she missed him and wanted to live with him again. He assured her that being patient a little longer was the thing to do. Then Robert told us that as a tour bus driver you never know who your group will be. Sometimes they are really nice people and sometimes not so much. He said during the last week he had felt blessed to have a group of people who were happy in their faith and religion and practiced it each day of their lives in the way they lived. It had prompted him to take an old book from his shelf do to some reading during the week. He said a little prayer before he read that he would be guided to something that would help him with his life right now. He opened his book to the book of Job in the Old Testament. He read the entire book of Job. He felt an empathy for Job and better understood and had a deeper perspective of his own situation. He told himself he would take this book down and read it more often and try to get his life more in order. He thanked us for being the kind of people we were to him and providing him with a good week. It was very touching. One of our very senior sisters spontaneously broke into singing "I Am A Child of God". We all immediately joined her for a gentle rendition of this beloved LDS hymn. Then the senior sister assured Robert he too was a child of a God who loved him and understood him and wanted the best for him just as he does each of his children. Robert got back on the microphone with a choking voice and thanked us for this gift of music and caring. Someone on the bus pulled out Book of Mormon and it made its around the bus for each of us to sign. It was given to Robert when we left him at the airport. What a tender way to end out trip to Hawaii.
We entered the airport, check-in ourselves and our bags, passed security and it was 5 pm. We had 4 hours before our plane would leave. Our tour group came from Canada, North Carolina, California, Utah, Idaho, Minnesota, Texas. Many would fly through the night and catch a plane to fly on the next morning to their destination and drive several hours to their homes. Some knew there had been a foot of snow on the ground for a week and weren't sure they could even get back into their homes. Claude and I would fly through the night and arrive in Los Angeles Monday morning. We had a reservation waiting at a hotel and a tour of LA in our future. Now how to fill the next 4 1/2 hours before boarding our plane. Hawaii knows how to treat a guest who has to wait. This lovely garden with water features and gazebos and benches is open to travelers to wait in for your planes. Claude and I found a nice bench and sat there until it was too dark to read. Then we went inside and found a piece of pizza for Big Guy Clauda. We would read a bit more, play some Sudoku and crossword puzzles, shop in the shops (I got a black Kukui bead lei with purple turtles painted on it). Finally we would board our plane for the flight to LA.
Mahalo (thank you) Hawaii. You treated us well and we would be happy to return to your lovely islands again some day. Aloha!!
What was dad's wish when he did the gonging?
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