Helena's

What's for lunch? After 2 minutes of deliberation on Thursday, my friends and I decided to eat Hawaiian food for this Friday's lunch. It was either Young's Fishmarket or Helena's. Since all of us have never eaten at Helena's, we decided to give it a try. The restaurant is very small, the hole-in-the-wall kine. I love the homey atmosphere even though the restaurant was located in a rather sketchy neighborhood. When we sat down at our table, the first thing the waitress gave us was a plate of haupia. I thought, "This is best day of my life!" I quickly chowed down a piece and waited impatiently for the others to eat theirs ... secretly hoping they don't like haupia so I can eat them all, whoahahahahaha! We ordered kalua pig, beef stew, pipikaula shortribs, laulau, lomi salmon, and chicken long rice. Each of us ordered our choice of starch - I had the day old poi. I was thinking of 1 LB haupia for my starch but that would be a total sugar overload. Oh, the food was ONO! The pipikaula shortribs were juicy and tender. The poi was sweet and smooth. I remember I used to hate poi because it had a weird texture and it tasted sour. After trying it with different foods, I am becoming a big poi fan. Especially this poi, it was so onolicious that I practically dumped the ting down my throat at the end. Food coma followed and the rest of my day was quite unproductive. I would say the food at Helena's is more ono than Ono Hawaiian Food and even Young's Fishmarket, though that's a close one.

Video of me :)

Remember the emotional work meeting I had blogged about last month, something about making history? Well, I have a 10-minute coverage of that meeting that was shown in one of the Maui TV stations. I have not yet figured out a way to download the streaming media onto my computer. For now, please click here to view the video. This is so exciting ... I was on TV!

East Maui Trip 1

The first of my field visit to East Maui wasn't so bad. It was a lot of hiking through brush, climbing over boulders twice my size, and wading through streams where the water level was over 2 feet deep. I had anticipated all that, and was well prepared for two days of sweat and hiking with wet socks. Yeah, sounds kind of disgusting and it sure was. Despite the rough conditions, it was memorable because I had the opportunity to meet some of the community members that I had only conversed with over the telephone. Some of them hiked with us to show their support. I was happy to finally meet with them in person.

Let me share with you some of my memorable moments of this trip. Below is a photo of Honopou Stream, where it joins with tributary Puniawa Stream and continues down to the ocean. I had never before seen the confluence of two streams.

The purpose of this field trip was to select locations in the stream for flow measurement and installation of staff gages to monitor streamflow. We had found a perfect site for measuring flow on Hanehoi Stream, except for this gigantic boulder that was preventing perfect laminar flow. So, we decided to move this 10 ton boulder to the side. With the little tools that we had - a shovel and two branches that we sawed off a tree - it took us 30 to 40 minutes to move the boulder but the result was well worth our effort. 

Here I am, measuring flow while hoping I don't slip and fall down the waterfall behind me.

So, I am in Palauhulu Stream and I have to go upstream of the flume to locate a site for measuring flow. I had two choices: A) climb the waterfall on the left; or B) walk the flume. If you look at the photo on the left, the water level used to be where the faint line is on the side of the rock wall. Now with the drought, the stream has gone dry. If there was water, I could easily swim to where I needed to go. The photo on the right shows the Keanae Flume. It looks wide in the photo but I believe it is only about 1.5 feet wide. The flume overhangs 10-20 feet above the dry stream, with moving water inside the flume. With choice A, I could potentially fall into the two feet pool at the bottom and maybe break a leg. If I choose choice B, I could potentially lose my balance and fall 20 feet into a dry rocky stream and break my neck. So, choice A no doubt.
 
Here is the Keanae Flume from below. It is pretty high up.

From Hana Highway, we hiked below the bridge to get to Wailuanui Stream. The cascading waterfall (photo on the left) was the first thing we saw on the way down. Then we continued down the stream to look for a good location to measure flow. The photo on the right shows how far we went on the stream from the highway. We went pretty far out but found no good location for flow measurement. ~Sigh. The good news is, we all made it back alive :)
 

Fire at Preschool

A fire occurred at 4AM this morning at a preschool right across the street from our apartment. Although the fire burned about 50% of the school; fortunately, nobody was hurt. This was the closest I have ever been to a fire, and seeing firemen in action. It was a rather exciting scene - flares were set up, policemen blocked the road, three fire trucks pulled up, firemen running back and fourth. The street was so bright! 
I will be going to Maui tomorrow to do some field work. Then I will be going again next Monday for three more days. Wish me luck as I heard some of the sites I am to visit are pretty rough.

My Art Blog is Now Open

I am excited to tell you that my art blog is FINALLY open! Not that you have been waiting for it ... were you? Sorry, took me awhile to design the banner for the website. I came up with a couple choices but none passed the test. This past Sunday, I grabbed my handy dandy black ball point pen (that I got for free at a drug rep dinner) and began drawing, anything. I started with a baked bao, then I switched to a pig, and it all just magically came together - the bao pooping pig. Hey, I said "magically", not reasonably.

Something worries me ... I now have 4 blogs to maintain, plus one Flickr account. Not sure how I am gonna do it but I'll find a way. In the meantime, please visit my new art blog. The "Artsy" word on the (right end) banner of this blog will also take you to my art blog. I will only update it when I have new art to share. Well, I might have more posts initially because I want to share with you my previous artwork. Enjoy!

Splendor of China

Two weekends ago, we went to the Splendor of China Festival. As much as I would like to commend this effort of educating the public about the Chinese culture, I was a little disappointed because I felt like I was in Chinatown , well, without the dirty streets and the grocery shops (don't get me wrong, I don't hate Chinatown). Okay, there was quite a difference from Chinatown, but I didn't see anything surprising...hmm, actually I did see something surprising but I will talk about that later. I guess what I am trying to say is, the whole experience didn't WOW me...which is rather sad because, here I am, a Chinese girl walking into what is supposedly her world, but totally disinterested. Am I bored of my culture or was there really nothing to see? The culture of China, as I remember it, is grand! So much to tell and so much more to experience; yet, I didn't experience any at the festival. I was most disappointed at the food because there was a lack of authenticity. Again, don't get me wrong, I have nothing against Panda Express. In fact, I ate there the day before to get a $1 discount coupon for the festival. Oh, the orange chicken was yummy. Anyway, I just thought Panda Express and the other restaurants that were present do not represent authentic Chinese cuisine. I guess my head was wrapped around eating smelly tofu by a street stand or inhaling durian ice cream by the pier. The stuff for sale were not interesting. However, one of the shows was pretty amazing. A guy walked onto the platform dressed in a white batman costume, with a mask over his face. He stomped the floor and his mask changed color and sometimes the pattern too. At one point, he showed his face and then a mask covered it in a split second.

Despite all that, I did manage to take some interesting pictures, which somewhat summarize my experience and the goofy thoughts that persuaded me to write this post.




Ah! Here is the surprising thing that happened at the festival. Shown on the left is the same panda that I bought for HappyOblivion when we first met back in Davis, California (7 years ago). A company called Caltoy made this cutie and we can no longer find him or the others (including a hedgehog, pig, hippo, doggy, etc...). My friends bought me the Caltoy pig and I love him dearly - so soft and pink. We were so surprised to see another one of this panda because he is a rare find! From our research, these Caltoys have been discontinued a long time ago, shortly after we first bought them at KB Toys. The first time we saw this panda was in a Campbell Soup commercial. We recorded that commercial because how many discontinued toys that you own ever appear in a commercial? I am not referring to care bears or snoopy or garfield. I am talking about those that are not popular. Gosh, when we saw this panda used as a "decoration" in the miniature golf booth at the festival, we were devising ways to take this panda home with us. Who would leave this soft fluffy animal on the dirty floor, occasionally attacked by a golf ball because some kid can't aim (sorry, no offense to kids but I do love this panda). I hope he is home, safely tucked in a comfortable bed.

Mana Bu

I'd hate for my blog to turn into a food blog, as there exists a million others already. However, food is such an important part of my life that I have to blog about my somewhat "recent" memorable food encounters. Notice the quotation marks - I am pretty behind on my posts.

HappyOblivion and I had heard of Mana Bu, a cute Japanese take out place (okazuya) that sells healthy musubi's and other sweets. Since the chefs value quality and not quantity, the store sells out quickly. About a couple weeks ago, HappyOblivion and I finally visited Mana Bu. The store is very small. Wooden shelves are lined up against two sides of the wall with different musubi's neatly displayed on each shelf. The third wall has a refrigerator unit with desserts and pickled vegetables. The musubi's are made with very healthy ingredients, such as seaweed, 10-grain rice, corn and other vegetables, ume, and dried fish. Below are some of the food we bought.  Starting from the upper left and following a "Z" direction: Shiso and Wakame Musubi, Veggie Curry Pilaf Musubi, Tamago, Cold Zenzai with Mochi. We love them all. I particularly liked the Tamago - the sweetness was just right. With America becoming more health conscious, this will become a popular alternative to the American diet. 

Ninja Sushi

Have I ever blogged about Ninja Sushi - my favorite fast food sushi joint? We particularly like the one near Pearlridge. We go there so often we sometimes get complimentary pot stickers, yummy. The people in that store are very nice. I am not saying this because they give us free food. They work hard to keep the store clean and orderly. They provide us with freshly brewed corn and barley tea. The first time I drank it, I loved it so much I asked how they brewed it. The owner went in the kitchen and came back with a small bag of roasted corn and barley for me to take home and make my own tea. So very nice people. Oh and on my last birthday, I went there for lunch and they treated me to green tea mochi ice-cream. It was a simple birthday lunch, nothing fancy but I was comfortable. Not so long ago I watched a documentary on the food stalls in Japan, and how these tiny places provide an escape and safe heaven for the working people of Japan. Well, the Ninja at Pearlridge is my very own food stall.

This is a picture of the drawings in the store.

Lion roll.

Spicy Ahi Donburi.

T-Dragon Roll.

A Riddle For You

Today at work, my boss gave me a pretty cool riddle that he heard on the radio. See if you can solve it.

What is ...
Greater than God;
More evil than the devil;
The poor have it;
The rich want it;
And if you eat this, you will die.

Leave your answer as a comment. Have fun!