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8 . 2 7 . 0 8 Been an extremely busy August, busy Summer more or less, that would explain the lack of entries. Survived my last round of summer school courses as an evening law student, towards the end I was feeling pretty burnt out, definitely in need of a vacation. Lucky me I got to go home for a bit earlier this month, although it was kind of a working vacation helping my folks around the house, and complete some long term projects. Still it was just the change of scenery and pace that I needed. At one point I was thinking about taking a side trip to Japan, but that ended up being put on hold, partly due to the short term planning, otherwise the costs started looking pretty unreasonable. Plus Japan in August apparently is like DC, although it seemed to be pretty hot and humid in Honolulu just as well. I guess I've been getting spoiled with the AC in my apartment in the District. Instead we booked a suite at the Hawaii Prince Hotel in Waikiki for the weekend, making good on the Kama'aina deals that the hotel industry has been offering to locals due to the recent downturn in tourism. Interesting experience playing tourist in one's hometown, especially when almost all the visitors seem to be from Japan. There seem to be a lot of izakaya opening up all over Honolulu, some of which totally reminded me of my trips all over Japan. I got to visit a couple in Mo'ili'ili, one of which had a broad selection from sushi to champuru. Another in the area I visited a couple times for a late night gathering I learned has also become an unofficial haunt of a good friend back home, noted by the bottle or two of shochu reserved on the shelf with his name on it. Have to say I was pretty impressed with the overall quality of the food, some of the biggest and freshest slices of hamachi I ever recall eating in Hawaii for a very reasonable price too. It's almost as if there's a new wave of Nihon-jin immigrants coming to Hawaii, although this time they are coming to open businesses and go to school, not work in the sugar cane fields and docks. Interesting side note talking to another friend of a friend, apparently Hawaiian Japanese have a reputation of being found of good hamachi, even preferring it over chu- toro and o-toro. Kind of like hamachi being poor man's toro or something. Never heard that before, but I guess it makes sense. Next time I go home I'll have to make it a point to check out some of the Okinawan izakaya that he mentioned that have been opening up around town as well. This trip home was also a bit different, kind of a wake up call in that it was a glaring reminder of certain parts of living in Honolulu that I definitely miss, being closer to family, more of a laid back atmosphere, cultural familiarity, overall perspective in general. Honestly don't know if or when we'll be moving back home, but it certainly is an option to keep in the back of the mind, especially with me finishing up this degree in about a year. Another wake up call came from some blood test results, I'll probably be expanding more on that in a later entry when I have a chance. 8 . 1 3 . 0 8 Honolulu, Moili'ili (X2), Waikiki, Iwalei (X2), Kaneohe and some piece of mind being back home for a bit. Some things change, other things don't at all. |