Carcass Quest 2012

We had heard that a 50-foot sperm whale carcass had washed up on the bottom of Hawaiian Beaches (News: Sperm Whale).  So of course we needed to go see it...We live on the Big Island, a large dead animal floats ashore and it's a very exciting thing to have happen around here. Beats sitting around and listening to the very much so alive coqui frogs chirping. (Which for the record we don't do...so long as our Internet is actually working)

THE "A" IS OUR HOUSE & HAWAIIAN BEACHES IS IN THE BOTTOM RIGHT CORNER

Chris and I drove down to Hawaiian Beaches on Thursday after school to try and see if we couldn't take a gander.  Without knowing where it was we ended up taking a very nice back road into Kapoho, but alas, saw no whale :(

Luckily our friend and co-worker Jane lives in Hawaiian Beaches and had gone to see the whale the same day we did.  The next day we drove down and she took us right to it.  When we got there we were a little alarmed to see a fire truck and an ambulance but it looked like they were just checking out the scene.  I even saw some cell phone photos being taken :)

The neighborhood is very nice, which isn't surprising being that it's right on the water.  The whale carcass is right in front of a house for sale, which prompted me to crack,

"HOUSE FOR SALE! WHALE CARCASS INCLUDED!"

The whale is all white, but I think that's because all the skin's decomposed and you're looking at the blubber.  Upon seeing it, my first thought was: "It doesn't smell that bad." And then, "Ah, Captain Ahab, we have found Moby Dick." (I don't know if all these high school English classes I'm observing now has suddenly sparked a revival of all my high school English content or what...)

WHALE RIBS

The following picture is the best Chris took.  The whale was stuck right up against the rocks and the waves were just rocking it back and forth.  The sharks had been feeding on it when it was more out to sea and the combination of the sharks' feeding, decomposition and being in the water was really taking it's toll.

HEAD IS TO THE LEFT AND TAIL IS TO THE RIGHT

DECOMPOSING WHALE TAIL

YES, CHRIS MADE ME POSE WITH THE DEAD WHALE

While posing for the above picture all I kept thinking was..."I'm getting sprayed with whale juice. EWWWWW!" From this side of the whale it smelled WAY worse.  But still, not so bad when you consider it's been decomposing in the water for at least a few days by the time we had gotten to it.

ALL EXCITED TO SEE A BIG DEAD THING

 At first when we arrived there we were bummed that we didn't see any sharks, but then Chris and I noticed a bunch of people staring into the water where we had been standing before (at the head of the whale).  Turned out a big tiger shark had just been spotted.  Chris and I made our way carefully over...it was all sharp lava rock.  Chris of course managed to fall a little and scrape his foot. (Always mangling his feet!)  When we got over to our old locations we had to wait a few patient seconds but we were rewarded with seeing the shark's dorsal pop up for a few seconds.  We waited some more, but didn't see it again so we headed for home.

SHARK SIGHTED!

 What a whale of a tale indeed ;p Mwahahaha aren't I so punny?

Hālau Nā Pua 'O Uluhaimālama: Pellon Dyeing and Printing

After several months of traveling, coming back and not having internet, starting at a new school and more, I am finally getting back to blogging.  The next couple blogs are probably going to be out of order, but chronology is overrated right?  Besides all the great literary authors used in medias res and anachronism as a narrative technique...(Thank you 2 years of AP English, Ms. De Guzman & pompous Mr. Bates...I learned something!)

So I'll start at the most current and then blog willy-nilly as I feel like it until I'm caught up.  At the end of the last year I decided that if the opportunity arose I would try to start dancing with a new hālau, or hula school.  My really good friend Jenn recommended Kumu Emery Aceret's Hālau Nā Pua 'O Uluhaimālama.  So far my experiences have been great.  I love all the dancing we do, I love the ladies I dance with and I love dancing to kumu's voice.  Every time I get ready to leave my house, I always think, "I'm too tired!" but I make myself go and I am always so glad that I went.  The class is from 7-9pm on Wednesdays and we dance for probably an hour and a half.  I work up quite the sweat and we are already gearing up for a performance!

As part of the performance we've had to make brown jumpers.  I'll spare the pictures because they are extremely unflattering :) Plus all I did was cut the fabric and thread in the elastic since I can't sew. Thankfully my hula sister Angela happily sewed my jumper for me.  The fun part came with making our pellon, which will be our skirts.

First we needed to boil up a large amount of water:

Then we pre-soaked our pellon in some water:

I had to grab my olena and then we added it to our boiling water:

My hula sister Lisa was nice enough to stir my olena so I could "document for the blog" (Isn't it a beautiful day?):

 Next you add the pellon:

  

Then we had to stir it for an hour because if you just let the fabric sit in the water then the tumeric would settle in certain spots and you wouldn't have an evenly colored pellon. Luckily after about 20 minutes you could take it off the heat. I didn't make Lisa do my work and put in some sweat equity into my pellon...so much so that when I got home, I promptly took a nap!

DYEING MY PELLON WITH OLENA

 After about an hour of stirring the pellon in the tumeric, then you had to rinse it out.  Here's my hula sister Angela rinsing her pellon:

Then you got some people to help you wring out the water.  Here's Lisa again and a fabulous gentleman wringing out my pellon.  The guy is a separated father who is raising his daughter.  He was making a pellon for his daughter and helping out the rest of us ladies.  What a man!

Here's my pellon, drying at the hālau! (It's interesting that everyone's pellon is various shades of yellow dependent on the tumeric)

The next day (today) came the part that crafty Kristen enjoyed - printing.  There were two design elements that were non-negotiable: a repeating pattern of diamonds and a border at the bottom.  The only other stipulation was that whatever we printed, it needed to have a story.  The hālau had these reeds that people were using to print circles to represent ohana, or family.  There were also sponges.  But since I don't know when I'd ever get the chance to do this again, I wanted to get really creative with my pellon.

I began with my blank slate:

 

I added my diamonds and the border:

I was quite savvy (and as I write that I think of Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow saying it all pirate-y) and brought with me some of the designs I wanted.  I put them in page protectors and slide it under the pellon.  The pellon is thin enough that you can see the image through it and therefore you just need to trace the image with your paint.  This is how I added my niho-mano (Shark's teeth design) and my canoe (wa'a):

  

Then I added some honu:

 Then I finished up the design with a circle inside a circle and a border at the top:

Now here's my story: The niho mano are in a triangle of 3 rows, with 4 dots on top and 2 on the bottom.  I did this because the 1 triangle represents my birth month: January.  The 3 rows of shark teeth (triangles) represent my birth day: 3.  The dots represent my birth year: 2x4 = 8 and 4...1984. (I like symbolism can you tell??? Yes, I'll cop to being up until midnight last night drafting ideas for this...I like to be prepared even when it comes to hula.)

The canoe symbolizes traveling because I love to travel, but also like the early Polynesians, I had to travel to Hawai'i and am not kanaka maoli ("True People" - term for true native Hawaiians).
However, the most important part of traveling is that no matter where I am, I am always centered and home.  The circle with the circle inside represents a piko, which in Hawaiian means "navel" or "center."

The honu represents longevity and wisdom which I seek.  It is also the bearer of good luck, which I always need.  I designed the honu so that the shell would kind of represent a heart.  I did this because, well I'm in love (duh) and wanted something on my pellon that would represent the life I have here in Hawai'i and the most important part of my life is Chris (Okay, this is a little too sappy when I actually write it out - blegh).

So that's my story and I'm stickin' with it!

SNAPSHOT OF MY PELLON DESIGN

The Video: Chris @ Panewa Rodeo

Chris gets rocked by a bull at the 2011 panaewa rodeo from christopher callisto on Vimeo.


Finally figured out how to post the video...only a year and a half later ;p

You can see the "action" at about the 2:55 mark.

THE BEST DAY EVER :D

So Chris and I continued on our scooter tour and stopped at some scenic points (I thought we were just pulling over to let cars pass...).  We pulled into Sandy's, a beach where you can usually see surfing, body boarding, body surfing and maybe some kites.  Coincidentally while puttering around the parking lot looking for some place to park we ran into some of Chris' old students as they were leaving!

SANDY BEACH PARK

We laid down a towel and sat down to just hang out.  Well, I sat and Chris reclined on my lap. It was really nice - about 4:30 in the afternoon, the sun was just starting to descend and it was really nice just relaxing on the beach. Chris started talking about how he had read the other day that penguins apparently have crazy teeth.  They have teeth on their tongues!!!

ACK!!!! TEETH ON THE TONGUE!!!!

 It's designed so that if they swallow live fish their mouths are designed to ensure that the fish make their way into their bellies!  Then he told me how male penguins search for a perfect rock and when they've found it, they give it to the female.  If the female accepts it then they mate for life.  He then gave me a rock and said that he had searched really hard, but this was the best rock he could find.  Of course I thought this was cute and accepted his rock. I totally didn't think anything of these stories since Chris is always telling me about random facts that he's learned.

So then he was all, "Great that was so easy!" Of course, I was like..."Wait a minute...this is just a practice rock.  But it's a great analogy since I know you've been searching hard for the perfect, REAL rock for me." He kept insisting, that no, this was my rock, but I apparently wasn't rising to his bait.

Suddenly he sat up and said, "Stand up."

I totally froze and instantly I just knew. I think I said something like, "Are you really doing this here?"

He got down on one knee, reached into his pants for the box, opened it up to show me and asked me to marry him.  Of course, I barely waited for him to finish his sentence before I said, "Yes!" Unfortunately I didn't realize there was a whole sweet speech and I totally missed out on it because I'm so darn impatient.  Now he's telling me it'll be our vows (which is irritating because I totally don't want to do original vows...oh well I might not have a choice because I really want to know what he was going to say!)

IMMEDIATELY AFTER CHRIS PROPOSED!

Cute story about the above picture...Chris asked a girl from a group of teenagers next to us to take the picture.  I guess he startled her when he went over, but when he explained things she was more than happy to take a picture.  Later, Chris kept hearing the girls tell other people the story about how we just got engaged - sweet :)

Did I cry?  Actually I didn't until about 10 minutes later when it hit me.  I think that since I've been waiting for this moment for so long I didn't really process it.  Chris said I just sat there in a daze for those 10 minutes just looking at him and the ring on my hand haha.  Then I was just really really excited :)

BASKING POST PROPOSAL WITH MY "PRACTICE ROCK"

WARNING: An excessive amount of ring pictures follows!

MY ROCKS

CHRIS + KRIS = ENGAGED!

 

I LOVE THIS PICTURE

THE OBLIGATORY RING ON HAND PICTURE ;p

(If you can believe it...I have more pictures.  I totally was having a photo shoot with my ring and just loving it haha)

Later I heard all about how I repeatedly kept foiling his plans.  First he wanted to propose at Sea Life Park by the penguins, but needed to go down there to try to set it up because they weren't returning his calls.  But then I asked if I could tag along that day.  He was trying to propose 6 months from my birthday, but something messed that up. Then when we were scooting around he wanted to climb down and propose on the rocks...but I kept driving off thinking we had only pulled over for cars to pass.  Then I was supposed to (like I normally would have) gotten really annoyed with the whole "this is the real rock" bit so that he could say, "well it's a good thing I came prepared with another rock."  Then I got too excited to hear the whole actual proposal and just said "Yes" right away haha. Oops.

We hung out at Sandy's for over an hour because I just didn't want to leave and end the experience. I texted my friends, called our families, but in the end we had to go, so we scooped up some of the sand for memories and decided to get back on the scooters for some Bubbie's mochi ice cream.  We got root beer, liliokoi, strawberry and dark chocolate (Strawberry mochi and dark chocolate chip ice cream), chocolate and peanut butter (Chocolate mochi and peanut butter ice cream), chocolate and mint (Chocolate mochi and mint ice cream) Yum!

ON MY SCOOTER AT SANDY'S

BUBBIE'S MOCHI ICE CREAM

Next Chris took me on a really cute little tour of his engagement journey.  We stopped off at where he got the center stone diamond.  He said that he realized that everything around our engagement had to do with scooters - he rented a scooter while he shopped for the stone and the ring and we got engaged while scootering around Honolulu!

WHERE CHRIS BOUGHT MY DIAMOND (THE ENGAGEMENT TOUR)

The whole thing does seem a little like kismet.  First, my bike was #21 and my lock was #13 - two of my most favorite numbers.  Then I was thinking about how June 11th is Kamehameha Day, a day to honor Kamehameha the Great who unified the Hawaiian islands.  Today marks the beginning of our official union of the Wong-Callistos! Then when we got home and he was showing me the ring on the website I realized that when I had given him my "list" of "likes/dislikes" for engagement rings I had included a picture of a different ring, but then later found this exact ring online and liked it more.  Without even knowing that, Chris literally picked out my dream setting!!!

CHRIS AND DIAMOND HEAD

SCOOTERING INTO THE SUNSET

At the point above in the two pictures, we had stopped and laughed about how we were "scootering off into the sunset."  I thought it was so perfect so I stopped and took the two pictures you see above.  As I blog I'm just now ALSO realizing the irony that I took a picture of DIAMOND Head at sunset on our engagement day...see?  Kismet!

We finished off the night by celebrating...not at some fancy restaurant, but with some good hearty wings (and beer/peach Schnapps iced tea and pretzels) at Buffalo Wild Wings.

CELEBRATING

So I've always been curious about how long he'd take and it's been 5 years, 8 months and 2 days.  Or:

• 179,020,800 seconds
• 2,983,680 minutes
• 49,728 hours
• 296 weeks 
• 2072 days

In the end, it was the best day ever.  Seriously, riding a scooter is the most fun new thing I've done in a long time and on top of it, to get engaged? In Hawai'i? Perfect.  I played the victim for a long time, but in the end I have to say I really am so lucky to have the most amazing fiancée (WHOA! Now imagine that like Joey would say on Blossom haha, if you can't here's one example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHvKR1tltGc).  He put a lot of thought into it and it went off beautifully despite all my best (unintentional) efforts to ruin it hahaha

Blissfully Ignorant - June 11, 2012 Part I

Today (June 11, 2012) Chris and I decided to head down to Hanauma Bay for some snorkeling.  We got down to the bay and the parking lot was full.  So instead we decided to try renting scooters for the day.  I had never ridden scooters, but Chris had and he was always talking about how fun it was.  We went to this place called Hawaiian Style Rentals & Tours in Waikiki. 

TELLING ME TO STOP TAKING PICTURES AND SIGN THE WAIVER

The company was really great at orienting me and soon we were off.  We scooted around Diamond Head until I was comfortable and then it was off to try Hanauma Bay again.  We had stopped off in Ewa before we headed down to town and loaded up on snacks and drinks for Hanauma, but totally left them in the car when we rented the mopeds...oops! So we stopped at the Koko Marina Shopping Center and got Subways, drinks and sunscreen.

When we got to Hanauma the parking lot was open.  Yippee!  Parking is a $1, but it's FREE if you are on a bike or moped.  Score! Then admissions is $7.50, but it's FREE if you are kama'aina. 

HANAUMA BAY

They have a trolley that shuttles people up and down the hill since it's pretty steep.  I thought it was interesting that it's only $0.75 for the ride down, but it's $1.00 to take it up!  I'm totally cheap (and we're healthy and able) so we walked down, picked up some rental snorkel and fins, put our stuff in a locker and then we were off to enjoy the bay. 

I was hungry and promptly inhaled probably about 8 inches of my footlong sub.  Chris immediately headed off into the water to go out the channel to snorkel around back (where I'm too chicken to go unless I'm in a dive outfit).

When I went out with Chris, but it was really hard because it was really shallow and it sucked trying to float over the reef without bumping into it.  I felt like I was sucking in my stomach the whole time I was snorkeling and that was really obnoxious.  I did get to finally try out my camera that I bought specifically because it had a dive housing. (Actually I bought the underwater housing BEFORE I got the camera...silly me since the camera was discontinued by Canon!) 

THE FISH JUST LET YOU GET LIKETHISCLOSE TO THEM :)

I think that since I've gotten spoiled snorkeling at Pu'uhonua o Honaunau that everywhere else is just not as good.  I definitely want to go back and do some diving if we can.

Chris was also over snorkeling, so we read our magazines/book while we dried out a little and then headed out to do some more scooting :)

US AT HANAUMA BAY (WE LOOK RED BECAUSE IT'S THE UNDERWATER SETTING - OOPS)

In the parking lot, we noticed some college aged girls were having trouble starting up their mopeds.  Chris swooped in to rescue them (although one of the girls actually did some damage to her bike and she had to call the company).  We then scooted off...little did I know what was to come

GIRLS THAT CHRIS HAD TO HELP START THEIR MOPEDS :)

Crawling through a Hedge = Winning! (Not Really)

We spent this past Sunday roaming our old haunts at the North Shore and most specifically Haleiwa.  Both Chris and I love Haleiwa...the chill, laidback vibe just works for us.  Keep the country country! 
If I were a multi-millionaire and could afford it, I'd buy a house up here and stay here for awhile (but I'm not a multi-millionaire and there is that whole global-warming-rising-seas bit which probably means North Shore property may be a limited time asset)

One of our favorite things to do is get the huli huli chicken next to Malama Market. 

HULI HULI STAND IN HALEIWA

"Huli" means "turn" in Hawaiian (Thanks to hula, I now know this!) and basically it's chicken on a spit, turned over kiawe wood which is Hawaiian mesquite.

IF ONLY YOU COULD SMELL THIS

 It is just so insanely good.  Two servings of rice and one huli huli chicken chopped for you and that's just a finger lickin' good meal.  I guess I should really say it's ono grindz! (Translation: Finger lickin' good food!)

Then we headed over to the Haleiwa's Farmer's Market. 

E KOMO MAI!

Hopefully they'll get to stay in their current location since there's a lot of current drama about the Department of Transportation telling the managers to cease and desist (despite having it run without issues for three years).  We were pretty stoked to see some old friends (an old TFA-er and another Ilima colleague who has a new business venture with Bokashi buckets - a way to turn food scraps into soil...for more information: http://eachoneteachonefarms.com/bokashi/).  We also got some delicious mini cheesecakes (Waimea strawberry for me and lilikoi for Chris).  Unfortunately they were too good and there's no proof since we ate them before I thought to take a picture.  Chris got some gross (smelly) smoked fish.

HALEIWA FARMER'S MARKET

The real reason I wanted to head up on this particular day is that I have always had this really weird hankering to do the Dole Plantation Maze.  Billed as the World's Largest Maze (Guinness confirmed in 2008), I have wanted to do the maze since I moved out here.  So Chris and I finally got the opportunity to tackle it.

They have you clock in at the beginning.  I clocked in at 1:40pm and Chris clocked in at 1:42pm (Ostensibly to give me a "head start"...pshaw!) and then we were off!

WHICH WAY TO GO???

I quickly realized the maze was no joke.  This wasn't going to be a sprint race.  The goal is to find eight "secret" stations and then get the different symbols stenciled (e.g. a palm tree, a fish, a train, a pineapple, etc) onto your ticket and THEN find your way out.

I bumped into Chris three times in between walking in what I felt were circles.  The first time I totally heard him laughing through a hedge.  This picture below is the second time when I found out...

RUNNING INTO CHRIS

HE HAD A MAP! Cheater.  But being that he's a good boyfriend (and also a cocky bastard haha) he gave me the map.  It helped somewhat to have the map (even more helpful that he labeled his routes and what symbols were where...

CHEATER HEDGE

But I'm not above a little "shortcut" here and there.  Especially when it's clear I'm not the only one who's done it!  Although there was this one Japanese couple that seemed especially horrified when I crawled out of a hedge while they were stenciling at one of the stations. Puh-leeze.  Call it American weirdness...I call it: Winning.  Ok I don't, because if I really said that line I would sound like Charlie Sheen and he's Cra-zee.

Finally I emerged, tired, hot but complete and saw Chris across the clearing.  I went up to him and asked him if he was done.  He asked me if I was done.  We both were pau.  He looked at me.  I looked at him.  And we started sprinting...I vaguely recall seeing a really confused four year old boy giving us a bewildered look as we left him and his family in our dust.

I got to the station and clocked in: 2:32pm.  I looked at Chris and he was just standing there.  And then realization hit me like a splash of cold water...he had already finished AND clocked out.  Sure enough he had: 2:21pm.  He had beaten me AND come back to the maze to find me.  Bugger.

OBNOXIOUS

Ugh.  I hate losing.  But I conceded victory since fighting it only meant Chris would be even more obnoxious (as I would be too if I had won).  The pineapple whip and pineapple float in the tacky souvenir cup helped soothe my losses though.

SIPPING ON MY PINEAPPLE FLOAT

 We took a stroll in the pineapple garden before heading home.  Even though I lost, it was a lot of fun.

TINY, PLUMP PINEAPPLE WITH TINY TOP

PINK PINEAPPLE WITH FLOWERS

WEIRD GOURD SHAPED PINEAPPLE