Tag: Hawaii

A Thirty Hour Day

Yesterday was loooooong.

Our alarm rang at 4 AM so we could get to my parents’ place so they could help shuttle us to the airport for the first flight – a 6 AM to Philly. Yes, I know that at most airports we would have needed to arrive at the airport by 4 AM or sooner, but BGM is not like that.

We were delayed a bit by fog, but got to Philly in plenty of time to switch terminals and get breakfast before boarding a flight to Phoenix, which arrived early. So there was lunch and walking about the terminal and browsing the shops and finally boarding our flight to Honolulu, which also arrived early at about 5 PM Hawai’i Standard Time.

The rub is that HST is six hours earlier than Eastern Daylight Time, so our bodies felt like it was 11 PM – and we had gotten up at 4 AM.  It took a long time to deplane, get baggage, wait for the shuttle bus to the rental car lot, finish paperwork, drive to the hotel, and deal with check-in and parking garage issues. We were fading fast…

Fortunately, our daughter E arrived with dinner, a delicious pasta salad with zucchini, Parmesan, and almonds that she had prepared and a loaf of fresh Italian bread. We are staying in a condominium hotel, so we had a fully equipped kitchen and a table for supper. Seeing E for the first time since they visited for Thanksgiving last November – and the food – helped revive us despite the length of the day, although I collapsed into bed a bit before 9:00.

Adjusting to time change is not one of my better skills, but B and I managed to sleep until 3 AM and then to snooze off and on until 6:00.   It’s now 4:15 PM and I admit to being a bit tired. But E will be done with her work day soon and we plan to go out to dinner and visit for the evening, which I hope will keep me going until a reasonable bedtime.

I’m hoping to get settled into Hawai’i Time sooner rather than later.

Lantern Floating Ceremony in Honolulu

My daughter attended this year’s ceremony. The combining/adaptation/re-interpretation of cultural elements doesn’t surprise me as it happens so frequently in Hawai’i. Thanks to Within the K Streets for this post and to Rowena of beyondtheflow, whose reblog brought me here.
JC

Reiko's Journey's avatarWITHIN THE K STREETS

“I’m not coming out until you promise not to float me.”

Since 1999, an esoteric Buddhist denomination called Shinnyo-en has sponsored a “Lantern Floating” ceremony on Memorial Day to create a moment of reflection and collective compassion and remember those who have passed.

The name “Shinnyo-en” means “a borderless garden of the unchanging and real nature of things,” and its principal doctrine encourages everyone to develop the ability to act with unwavering loving kindness and compassion. That’s a pretty good thing, methinks.

Lantern close upThe original Lantern Floating was a modest affair, held in a lagoon out near Honolulu Airport but grew in popularity and since 2002 it has been held annually at Ala Moana Beach Park, the major regional park adjacent to Waikiki.

How popular is it? About 40,000 people attend the ceremony. Folks stake out their positions on the lawn areas 24 hours in advance and guard their position…

View original post 732 more words

Mother’s Day

Last year on Mother’s Day, I was with my husband B in Honolulu with both daughters E and T and son-in-law L.  You can read about it here and here.

This year, B and I will be having Mother’s Day brunch with both of our moms and my dad in the dining room at the senior community where they all live. I am especially grateful to be able to celebrate Mother’s Day with with my mom and mother-in-law this year because the past year has been rough for both of them health-wise but they are both much improved and able to enjoy the day, which is oddly summery for mid-May.

Meanwhile, E and T are on an adventure together in New York City. They converged there on Friday, E from Honolulu HI and T from Syracuse NY, and are staying with my sister. E is attending Japan Day in Central Park because six members from jpop phenomenon AKB48 will be performing. E’s master thesis is about the fandom, especially the online fans outside of Japan, so this is a great opportunity for her to make connections and conduct interviews for her research. T has just finished her semester in her master’s program and came down to help her sister for the weekend. It is also their only chance to get together this summer because T will be doing an internship assisting with botany studies in New York State parks. (Way to go, T!)

I’m so happy that they will have this special long weekend together. Their bond with each other is one of the true joys of being their mother.  While B and I won’t get to see them together, we will get time to see them separately. T will get a couple of weeks at home before her internship begins and we just made reservations to go to Hawai’i in June to see E while L is in London working on his dissertation research.

The generations of our family illustrate that being a mom is forever!

Hawai’i and Climate Change

Hawai’i is the inhabited place that is most distant from any other inhabited place in the world. Because of its isolation, Hawai’i is home to more endemic species than anywhere else on earth. Endemic means that a species is found just in that one area and nowhere else on earth. In such a remote location in the middle of the Pacific, one is tempted to think that climate change won’t affect the islands, but that is a mistake. There is a reason that climate change often appears with the adjective “global” in front of it.

The ecosystems and microclimates of Hawai’i are already complicated, due to topography. There are dry leeward sides and wet windward sides. The height of some of the volcanoes creates an alpine ecosystem. The peak of Kaua’i is the wettest place on earth, averaging over 450 inches of rain a year, yet other areas are deserts. There are tropical, temperate, and dryland forests.

Yet, even here, the climate is changing noticeably. The trade winds are what keeps Hawai’i from being as hot and humid as one would expect at this latitude, yet more and more often the trade winds stop blowing. This creates longer periods of hot, humid weather, even when it isn’t summer. Most of our time in Honolulu, there was a heat wave, despite it being early May. The trades dying down exacerbates vog, which is smog caused by volcanic ash. Given that Kilauea has been erupting continuously, the airborne ash can travel to other islands and create air quality problems for them. When the trade winds die down, the ash levels build up and people with breathing difficulties suffer.

The native Hawaiians named only two seasons, the rainy season and the hot season. In our current terms, the rainy season was late fall through early spring, but, as we see in other parts of the world, weather tends to be more extreme, so the wet season tends to be wetter and longer, with more possibilities of thunderstorms, which had been very rare. Meanwhile, the hot season is hotter and can get much more humid when the trade winds die down, which is happening much more frequently than in the past.

The increased dryness of the dry ecosystems makes them more vulnerable to drought. When we were on the leeward side of the Big Island, there were many signs warning of extreme fire danger. Wildfire is especially dangerous in Hawai’i because the plants evolved there without that threat, so they are not adapted to survive or re-populate after it. The problem is made worse by invasive species, such as fountain grass which grows on relatively fresh lava flows, making them useless as natural fire breaks. When we visited Ka’upulehu , Wilds was telling us about some of the problems that climate change is causing for them in their mission to restore a native dryland forest, one of which was the need to maintain fire breaks around the perimeter to protect the native plants.

The people of Hawai’i are working to reduce their carbon footprint to help fight climate change. There are many more electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles here, along with public charging stations. Rooftop solar photovoltaics and hot water are common. There is a light rail system being built in Honolulu to alleviate wasted time and fuel on the highway. There is some utilization of geothermal power, as well.

I have already been trying to do my part to combat climate change and this trip makes those efforts seem that much more important. I hope you will join me in work toward energy efficiency and renewable energy for the sake of extraordinarily beautiful Hawai’i and the rest of the world.

 

 

Mother’s Day – Part 2

We had eaten dinner at noontime, so we had lots of time this afternoon for a drive around the windward (eastern) side of the island, stopping at various scenic points, both looking inland at points like Koko Head and out over the ocean at the waves, shoreline, and small islands. We returned to Honolulu via the Pali Highway, which crosses the island with the help of a couple of tunnels, with a stop at Leonard’s for baked treats for supper, which will be part two of our Filipino food feast, because there is still so much delicious food left! Yum!

Update:  The treat from Leonard’s was malasadas, part of the legacy of Portuguese immigrants. I had a cinnamon one and a guava-filled one. I’m sure there are no guava malasadas in Portugal!

Byodo-In Temple

Yesterday, Beth took us to the Byodo-In Temple in Kahaluu, north of Honolulu. It was finished in 1968 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the arrival of the first Japanese immigrants to Hawai’i. Located in a multi-denominational memorial park, it was modeled on the 900+ year old temple in Uji, Japan. You can read more about it here.

Before entering, Beth and Trinity together rang the large bon-sho (sacred bell) to create the proper mood for meditation. Next, we went to the meditation pavilion, which is set among little waterfalls and beautiful plantings. The temple grounds are non-denominational and it was nice to have a quiet space for the many prayer requests that are on my mind among family and friends. To enter the temple proper, we removed our shoes in order to visit the golden Amida Bhudda.

Then, we progressed to the other side of the grounds, which had ponds filled with carp. We also saw resident turtles and black swans.  On shore, a large peacock was strutting about. There were sign warning that peacocks are not tame and should not be approached. Brent spotted the peahen off near some bamboo plantings at the edge of a clearing. With her were three young peachicks, who were so well camouflaged that we could not spot them unless they were moving.

I have never been to Japan, so I’m grateful that a piece of Japanese heritage is so beautifully re-created on O’ahu.

Hawai’i Tropical Botanical Garden

We spent the morning at the Hawai’i Tropical Botanical Garden, just north of Hilo. It is in the Onomea Valley, located off a “scenic drive” – translation: narrow winding road with no shoulder, overshadowed by large trees, with several one-lane bridges. Dan and Pauline Lutkenhouse reclaimed the valley and opened the Garden to the public in 1984. You can read more about it here.

Although there are some native plants, most of the trees and other plants originated in Asia, Oceania, Australia, Africa, and the American tropics. Fortunately, they are well cared for so that they don’t escape to become invasives out in the surrounding area. The path is only 1.25 miles, but there is so much to see that it takes two or so hours, especially if you stop to take pictures.

We saw many palms and other tropical trees, orchids, heliconia, calathea, gingers, and more. There were also streams with waterfalls and a wonderful view of the bay. There are twin rocks that protect the bay. Legend has it that the villagers, under imminent threat of invasion by canoe, asked for a young man and a young woman to sacrifice themselves to the sea to protect the village. Morning light found the young couple gone and in their place two large boulders, almost touching, that protected the village from being reached by water.

By the time we finished walking back upslope to the Visitor’s Center, we were hot, hungry, and thirsty. We found a fruit stand/lunch stand nearby, which made nice sandwiches and fantastic juices and smoothies. Just what we needed after spending the morning in a tropical rain forest!

Ka’upulehu dryland forest

We had an amazing day today! We had three main priorities in coming to the Big Island: to see Volcanoes National Park, to attend the 10th anniversary pa’ina for the Cornell Sustainability Semester, and to visit Ka’upulehu dryland forest, where Trinity did her internship that helped her discover her passion for restoring native plants – and ruthlessly exterminating invasives.

We spent most of the day there – checking on plantings that Trinity did three years ago, checking on plots that other Cornell interns had done, visiting paths and places that Trinity had walked and worked on, exploring new areas that had opened since, including a newly built plant nursery, walking part of the border fence to make sure no feral goats had gotten their heads stuck trying to get in, and finally getting to have a long talk with Wilds, Trinity’s internship supervisor who wrote one of her recommendation letters to the ESF grad school program she will begin in the fall semester, and the current Sustainability Semester intern.

My biggest accomplishment of the day was not falling down! The hillside is quite steep and the paths – along with the forest area – is mostly chunks of jagged a’a lava. It’s difficult to find secure footing and totally impossible to walk quietly, as the chunks of lava rock grind noisily against each other as soon as you apply weight. At least, you don’t have to worry about someone sneaking up on you! I am proud to say that my little used hiking boots now look well-used after just a few hours on the abrasive a’a.

If you would like to learn more about Ka’upulehu, here are a few links about it:  http://www.hawaiiforestinstitute.org/our-projects/dryland-forest-projects/kaupulehu-dryland-forest/    http://www.drylandforest.org/ho%E2%80%98ola-ka-makana%E2%80%98%C4%81-ka%E2%80%98%C5%ABp%C5%ABlehu
 http://hawaiiforest.org/index.php/article/kaupulehu_restoration_project

Early Morning Poem

Awake before dawn this morning, this fleeting occurrence immediately began to form a poem in my mind. I captured it before it could fade as a gift to you.

Ephemera
~~~by Joanne Corey

this morning
rubbing sleep from
my eyes
points of light
appear
purple
white
yellow
orange
arranged in
momentary
constellations of
tropical flowers

pure gift of
Hawai’i

 

Pa’ina

Saturday night, we attended the tenth end-of-season pa’ina (dinner or feast) for the Cornell Sustainability Semester in Waimea. This was the program that our younger daughter, Trinity, attended three years ago. (It’s a fantastic program which you can read about here.) We weren’t able to travel out to Hawai’i the semester she attended, so it was a happy coincidence that the three of us were planning to be on the Big Island the same week that the Pa’ina was occurring and we gladly accepted the invitation to attend.

The pa’ina was held at Wai’aka House, where the students live with the program director and her assistants for the semester. It is located in Waimea in the Kohala region, which is the oldest part of the island. Kohala volcano has been extinct for a long time, and, while still mountainous, has eroded into grasslands that have been used for cattle ranching in recent times. From Wai’aka House, one can look across to the astronomical observatory on the also-extinct but still almost 14,000 foot Mauna Kea.

We have been reaping the benefits of the program by travelling with Trinity, who has been able to suggest favorite places to visit and can tell us about some of the geology, plants, animals, and cultural sites we have encountered. It was especially nice to be able to go with her to visit her home while on the Island, where we were warmly welcomed as part of the ‘ohana, which is usually translated as family, but which encompasses not only blood relatives but also those with whom you share your life.

Trinity knew a number of the people there, including the program director, whom they addressed as Kumu, which means teacher, and her daughter, one of the program assistants who had been a fellow student the year she attended, and several of the aunties and uncles who had assisted with cultural studies and other topics, and the director of her internship, Wilds. We also spent a lot of time talking to people we hadn’t met before, who were very warm and interested in sharing experiences with each other.

The students prepare the food, which included many traditional dishes, such as kalua pig and poi – we later saw a video of some of the preparations; my favorite dish was the salmon lau lau, in which salmon is wrapped in luau leaves (which you eat with the salmon) and ti leaves (which serve as a wrapper) and steamed.

After we had eaten, there was a traditional ceremony where one of the aunties and the kumu hula (master hula teacher) chanted and invested each member of this year’s program with a kihei, which is a rectangle of cloth that each person had decorated with symbols meaningful to them, draping it around their torso and tying it over their shoulder. Then, each person explained their design and the students also told a bit about their internships.

The moving climax and conclusion to the evening was a hula that the group presented on the lawn near the big side porch, wearing their kihei and head, neck, and ankle leis that they had made themselves. The whole group did the oli (opening chant) and then did traditional hula with the kumu hula chanting and accompanied by an ipu (gourd drum). Then, the students and assistants thanked Kumu for her love, leadership, and general awesomeness for the semester and presented her with flower and woven ti leave leis.  They concluded with a thank you chant, in which Trinity and many of the guests joined. It was touching to hear Trinity sing a chant in Hawaiian that she learned three years ago.

I was so happy to see Trinity return to a place and to people who were so important to her. Trinity’s major was designed to be very broad and her concentration within it was discontinued after her sophomore year. It was the Sustainability Semester, her internship, and the discovery that she enjoyed eradicating invasive species and nurturing native ones that gave her a new focus, leading to her internship with Cornell Plantations and her upcoming master’s program in conservation biology. We will always be thankful to Hawai’i, Kumu, Wilds, and Cornell’s Sustainability Semester for helping her find her passion.