What I ate in Hawaii

Hawaii was a huge food trip for us. I had been dreaming of spam musubi and kalua pig for a looooong time. It's amazing that I've been on 15-hour flights all over the world, but have never taken the 6-hour flight from the West coast to Hawaii.

When I finally went, my food list was pretty substantial, and my expectations were high:

spam musubi, plate lunch, poke, shaved ice, coconut, fruits, McDonald's, 7-11, Banh mi, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, poi, afternoon tea, puka dog, Zippy's, tiki drinks.

1. Food I wished I had but didn't:  Korean, there is not much in Portland so I have to eat it every chance I get.
2. Food I had but wished I didn't: poi, it was not great
3. What should have been on the list: sushi! It was great in Hawaii, and I only had the cheap stuff. 
4. Biggest surprise: poke, I had no idea how many different kinds there were, and they are all delicious!
5. Most delicious meal:Da Kitchen in Kahului, which was a feast of spam, kalua pig, salmon, rice, and macaroni salad

Some favorite foods:

Awesomely fresh coconut from Honolulu's Chinatown. After drinking the juice, they cut open the coconut and you can use a piece of the shell to scoop out the meat.

Combo meal from a place called Zippy's. I got the fried chicken with a corn and rice. Pretty good for an all-night chain restaurant.

On night in Maui I wanted to have a barbeque. We bought everything at a grocery store and ahd hot dogs, hamburgers, and lemon ice tea.

This fantastic piece of art is the Hawaiian Plate from Da Kitchen in Kahului, Maui. "Pork Lau Lau, Kalua Pork, Chicken Long Rice  and Lomi Salmon."
http://www.da-kitchen.com/

All local produce from a Maui farmer's market. Bananas, lilikoi, papayas, oranges, starfruit, avocado, peaches, and a tomato. Yeah, that was about two day's worth of produce for us. We made three trips there in only one week!

Guava, Mango, and Tamarind (my favorite!) shaved ice from Ululani's Shaved Ice in Maui.

Three different kinds of poke (marinated ahi tuna) from the Foodland supermarket in Maui. Foodland was our go-to place on the island. We must have gone every day and tried about ten different kinds of poke during our stay.

Kalua pig plate lunch from Da Kitchen. Best Kalua pig I have ever had.

Fried Spam Musubi from Da Kitchen. I loved how the spam was wrapped in the middle, instead of on top. It made the musubi much easier to eat. 

McDonald's spam and Portuguese sausage breakfast plate. At this point, I was a little sick of spam, though I loved the Portuguese sausage. read more about McDonald's Hawaii here.

Japanese meal set from a restaurant in Honolulu. This was pretty authentic, but given that there are so many Japanese people in Hawaii, I would imagine competition for Japanese restauratns is fierce. This palce was packed and we waited a long time.

Also at the Japanese restaurant in Honolulu, we ordered poke and agedashi tofu.

Snapshot from Hawaii

Resting on an elephant ear in Maui 

 

Hawaii Instagram Diary

Nothing to Envy and Why I'm a Total Jerk

This is one of those photographs that catches you off guard. 

 There I am, posing across the table in a sunny patio cafe with my cute little cocktail, decorated iphone, and  big sunglasses like a picture from a bad dating profile.
Now I'll be the first to admit that I look like another shallow diva, but there's just one thing amiss with this image. 
The little tote bag resting on my lap unintentionally reveals a book inside, with the words "to Envy" printed on the cover. No, this isn't a fashion magazine, it's Babara Demick's biographical account of several North Koreans. Here's the cover:

I became absolutely enamored with this book while in Hawaii. When I travel I always bring something to read. No, not just to combat boredom on the plane, I truly love reading in unfamiliar places. Once I spent an entire week in Hong Kong reading The Windup Bird Chronicle. Usually I prefer fiction, but just before I left for Hawaii I had seriously OD'ed on North Korea. To give you an idea, these were my indulgences before I left:

Books I read:

The Tears of My Soul by Kim Hyun-Hee

Long Road Home by Kim Suk-Young

Aquariums of Phyongyang

Escape from Camp 14 by Blaine Harden

The Reluctant  Communist by  Charles Robert Jenkins

Documentaries I watched:

Crossing the Line

Seoul Train
Vice Guide to North Korea
Kimjongilia
State of Mind
National Geographic: Inside North Korea

I was knee deep in everything North Korea. 
I suppose that, as an East Asian Studies major, I realized what an alarming gap I had  towards the end of my academic career. Our classes focused primarily on countries of "economic and cultural importance" to the U.S., ahem, I'm talking about China, Japan, and South Korea. I'm sure it would be quite challenging to cover everything "Asian," given the ethic, linguistic, cultural, economic, geographical diversity in what we call "Asia," but come on people, the fact that everything I know about North Korea I had to learn from the above mentioned books and documentaries is just sad. North Korea is every bit as important as South Korea, and but I suppose that it's not taught in many colleges because we just simply don't know enough about North Korea. Pretty much everything we know is what we are told by those North Koreans who escaped. And what we do know is horribly depressing, at best.

So, as I was reading about censorship, brainwashing, starvation, and forced labor from a lawn chair on the beach in Wailea, or sometimes from the balcony of my condo, or often at Coffee Bean where I usually had an afternoon read, I realized that the juxtaposition of the lives of the people in the book to my own life was just too absurd:

People eating bark off of a tree; me fretting over my weight after binging on spam musubis.

People being forced to do manual labor for 16 hours a day; me sleeping into until 2:00 pm then wondering what to do for the rest of the day.

How can we both be living on the same planet? It's all too unreal to comprehend. Because of the stark contrast in what I was reading and what I was doing, I had a major existentialistic crisis in Hawaii.  
What do I do with my life now, knowing that so many people are suffering? 
Am I just going to go on drinking cocktails, getting fat, and goofing off on my iPhone until the end of time?

Well, obviously not. But then what?

Maybe I'll mull over this question tonight at the bar, or the gym. What the hell else am I going to do? Life here goes on the same here, even if I am changed. But sooner or later,  after those cocktails, I've got to do my part to improve the quality of life in this world. Gotta give a little after taking a lot. 

This has actually prompted me to look at several volunteer/internship opportunities abroad.  I don't know where this will lead, but somehow, in some way, I want to improve the quality of life for my fellow human beings. Got any ideas? Send 'em my way!

Photo Diary: Best of Hawaii

Well, I know my first post on Hawaii was less than glowing, but I did enjoy my time there. Besides, I traveled with my camera-obsessed partner, who took almost 800 pictures in one week. This took some narrowing down.....

Kihei, Maui

So many kinds of Ahi...mmmm

Local fruits at the farmers market

Fried Spam musubi

I don't know these people...

The sunset

Mango, Tamarind, and Guava shaved ice

Local fruits

Gardens near Hana

Ubiquitous palm trees

Honolulu high rises

Honolulu ally

The pink building

Honolulu sky scraper

View from our hotel in Honolulu

Beach somewhere on Oahu

Traditional Japanese meal

Paia Japanese cemetery along the Road to Hana

The "Road to Hana" is one of those famous activities every tourist does in Maui. This fifty-mile stretch of scenic highway runs from Kahului to the town of Hana, promising ocean views and lush rain forests along the way. Well, I had a different plan. Less than ten miles past Kahului I notice a tiny cemetery outside of a small town by the name of Paia.

The cemetery rests on the edge of a cliff just one block down the road from a small collection of tourist shops and cafes. The cemetery looked as though it had been long abandoned to the Hawaiian sun, which scorched the dry grass surrounding the tombs.

This was the first image that greeted me from the road.

This was  obviously a Japanese cemetery.  Some of the names on the tombs were Romanized, but others retained the Japanese kanji. The dates on the graves spanned over one hundred years.

I must admit that I was initially disappointed with the appearance  of the cemetery. From where I stood under the blazing sun, it was about as colorful as an Iowa wheat field. The dry, yellow grass was ubiquitous in every photo. But when I got home and reviewed the images, I noticed tiny, beautiful bits of color peaking out from unexpected places: dead flowers beside a grave, the blue of the ocean, the green leaves of a tropical plant, the gray of a stone. 

This roadside cemetery is beautiful in its own way.  Tropical, coastal, rural. I will remember it as an unusual place in an unusual part of America.