The 18th Honolulu Festival is ongoing this weekend, I only learned about it thursday morning when a blurb was read about it on the radio that I have set to wake me up. Otherwise I may have missed it, they seemed to have bypassed print ads. Drawn by the lure of air conditioning and easy access I went to check out the events held at the convention center today. In a little bit of a bummer, it seems most of the Japanese performers were at the other venues. It was still interesting. It did give me more of a chance to walk around and check out the booths set up, something I haven’t really done other years. Quite cool was the Nagaoka booth who this year is bringing their famed hanabi/fireworks for a Hawaii show. They were supposed to do it last year, but well, I think it’s pretty understandable when you remember what was going on in Japan this time last year. What was really cool aside from the mock up giant firework shells, was the sake samples. Free booze! And pretty good stuff at that!
Continue reading ’18th Honolulu Festival’
Archive for the 'Culture' Category
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I stopped by Chinatown Boardroom on this month’s First Friday to say goodbye to the downtown art space and surfboard showroom I enjoyed so much over the years. I got to talk to Eric and roughhouse with Enoki a bit, but Jackie wasn’t in when I was there. It’s difficult to write about a shop closure without getting into the whole “economic downturn” thing, but as Eric summed it up, the whole Chinatown scene has changed so much in the last 10 years, and that in addition to the poor economy has conspired against operating a small shop at a profit. Indeed Chinatown has gone from a seedy crime-infested underbelly to a thriving art community, but in recent years (think around when “block parties” started) the vibe has changed toward more of a hipster club scene. Art has become “old hat” downtown. Face it – hipsters only buy dumb hats and fixie bikes and each one fancies himself an artist, so they don’t really support the art communuity: Where hipsters go, the whole iToons-fostered culture of instantly downloadable sub-$5 consumerism soon follows and the idea of creativity is lost. Continue reading ‘So Long, Chinatown Boardroom’
Stopped by Akimune-an in Shirokiya last Tuesday. The “buy two, get one free” campaign is over, but I got two an and two satsuma-imo filled taiyaki anyway. There was also cream filled, but that intuitively offends me, so I didn’t get any of those. The girl working was different than last time. It sort-of seemed like she really didn’t like her job, unlike the girl last time. The final product was just as good, but the foil wrapping was done randomly and haphazardly. This was primarily an experiment to see how the purple sweet potato filling was. Verdict – not as good as the traditional adzuki filling. Continue reading ‘Akimune-an Taiyaki – Revisited’
Nothing is as American as bacon… okay, the word “bacon” is etymologically German, and the consumptiom of belly pork goes back to Europe, but smoked, cured bacon is very American… anyway, check out this velcro-backed bacon patch! These popped up at last year’s SHOT Show, but Dave from Mojo Tactical on Sand Island just got these in. Ckucke was down there and gave me a call and asked if I wanted him to pick me up one (sorry I couldn’t make it down in person, Dave!). Of course I was in! There are two variations, “raw” with more natural, pinky and off-white (fat) colors, and “cooked” with higher contrast red and browns. I opted for the “raw”. Embroidery quality is nice. The patch measures 5″ x 1″ (12.5cm x 2.5cm), so it fits perfectly on a standard nametape of service branch velcro field. From what I can gather online, these source from edcknives-dot-com. Like bacon? Get this patch! Continue reading ‘Tactical Bacon Patch, Raw’
If you find yourself at the Ward Marukai anytime soon, take a look on the tables they have in the center where they highlight food items and pass out samples. I had to do a double take as I walked by, what I saw were golden turds. Now seeing little turd trinkets in a Japanese trinket store isn’t that surprising, but to have them prominently displayed on the food side seemed strange. On closer examination they look to be coin banks for the year of the dragon. The dragon was coiled into the classic inverted cone turd shape with the tail of the dragon as the tip! If I see it again I’ll remember to snap a pic.
If you’ve never had taiyaki before, you probably don’t know what you’re missing out on. It’s somewhere along the lines of dorayaki, manjyu, or mochi with red (adzuki) bean filling, so if you’ve experienced any of those, you sort-of get the idea. Typically, taiyaki are made with a pancake-like batter – very similar to the batter the dorayaki pancakes are made from – with a dollop of red bean filling inside of fish (tai snapper) shaped iron molds. The molds are placed over gas burners, and that cooks the batter to a crispy golden brown. Continue reading ‘Akimune-an Taiyaki’
No fireworks this year, which was good in a way, since it had become rather tedious in previous years. Instead, we lit the street on fire! With booze! Not good booze, thank you – this was some horrid old Ballantine’s blended scotch that had turned cloudy with black sediment. No drinky? Burrrn!
Hey, it’s that time of year again. Wonder how things will be this time. I imagine the earthquake and tsunami will be an underlying theme this year. I’m doing this live again, so this post will be continually updated over the next several hours as the program progresses… Continue reading ’62nd Annual NHK Kohaku Uta Gassen’
Saw a beat-up BMW Z3 roadster at New Eagle Cafe on Nimitz, vanity plate “PDLGRL”. Piddle Girl? She should go hang out with “JZZMAN”…
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