Hawaiians are very into 'garden goddesses'. Not sure what that's about yet.
I woke up this morning and heard ‘tschicka-tschicka-tschika-tschicka’. I walked to the stairs and saw by the window a fluffy gray and black baby bird on the ledge of the window repeatedly flying against the glass as if to come into the house. It lasted for a long time. I even tried to walk past to get my camera and it left only to come back and tschicka-tschicka some more. It was surreal and cute. I was sort of still half asleep.
A local cat stalks rats on the roof. Crazy.
The creatures in this place are crazy. The other day we saw a rat CLIMBING A TREE. Sheesh. And as I reported earlier a gecko dropped on my head IN OUR HOUSE. And while K and I were benignly reading on the couch a gecko pooped on my arm. Crazy.
Despite this, I love our home. I love Kailua Beach. We drove to Ala Moana Beach to swim in more placid water and hone the swim strokes we’d been practicing at Kailua Beach. We hadn’t been to Ala Moana in weeks. I didn’t like it so much. I couldn’t swim for some reason even though the waters are 80 % calmer. We came back to swim at Kailua Beach a couple of days later and I realized the higher salt content of Kailua Beach water helps me float better and makes swimming a much nicer experience.
Practical issue note: K had to fax some papers today. I didn’t find anything on yelp but we found that The UPS Store on Hekili across from Foodland does copies and can send faxes.
Also as an Asian American looking for community here in essentially the most Asian American rich land in the whole country, I find this very interesting!
I rode the bus for the first time today. It wasn’t bad but it was also blech. I went downtown to attend my first HIFF staff meeting which was interesting and for the first 15-20 minutes kind of jarring. It’s been 2 months since I left my job at MOCA and alittle longer since my last staff meeting. There was a time that I would come home from a day at the office and think incredulously that there was the accute possibility that I might spend the rest of my waking life in an office and sitting in front of a computer. And as much as a part of me loves office culture, I felt sick when I couldn’t picture an alternative to my reality.
Despite my current feelings about grassroots offices I enjoyed the meeting today. HIFF in some ways is just like every Asian American staff I’ve worked with so far (in total 3). They’re young, full of energy, and dedicated to the cause. The meeting was pretty short but I got good sense of people’s roles. I met a friend of a friend who while being a coordinator for HIFF, also runs a fantastic publication called Smart Magazine. Nice people. I’m looking forward to getting to know them.
The down side is the travel. I got a ride into the office but then I took a bus from downtown to Kailu–the number 57. It went smoothly for awhile and then I probably should have transferred in Kailua. Instead I waited to see how close the 57 would take me. Turned out to be not so close. I had about a 30 minute walk from where the bus dropped me off.
We went into Waikiki today and the day before. It’s very strange to find how living in Kailua has made me soft. The normal bustle of Ala Moana beach felt very exciting 🙂 I mean that’s hysterical. K and I live on a street in New York that is non-stop noise and activity. Meanwhile I felt like a bumpkin walking around Ala Moana Mall. I had to stop at every storefront and peer at the merchandise displays. Even the koi pond was more entertaining than usual.
We went to Ala Moana beach to practice our swimming. At Kailua Beach the surf has been a little more active and when we try to practice we get tossed around. K had alot of success with his swimming in Waikiki. I mean he basically swims well now. I, on the other hand, had a harder time swimming in calmer water. I still haven’t quite figured out what the deal with that is.
top rated swim goggles from slate.com
Speedo Speed Socket $24.99
Tyr Nest Pro Goggle $20.00
Swedish Goggles $5.00
Today K drove me into town for my first meeting at HIFF–which was great. I met some of the staff and went over some of the outreach process. I was telling K that the HIFF people are like New Yorkers just more gentle. That’s pretty much the speed I want to be at for now.
After HIFF, K and I went for lunch and a movie at the Dole Cannery. Recently there was a NY Times article reviewing and summarizing iPhone apps that were great for travel. I’ve been downloading apps like crazy this past week. Local Eats and iWant helped us find our lunch place which was delicious and our movie directly after.
my favorite iPhone apps:
Air Sharing
Feeds
White pages mobile
Yelp
Pageonce
I had macadamia nut encrusted Mahi Mahi at Sam Choy’s Breakfast, Lunch and Crab. It looked like a very standard sort of lunch place but it turned out to really hit the spot. There was a luau plate that looked so delicious but definitely a ticket to the town Fattsville.
We went to see Tropic Thunder afterwards and I was so surprised at how much I liked it. I love Robert Downey Jr. but I heard all the bruhaha about the use of the word ‘retarded’ and was pretty indifferent to seeing it. It turned out to be oddly touching and I’m glad we went. I actually cried at the ending even though it’s basically a big spoof.
K noticed that their was a recurring snowflake theme at the Dole Cannery Theater. A bit random but I like snow flakes. I told K that maybe it had something to do with Dole and he said, ‘you mean pineapples?’ and I didn’t have anywhere to go after that. When we came out of the film it was raining so hard that there was a waterfall running through the elevator shaft and down the stairwells.
Another way my new iPhone came in handy was this morning. At 7:45AM I was jarred out of sleep by what sounded like a 20 piece brass band. The grade school by us was having an early assembly for the students. I looked up grade schools in my zip code through the white pages app and I found the school’s phone number. I didn’t call this morning but I got their number now. Brass bands beware.
I got to take the car out this morning! Kind of exciting because I don’t drive in New York and I’d resigned myself to being uncomfortable in the driver’s seat. But driving in Kailua is awesome, mainly because you only really have to make two turns to get anywhere. Today I had a meeting at Morning Brew so I woke up early, grabbed the GPS, jumped into the car and turned up the radio really loud to sing along… to drive half a mile.
It was pointed out to me by a friend that there are similarities between my arrival in Hawaii and scenes from Jerry Maguire. The scene where Tom Cruise secures Cush as a client and he’s trying to find a song to rock out to on the radio but he can’t? That was me this morning.
My meeting this morning was with a staff member of the Hawaii International Film Festival (HIFF). I was introduced to them by a friend and will likely be helping them out for the festival in October. It was really great to meet with him. They seem super nice and I’m looking forward to getting to know them and working the festival. Visit HIFF
The only other notable event today would be another episode in my ongoing drama with Hawaii creatures. I went to close a screen door and something soft but substantial landed on my head. Apparently I took the gecko by surprise when I slid the door closed, rousing him out of a mid-morning nap. He landed on my head, then my hand, and after I screamed he landed on the ground and seemed as shocked as I was as it took him a few minutes to scurry under the washing machine.
I risked my life to take the garbage out today. There was a pterodactyl-like monster guarding the door. I further risked my life to document this strange and rare monster that was as big as my face.
K said he saw a frog so big the other night that he thought it was a statue. When I asked him how he knew it wasn’t, he ominously said that you could just feel it wasn’t 😀
I was procrastinating my writing (as I am now) by randomly searching on google. I found a very interesting video and blog post on how to learn how to swim in 10 days.
from fourhourworkweek.com (excerpt):
My Top 8 Tips for Novices
Here are the principles that made the biggest difference for me:
1) To propel yourself forward with the least effort, focus on shoulder roll and keeping your body horizontal (least resistance), not pulling with your arms or kicking with your legs. This is counter-intuitive but important, as kicking harder is the most universal suggestion for fixing swimming issues.
2) Keep yourself horizontal by keeping your head in line with your spine — you should be looking straight down. Use the same head position as while walking and drive your arm underwater vs. swimming on the surface. See Shinj Takeuchi’s underwater shots at :49 seconds. Notice how little he uses his legs; the small flick serves only to help him turn his hips and drive his next arm forward. This is the technique that allows me to conserve so much energy.
3. In line with the above video of Shinji, think of swimming freestyle as swimming on alternating sides, not on your stomach. From the TI Wikipedia page:
“Actively streamline” the body throughout the stroke cycle through a focus on rhythmically alternating “streamlined right side” and “streamlined left side” positions and consciously keeping the bodyline longer and sleeker than is typical for human swimmers.
For those who have rock climbed or done bouldering, it’s just like moving your hip closer to a wall to get more extension. To test this: stand chest to a wall and reach as high as you can with your right arm. Then turn your right hip so it’s touching the wall and reach again with your right arm: you’ll gain 3-6″. Lengthen your vessel and you travel further on each stroke. It adds up fast.
4. Penetrate the water with your fingers angled down and fully extend your arm well beneath your head. Extend it lower and further than you think you should. This downward water pressure on the arms will bring your legs up and decrease drag. It will almost feel like you’re swimming downhill.
5. Focus on increasing stroke length instead of stroke rate. Attempt to glide further on each downstroke and decrease the number of strokes per lap.
6. Forget about workouts and focus on “practice.” You are training your nervous system to perform counter-intuitive movements well, not training your aerobic system. If you feel strained, you’re not using the proper technique. Stop and review rather than persist through the pain and develop bad habits.
7. Stretch your extended arm and turn your body (not just head) to breathe. Some triathletes will even turn almost to their backs and face skyward to avoid short gasps and oxygen debt (tip from Dave Scott, 6-time Ironman world champion).
8. Experiment with hand swapping as a drill:
It’s difficult to remember all of the mechanical details while swimming. I short-circuited trying to follow half a dozen rules at once. The single drill that forced me to do most other things correctly is described on pg. 91-92 of the TI book: hand swapping. Coach Laughlin’s observations of the Russian Olympic team practice were a revelation to me.
This is the visualization I found most useful: focus on keeping your lead arm fully extended until your other arm comes over and penetrates the water around the extended arm’s forearm. This encourages you to swim on your sides, extends your stroke length, and forces you to engage in what is referred to as “front quadrant” swimming. All good things. This one exercise cut an additional 3-4 strokes off each lap of freestyle.
I’m not sure what it all means but all I can do is doggy paddle or swim without breathing. Some of the suggestions seem very intutitve. So I’m going to try these tips the next time I’m at the beach.
I’ve only left Kailua two times since we moved here. Once to go into Ala Moana for lunch and the second time to Police Beach on the North Shore. It’s funny, nothing happens here and yet the day goes so quickly. I wake up early (sometimes as early as 6AM) and still the afternoon pounces on me. Today we played frisbee in the park, saw a giant turtle while doggy paddling in the ocean, and then made pancakes, sausage, and eggs for brunch. It was a great day and this is a great town. It’s easy to wile away the hours here. It’s really something to find myself, a hard-milled New Yorker, suddenly so immersed in a town that makes Honolulu seem exotically metropolitan.
Everyday that we go to the beach I want to go to the beach more. I grew up on Long Island and my heritage is Filipino. Beaches are nature and nurture to me and yet until I came to Hawaii I hated going to the beach! I think it’s because I would get caught up in the preparation, the ritual of self consciousness around the bathing suit, and inevitably at the end of any beach trip the sticky sandiness which follows you to the parking lot, into the car, into the house, and all over your tub. Trips to the beach were 80% trip and 20% beach.
Why it’s different here:
Usually going to the beach happens within 5 minutes of deciding to go to the beach
I have one sufficient bathing suit and it hangs by the door
We have a stack of towels and sheets in the laundry room ready to go
We have an outdoor shower (!) which I love. I love the outdoor shower. It’s amazing because it’s a hot cold shower and with it we keep a little bottle of strawberry scented shampoo and a bar of soap. I’m more clean coming back into the house from the beach than when I left.
I remember when we were going through craigslist looking for a place. We were calling any ad that had the slightest promise. When we got to the ad for this place it listed an outdoor shower as one of its special features. I called and spoke to the owner and she reiiterated before we got off the phone that there was a hot cold outdoor shower.
After a few minutes of worrying over all the details of the various apartments in my head I suddenly said to K, ‘wait a minute, is the outdoor shower the ONLY shower?’ He didn’t know and wasn’t familiar enough with Hawaii property to say for sure it wasn’t. I decided to call.
ME: Uh Charlotte, hi this is Nancy…we just spoke about the rental..um yeah I just wanted to check something…uhhh. I mean I just wanted to make sure….um you know that outdoor hot cold shower..uh well I just wanted to check is their an indoor shower too?
Charlotte very kindly didn’t laugh at me and said yes. The outdoor shower was just for coming back from the beach. There were in fact two additional indoor showers.
In my short term assessment, Kailua is like a resort town for locals. It doesn’t feel like there are alot of tourists here even though the beach is easy to access golden, quiet, and clean. Maybe it’s that tourists conduct themselves differently here. It’s one of the prettiest and most relaxing beaches I’ve ever been to. We’ve been here for over 3 weeks now and I’ve come to the conclusion that if you can’t find comfort here you’re probably a little crazy.
what to know/ bring to Kailua Beach
sunblock– nothing beats Le Roche Posay Anthelios spf 50 any formulation
tan enhancer– Maui Babe browning lotion
flip flops – reef flip flops can be pretty and you feel like you’re walking on marshmallows (minus being sticky)
lip balm/sun block– Epicuren lip balm spf 8
note: if you’re not used to the sun you should have a bottle of water with you.
In NY we order takeout or eat out 97% of our meals. In Kailua we’ve cooked every dinner except for one. It’s a refreshing change. One of my favorite things to do here is make breakfast: taro pancakes, bacon and a fried egg. I love breakfast.
When we were in Shanghai and didn’t have a kitchen I ordered the same thing every morning from Hua Ting Hotel room service: blueberry pancakes, hashbrowns, bacon, congee and a salted egg. Same goes for our four months in Vancouver’s Sutton Place Hotel: pancakes, hash browns, eggs with ketchup and tabasco.
The difference here is that we have a large kitchen with tons of counter space, a dishwasher and a ceramic top stove. I’ve discovered that recipes, like maps aren’t so confounding. If you take the time and patiently do what each step tells you to do, almost anyone can roast a chicken!
These are the things that I haven’t managed to get used to: Hawaii bugs and geckos; how dark evenings are; how quiet it is; and finally people who don’t lock their cars and houses. Pretty much as soon as it gets dark, I lock all the doors and turn on every porch and lanai light. It’s very interesting how menacing a bird landing in a palm tree can sound.
good cheap white wine brands available at Kailua’s Foodland
Today is day 12 of my new life in Hawaii. I’ve become obsessed with facebook again and my three email inboxes have decreased in traffic drastically. In twelve days we found a home by the beach, bought our first car, and have embarked on domestic life full speed ahead.
In light of this, I’ve begun writing again. This is where I’ll share my thoughts on people I’ve met, things I’ve seen, what I’m obsessed with, and my search for the best of everything
Three One Nine 