On my arrival to Xian, I was greeted by smoke filled air. The guide explained that it was harvest time and the farmers usually burned the unedible parts of the harvest, which in this case, was mostly corn. This probably added to my not too favorable attraction to this city, in spite of it's great main attraction, The Terra Cotta Warriors. Even the guide here seemed less personable than the others and even a bit cranky and xenophobic. First stop was the Wild Big Goose Pagoda, a fairly simply designed building, yet I liked it in spite of it. The story [View Full Entry]

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From the title of this entry, you can deduce that I'm quite fond of Beijing. With it's grandiose Royal Palace, great and mighty Great Wall, exquisit Summer Palace and historic Tombs and Temples, what's not to like. Well, the city itself is rather drab and characterless and it's bloody history is quite depressing, but then good outweighs the bad. The tour to the Great Wall definetely did not dissappoint. It was beautiful and majestic as the many photos taken of it, by many different people, shows, from multitudes of angles. Walking or rather climbing it also was an exhilarating experien [View Full Entry]

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A few years back, I booked a tour for China, which included Shanghai, Xian, Beijing and Guilin. My image of Communist China was heavily influence by the TV programs and Social Studies books of my early years which was of People dressed in blue pants and jackets, with Red Books of Mao quotes in their hands and of Poker faced guides spewing out optimist statistics of their country economic and social successes. Also coloring my thoughts was perhaps a classic photo in textbooks of a Landowner bound and kneeling before a peasant's court with soldiers with rifles in hand, pointed at [View Full Entry]

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As mentioned in a previous entry, the Hawaiian Language will rarely be heard spoken on the Streets of Honolulu, or even the outlying areas anymore. For over a 100 years, a concerted effort was made to stop it from being spoken and taught in schools. However, strangely enough the language did remain alive in it's songs and music which remained proliferate for many years. And Hawaiian Language Immersion Schools sprung up during the 1990's to the present to try and revive the language among the younger generations of Native Hawaiians or "Kanaka Maoli". How successful they are in doing so, I' [View Full Entry]

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Yesterday, being the 4th of July, there is a small town on the island of Oahu that annually holds an Independepence Day Parade. I marched in it once about 15 years ago, but haven't been back to see it since. The smallish town of Kailua, is known mostly for it's 2 beautiful beaches, Lanikai and Kailua. It's a bedroom community, with very little frills in the way of nightlife, places of interestes, architecture, etc. so it's been about 5 years since I've been there. There are some good restraunts there, I've heard, but nothing I would travel 45 minutes to experience. [View Full Entry]

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On the weekend of the 10th and 11th of June the Pan-Pacific Festival was held; the same weekend as the Kamehameha Day Celebration. I would think it would have been much nicer to keep the celebrations on separate weekends, especially since a parade was held though busy Waikiki, 2 days in a row. But, hey, everybody loves a parade, so it was no problem for me. The ones who suffered, however, were the hotel guests who needed to access or depart from their hotels to catch their planes. It meant they had to walk a few blocks, with their luggage to [View Full Entry]

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Kamehameha (The Lonely One) Day was celebrated on June 10th with a Floral Parade and live show at the Kapiolani Bandstand. Unfortunately I was not able to attend the parade, but was able to catch part of the show and snap photos of the heavily lei bedecked King Kamehameha Statue, downtown. My favorite at the parade is usually the head Float which carrys the Royal Couple and their court, decked in Pre-Western attire. For many years now, it never fails to strike me how eerie similiar some of the clothing resembles ancient Roman attire. The helmets of the King and some [View Full Entry]

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Decided to take a trip to the Aloha Stadium Swap Meet, located at the Westernmost boundary of Honolulu, with Aiea, being just across the city limits. Since I was passing The Moanaloa Gardens, a large parklike, privately owned estate owned by the Damon Family, but charges no admission fees; I decided to stop by first to snap a few photos. It's known for it's many large Monkey Pod Trees, whose branches spans over a wide area. It's wood also is used to make decrorative plates and platters, usually in shapes of leaves. Bus loads of excited Japanese Tourists stopped for photos, [View Full Entry]

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Our island, having the sites of 2 National Veterens Memorial Cemetaries, was naturally a hotbed of activity on Memorial Day. Cub Scouts made sure a flag and flower lei (garland) was placed on every Veteren's grave. Newspapers appealled for 50,000 leis from groups or individuals to donate. Jets roar overhead during or after the Ceremony at Punchbowl. Well, Arlington and Washington D.C., I'm sure, had ceremonies dwafting ours, you may say. But did they have a Buddhist Floating Latern Festival at night? Well, this is what this entry will be mainly focused on. For at least 15 years now, a [View Full Entry]

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Visitors to Hawaii may be comforted to know that English is spoken and understood by almost everyone, so ordering things, asking for directions or reading signs should be no problem as opposed to travelling to places where a foreign language is mainly spoken. The Hawaiian language 100 years ago, was spoken widely mostly by native Hawaiians, but after the overthrow of the Monarchy in the 1890's, teachers would punish students for speaking Hawaiian, even in a Hawaiian only private school. Hence the language almost languished except in Hawaiian music and in Street names or geographic locatio [View Full Entry]

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