They Came From The East

Sunday July 24th.  This is some serious dedication to shave ice.  Matsumoto's just rose a notch on my shave ice hierarchy being that they stayed open a little late so that Carrie and Anthony could have shave ice on their wedding day.

Green apple, lemon, with cherry, raspberry, watermelon with cherry, the hawaiian and the Matsumoto

Lilikoi with mango for the bride

Catch Up

Wednesday July 13th - Thursday July 21st.  I'm missed my usual Sunday post.  I was going to write about how I'm going to take better care of my skin because I got a ridiculous sunburn, but at the last minute I was asked to go to LA for work.  I'll write about the sun out here and skin some other time.

Peach, mango with cherry and raspberry, watermelon and peach with li hing powder

I'm pretty well decided that blue raspberry, red watermelon and peach make the best shave ice, however, I don't want to be stale.  I decided to try li hing powder on top.  Li hing is a dried plum powder.  It's sweet, salty and sour.  It's good, but better in small amounts.  Note that my shave ice, the blue one in the back, is the one with the powder but is being held by Joe, he stole it and loved it because it tastes like mexican candy.  We also tasted sweet crack seed shave ice.  It pretty much has the flavor of a black jelly bean.  

Peach, watermelon with mango

Raspberry, strawberry and peach with li hing powder

This is what the li hing looks like up close

We spent Sunday at From Here To Eternity Beach

Mexican food

Coco

Super early on Tuesday I left for LA, spending the whole day traveling or at work.  I got to my hotel at about midnight and watched Korean television until my breakfast/lunch/dinner delivery of thai food came.  After work on Wednesday a work friend, Geoff, took me to get real mexican food and I got to see Michael, Jessica and Coco.  After working for a few hours on Thursday I (barley made my flight) flew home.  

Lana'i Lookout

Tuesday July 12th.

North Shore Sunday

Sunday July 10th.  When you are looking at these photos, just pretend like you are watching a Jacques Cousteau film and they will look better than they are.  North Shore Sunday: we went to the beach with some friends.  I don't want to jinx it by saying too much, but slowly I will introduce them.  Right now there is some serious guy love going on so I spend a good amount of time sitting back watching the boys laugh awkwardly at each others jokes.  It's beautiful.  We spent the day at Sharks Cove looking at fish and eating cookies.

Of course we saw some fish

One of the coolest things I saw were some divers.  As I was looking down at them, one of the divers rolled over and was facing me.  He smiled and I waved.  He took off his respirator and blew an air ring.  It started off small but by the time it got to the surface it was the size of a hula hoop.  Best bar trick ever, too bad it has such limitations.  We also saw some pretty huge fish that looked like they could do some serious bodily harm if they could open their jaws wide enough.

Divers that do fun tricks

The ring he blew

I'm still working on getting good results from the Go Pro while underwater.  I've been super happy with the video I've shot with it and with some of the out of water photos.  I'm not sure if its a situation where I just need to use it more and get it figured out or if it just isn't the best camera for using under water.  After a little while it started to get cold, and being the serious musician that he is, Joe had to get to a recording session.  It was time to head back.  Sadly, there wasn't any time for shave ice.  

This is Cody

Four

Monday July 4th.

Fireworks over Waikiki from Kaimuki 

Music

Friday July 1st - Sunday July 3rd.  Back in April I wrote about a band called Raised By Wolves and also mentioned them in a prior post in March.  After months of legal contracts and intense negotiations Joe formed a band with their singer, Nick, and another guy named Cody.  They named their band Camp Fire.  Camp Fire had their first show on Friday and it was exceedingly successful.  If you live within five hundred miles of Honolulu you should come to their next show on July 15th at Anna's.  If you don't live within five hundred miles you should actively cyber stock each member of the band and ask them to record something for you to hear, it will be worth your efforts, I promise.
Today was North Shore Sunday, but it's also Fourth of July weekend so the traffic getting to the beach was terrible.  This is what we look like when we are sitting in traffic.

Traffic on the North Shore

I had these grandiose visions of using the Go Pro while I was snorkeling, and I did, but I failed to produce any interesting images of fish.  Next time I will remember to get closer.  For now, this is the best of the lot.

Snorkeling at Sharks Cove

The water was warm and calm.  There were a whole lot of fish, all different kinds including the infamous humuhumunukunukuapuaa.  After a day at the beach we decided to leave the North Shore and go to Shimazu Store for shave ice, which was the right thing to do.  They have the best shave ice on the island by far.

Watermelon, raspberry and peach

Mango, orange and watermelon