This past Saturday evening was the 2013 Hawaii Eisa Festival, the third year it’s being held and it was a great event. Every year they add something new and in addition to what they had last year, they got the current Eisa champions to perform. 
It seems the army of teruteru bozu worked, the weather was a pleasant Hawaiian evening. The oppressive stillness and humidty of the past days had lifted, in fact by the end of the night it was almost chilly. You might consider this a warm up to the Okinawa Festival, but in many ways I prefer it. It’s a smaller more intimate venue, held in the cool evening, lot less crowded, and focused on eisa performances. The food is a lot more limited, the KCC cafeteria rendition of rafute leaves a lot to be desired, I would skip it. The goya namasu side is pretty good though. The other problem is they are not set up to handle the sudden rush, I jumped in line at 5:45 and didn’t get out with my plate until 6:15, so I ended up missing the opening performances and was rushing eating and attempting to shoot off some pics one handed while balancing the plate of rafute in the other. Not happening. Missed out on getting some andagi too.The performances were great though! The combination of Hawaiian and Okinawan chant was no longer a new thing, but it was still pretty powerful. Pretty neat seeing all the Hawaii shisa performing at once, I don’t think that happens often. Check out this video of the finale performance, it has a medley of a little of everything!
I’m glad I made it out, there’s talk of doubts about an event next year.
Did you see Chris? He was out there somewhere. I was being lazy, so I didn’t make the drive over.