Honolulu Culture - It Usually Involves Lots of Alochol

We keep doing random fun things in Honolulu, and since I never seem to take any decent pictures, I never get around to posting them. I have REALLY got to get over my embarrassment about being that dweeb with the camera. Anyway, here are some vignettes about our nights on the town; something is always happening. Hawaiians will use any excuse to shut down most of downtown and get wasted. It's kind of astounding. I have to call over to the mainland a lot because of my job, and they are always asking me odd things. Most recently, someone asked me if we celebrate St. Patrick's Day over here. In my head I was thinking, 'Sure, we bust out our best grass skirts and meet in the village square to dance under the moon' but my mouth said, "I'm sure they will close down part of the city for a block party.'' And I was right.

Anyway, here is a fun one - The Chinese New Year in Chinatown! David called and said some people from his office were going to go out, and I was floored. 'The accountants are going out!?' So we joined up with them for the New Year celebration. All the roads in Chinatown were closed, and the masses filled the streets. Lanterns and firecrackers were everywhere, along with the constant pounding of drums and seriously creepy dragons. There was a stage where kids and adults had mock fights with traditional weapons, and all kinds of crazy foods I was not brave enough to try. I kept trying to capture the atmosphere in pictures, but it proved impossible. The scale was just too large to fit in the frame.

Also, it was hella dark.

Here are the shots I did manage to get - I must say, in the sea of Asians, my height really did come in handy.




Here we all are at the restaurant, where other people did all the ordering, family-style, so I preceded to eat all kinds of weird things. Luckily, most of them were pretty good. I love eating out at ethnic places with people who know what to order. Although, what is up with this pic? It is highly possible that, since I see these people maybe twice a year, I was too shy and tried to sneak a picture in? More than likely I just bumped the camera and accidentally took a picture.

Look, a dragon! Yay!

David lost me quite a few times, as I would randomly stop and try to get a picture of one of these. They are always spinning and dancing around so fast, when combined with the massive crowds surrounding them, it is really hard to get a decent shot. It was fun though - each set of dragons (they are always in twos?) had their own ceremonial drummers.

adolescents. I watched them switch out with some other kids, and they looked HOT. It's probably pretty stuffy in one of those things.

I had to stop for quite some time and watch this little guy. He was less like a dragon, and more like….a worm. A really, really cute worm. The little kid in there couldn't have been older than 4. There was less dancing and more aimless wandering, but still….super cute. You can see the lady is feeding him an envelope - inside is some money, and wishes for a good year. It is basically an offering for good luck.

We were walking by a restaurant, and I saw this guy pushing his way through the tables. He looks like he's about to devour that old lady. Crazy!

I stopped and watched the ritual that basically every business was undergoing at some point during the night. The dragons would do some special dance facing the doors, and they would set off huge strings of fireworks that were hung from the sides of the roof and stretched all the way to the ground. Whenever they set them off, it sounded like a gang war was going on, and I would promptly go deaf for a few minutes. Considering this was happening at every store for like 10 blocks around us, it was a constant cacophony.


As it got darker, I started noticing that the dragon's eyes all lit up. They freaked me out.

After this, we did some bar hopping, of which I took NO pictures, because I am only a partial dork, which was evidenced by the fact I was wearing jeans instead of the hootchie wear the rest of the world was sporting. I constantly feel like a prude over here, because girls wear tight, short things with heels on everywhere. The Japanese girls even wear their heels on the BEACH. They are crazy about fashion, but that could be a whole different post.

We started at the Dragon Room, which was a cute, tiny over the street hole in the wall that was decorated appropriately for the occasion. Due to claustrophobia, we ended up at the neat bar that had a hidden outside room/bar area that was basically an open square with tons of bamboo to hide the concrete, and lots of comfy seating to hang out. Inside there was the requisite pounding bass music, but they had this huge wall that they were projecting National Geographic shows on? It was random. Maybe it's cool to watch polar bears and cheetahs while getting smashed. I have no idea. Probably because I'm too cheap to actually order enough drinks to ever get toasted. Ha. It was good to see the EY people, though.

This is Mardi Gras. Holy crap.

David and I decided to wander over after work, and see what was going on. Basically, it was people in crazy clothes, lots of bands, and tons of food stalls, which was my favorite part. I love eating from food stalls. I'm not sure why this is. We had some amazing tamales, and sausage and rice, which probably has a specific name, but I'm too lazy to look up. We wandered around, people watching and listening to the different bands, and then headed across the street to grab even more food at our fav spot on Aloha Tower, Gordon Biersch. They had a band, and somehow we managed to eat some more. There is no food challenge we will not rise to.


After that, we headed home. This particular night it was freaking cold, and so I was wearing my only sweater. I think there is some rule that you can't be out past a certain point at Mardi Gras if you're wearing a freaking sweater.