10 Years for Hawai`i General Store

At the Live Aloha! Festival, we were invited by our friend and lei-making instructor to the Hawai`i General Store's 10th Anniversary Party. Wow, 10 years of bringing aloha to the Pacific Northwest.



Festivities began at 8:00am with eggs, rice, portugese sausace, coffee and juice. Also recording live was the Hawai`i Radio Connection. They interviewed owner Gail Stringer on the origins of her sweet little shop, and how it all came to be. The short of it is that one day Gail wanted to buy a friend a lei to cheer her up. She looked and looked, and realized a fresh lei in Seattle was none to be had. So soon after the store opened, and realizing she needed to sell more than leis it became what it is today: gallery, music emporium, travel agency, party pitstop, crackseed corner and of course THE PLACE for leis in Seattle.



In these tough economic times, it feels all the more victorious to celebrate a small business reach the decade mark. And what a special business it is.

My first time on Hawai'i as an Adult

One night in early 2003, I left my yoga class and headed to a (now defunct) art gallery for an opening hosted by 'Gay City'. I knew some people going, and decided to swing by before grabbing dinner and going home.

That night at the gallery show, my friend Gary asked me if I wanted to stay for free in Hawai'i. He'd rented a house that was incredibly cheap, and had already booked his flights and a rental car. I just needed to get my own flight, pay a bit if I wanted to use the car, and handle incidentals like food and drink. It was a bit unlike me, but I went for it - and even scored a seat next to him on the NWA flight. So in April, we flew to Hawai'i.

Our final destination was the Big Island, at a house in the Puna area, but we had a long layover in Honolulu. So we grabbed a bus to Waikiki beach and sipped some cocktails while watching the hordes of people sunbathe, play frisbee, and otherwise frolic. It seems a bit packed, but the drinks were good and it felt good to be in the sun after a long Northwest winter.

When we arrived on the Big Island, it was already very late - so we had to find the house in the dark - during a rainstorm. As we made it to the Kehena area and turned up the street, we found the roads were covered in toads. Big toads. Bigger than your fist toads. Hundreds and hundreds of them. Gary did his best to not hit any, but there was really no way to move the car without doing so. We finally got to the house, unpacked, and settled in.

The rest of the week was a wonderful blur of laying on Kehena beach, driving into Pahoa to get groceries at the natural food store, renting movies at the video store, sipping Coronas, and going on day trips to the Kapoho tide pools, to various waterfalls, up to Volcano, and into Hilo.

It was truly a paradise, and I fell in love with it. Hawai'i became the meter stick by which all the other islands had to be measured up to, for better or for worse.

And that's how my love affair with Hawai'i began.

And interestingly enough, that night at the art gallery was when Gary introduced me to a guy named Dan... who I later married... on the Big Island.

Live Aloha! Festival: A Success

Auwe! It's already been almost two weeks since the 1st Annual Live Aloha! Festival at Seattle Center.

What a gleaming success. Angela & Danny were the consummate producers - everything ran smoothly and the people just kept coming! One food vendor ran out of food three hours into the festival while the other had to stop to stock up.



We went with plate lunches from Pacific Island Grill (based in Federal Way,WA). `Ono! I had the bbq chicken and kalua pork. Washed it down with a tasty tropical iced tea.



After our lunch, we enjoyed some of the hula and mele. People were pouring in all day long. The Center House was indeed brimming with aloha!



Later we took a lei-making class, taught by our friend Kiapu from the Hawai`i General Store. We learned how to make leis from ti leaves. One trick we learned: use your toes! The juice from the leaves makes it kind of a messy craft, but the result is beautiful. The class was so full, we had to sit on the floor.

Before our volunteer shift began at the Information Desk, we had to get a shave ice. I went with lilikoi while Dan tried a li hing mui/lilikoi mix. It was a perfectly sunny day, and sitting on a bench eating our shave ice made it feel almost like being in Hawai`i.



We met some interesting folks working the info desk, including our new hoa aloha (friend) Gary from Waianae.

We look forward to next year's festival, and hope the Seattle Center FESTAL committee gives us the whole weekend and inclusion into the regular programming. Live Aloha Mau loa!

Distance Learning Courses

One day this past year while flipping through the Northwest Hawai`i Times I came across an advertisement for A'o Makua, a program offering on-line, distance learning courses in Hawaiian language and culture.

The courses are very inexpensive ($25 and $20 if you are a returning haumana), and they offer generous incentives. For the the first course I completed in February, I received a poster and a biography of Bernice Pauahi Bishop. That course, "Mo‘okū‘auhau - He Inoa ‘Ala" explored the various naming practices in ancient Hawai`i and asked us to consider the modern implications of how we use names. I found it very interesting, and I did find myself pausing to reflect on the importance of a name and how naming a child might influence his or her journey.

Two weeks ago I started on my second course: ‘Ōlelo Hawai‘i - Ku‘u Wahi Noho. This is actually the third of a three-part language series and deals with words and expressions one would use to describe his/her hometown/place of residence. Because I have been studying on my own through the 8-CD series put out by Topics Entertainment, I am not completely behind. I do think it would be wise for me to return to the first two classes at some point, though.

A`o Makua uses various platforms to teach and share information. There are audio presentations, video recordings, power point presentations, matching games, quizzes and interactive games. There are also discussion boards that receive frequent traffic, and the instructors offer individual feedback through both message boards and recordings.

Whether you are looking to increase your awareness of Hawaiian culture or ready to dive in and learn the language, A`o Makua offers a time-efficient and affordable way to learn from your own home!

Sharks on the Big Island!

Sharks are shutting down beaches on the West side of the the Big Island. Read about it here.

Event: Live Aloha! Festival Sunday 9/7 in Seattle