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Post by spackle on Apr 19, 2010 19:48:01 GMT -5
At least the dentist wasn't drilling one of your teeth when the earthquake started! I imagine s/he'd soon be drilling all of you teeth if that happened. Then you'd have to whop him/her with your Pu'u O' o'.
Great pics, friendly!
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Post by afriendlychicken on Apr 19, 2010 20:29:31 GMT -5
Thanks everyone. And to think, I was worried about that post. Am I supposed too make the pictures smaller? Oh, well. Now, to answer some of your questions. Great pictures! I like the contrast of the barren look around Mount Hualalai with some of the more lush scenery you've posted. I seem to remember hearing that the underlying geology of the Hawai'ian chain comes from a large lava source under the pacific plate which periodically punches through it, leaving the string of islands as the plate continues to move. Do you know offhand if that's accurate? Yea, the great thing about this island is that if you don't like the scenery where you're at, you just drive 20 miles in any direction and it'll change for you. That's accurate, Ijon. The Hawaiian islands were created by a hot spot in the middle of the Pacific plate. The hot spot is not under Kilauea but around 22 miles off shore. It's creating a volcano named Loihi. very nice pictures, chicken. i especially liked mauna loa and mauna kea. it really does go from one extreme to another there, doesn't it? when you and spackle were talking about earthquakes it made me think of the one and only tremor i've ever experienced when i was a kid. my mom and dad and i were out on our screened in back porch when everything started rattling and we heard this low rumbling sound. it lasted for several seconds or so, and then all was still again. but that kind of thing almost never happens in tennessee. there was another one a few years back not too far from here. it freaks everyone out. i couldn't help laughing at your experience with that one back in '75. as if going to the dentist isn't stressful enough - having the receptionist screaming that you're going to die would have made me run out the door screaming. You can never get used to earthquakes. It always shocks the senses because of it's suddenness. During the 75 quake, I believe we were on the 10th floor, the nurse screaming made my mom laugh because she just couldn't figure out how the screaming could help the situation. I guess she thought that if we were all going to die, the nurse could have done it with a little more dignity. I'm sure the nurse laughed about it later. This island supposedly has all of the environments on Earth, except for two. The Antarctic and Death Valley type. We do have tundra and a desert, rain forests, marshes and other wet-lands, grassy plains, wet and dry, hot and cold. You name it, we have it. At least the dentist wasn't drilling one of your teeth when the earthquake started! I imagine s/he'd soon be drilling all of you teeth if that happened. Then you'd have to whop him/her with your Pu'u O' o'. Great pics, friendly! Yep, I would have kerranged him right in his ala-alas, which I think is self explanatory. ;D
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Post by spackle on Apr 19, 2010 21:30:34 GMT -5
the nurse screaming made my mom laugh because she just couldn't figure out how the screaming could help the situation ;D I think I would like your mom. Yep, I would have kerranged him right in his ala-alas, which I think is self explanatory. ;D Quite.
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Post by ilmatto on Apr 19, 2010 21:36:33 GMT -5
AFC, some years ago my Hawaiian friend had a dog that she had named Noelani, and I always liked that name. I love the sound of Noelani.
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Post by afriendlychicken on Apr 19, 2010 23:53:57 GMT -5
The Hawaiian language has beautiful female names. A lot of female names have lani as a part of it. I know lani means heaven, or sky, but I had to look up noe. The name means heavenly mist, or beautiful girl from heaven.
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Post by afriendlychicken on Apr 20, 2010 4:02:24 GMT -5
As I was searching through youtube I discovered something interesting.
It's a video of the most eastern point of Oahu as shot by a motorcyclist and it shows my favorite view on Oahu. It starts at Sandy Beach, goes around Makapu'u and finishes in Waimanalo. I love this for two reasons. First, at the 2:40 mark you will see the location of the laboratory they used for the filming of Code Name: Diamond Head. That's what it looks like today. The second is at 4:09, where there's a close-up of the hills that were behind my house, so you're looking at Bellows Air Field. Hope you enjoy.
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Post by caucasoididiot on Apr 20, 2010 8:18:49 GMT -5
Very nice!
So, this question began as a joke, but the more I thought about it, the more serious it became. Where do Hawai'ians go for a vacation? Death Valley? Antarctica? It sounds like you already have lots of Asian culture, so do people go more for Old World Europe type destinations?
As an aside, both Death Valley and Antarctica actually are great destinations.
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Post by afriendlychicken on Apr 20, 2010 19:21:33 GMT -5
Very nice! So, this question began as a joke, but the more I thought about it, the more serious it became. Where do Hawai'ians go for a vacation? Death Valley? Antarctica? It sounds like you already have lots of Asian culture, so do people go more for Old World Europe type destinations? As an aside, both Death Valley and Antarctica actually are great destinations. Locals love contests that the winning prize is a trip to Hawai'i. It's even better if the trip is to the island you live on! "Alright! I can win a trip to the other side of the island!" No thanks, well just take the money. You may not believe this, but the place that most local residents travel to on vacation is Las Vegas. Don't ask me why. The other is San Francisco, which I visited and didn't really like. My grandma lives in Reading, California. I've never visited her there, but my parents have. They say it's a nice area. There is a lot of travel to Asian countries especially the Philippines and Japan. Europe not so much, the cost of the trip is just too much, which is why I believe we don't have that many tourist from Europe. I'll go to Antarctica, but I don't know about Death Valley... PS: I wrote something that bothered me and I came back and edited it. It just didn't sound right to me.
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Post by spackle on Apr 20, 2010 20:51:57 GMT -5
Self-editing, the bane of everyone with a conscience. Loved that bike ride! Next time, could you get her to stop looking at the road and point the camera at all the neat views?
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Post by afriendlychicken on Apr 21, 2010 5:12:03 GMT -5
Next time, could you get her to stop looking at the road and point the camera at all the neat views? I know, yea! She should have turned her head side-ways the whole time. HAWAIIAN MYTHOLOGYThere are a lot of stories in Hawaiian mythology and at least 39 different gods. There are stories about Pele and the battles with her sister Hi'iaka, Maui who is the super-hero of Hawai'i, and the night-marchers who are the ghost of Hawaiian warriors that chant and march. My favorite stories, though, are of the Menehune. The best introduction I could find for them comes from the book "Tales of the Menehune" by Mary Kawena Puku'i and Caroline Curtis. I'll quote from the forward to the book: "The menehune were the little people of Hawaiian Tales. As they lived in the mountain forests and came to the lowland at night, they were not often seen. Yet the Hawaiians could describe them. They were two or three feet tall, the stories said, thickset, and hairy. Some of them were never heard to talk while others talked with deep, gruff voices. The Hawaiians said their talk sounded like the low growl of a dog, and their laughter could be heard far away. These little people worked at night. They worked together and in great numbers. In a single night they could accomplish mighty deeds such as building a road or heiau (temple) or walling in a fish pond. Menehune fish pond. Lihue, Kauai. Once they even took a spring from it's rocky bed and carried it, bundled in ti leaves, down to the lowland so that the villagers might have it's water for their taro patches. At cock-crow all work must stop for that was menehune law, and a job must be finished in a single night. Men still point to certain walls left unfinished when morning came to quickly. The Hawaiians learned that a man who was unkind to a menehune would be punished by these little people, while one who showed them friendship might be rewarded by the work of many, many hands. Many stones are found which legends say were once disobedient menehune or bad Hawaiians who tried to harm the little people. A menehune cave on Kauai. A favorite sport of the menehune was jumping from a cliff into the sea. The little men would bring stones from the mountains until they had a large pile on the cliff. Then a good swimmer would throw a stone into the water and leap after it, trying to catch it as it sank. Once, as they played this game,a shark attacked them. A'aka, one of the men, was almost caught. The menehune gathered in an excited group. "Let us punish the shark," said one. "Let us kill him!" said A'aka angrily. "Yes, let us kill that man-eater, so that never again can he harm menehune or Hawaiian." Soon the shark smelled food, swam after it, and found himself caught in a trap basket of beach-morning-glory vines. The shark was killed. But the menehune never again swam in that bay." Well, that's the first story I'll share about the menehune. I'll share more legends of Hawai'i a little later. Aloha.
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Post by caucasoididiot on Apr 22, 2010 9:21:34 GMT -5
Interesting how so many cultures have a similar race of mysterious builders. Were these unfinished walls something very old? Did Hawai'i have "Dark Ages" that left ruins from previous times that they were explaining?
Just a quick backtrack to vacation spots, I actually did enjoy Death Valley a lot. If there was no wind there was a palpable silence unlike anything I've experienced elsewhere, and the stars were just incredible. Joshua trees are pretty cool too.
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Post by afriendlychicken on Apr 23, 2010 21:28:47 GMT -5
I don't know of any dark ages. What was discovered was that the people we consider Hawaiian today was not the original natives to the islands. It seems that people from the Marquesas Island arrived here first around AD 400 and the Tahitians arrived around 500 years later. When the Tahitians settled down, they oppressed the original settlers and caused them to flee to the mountians. The Tahitians called them Manahene, or commoner. So the things they had built were known as being built by the Manahune. When Europeans showed up after Captain Cook's visit, the modern day small people Menehune legends were born, probably an imitation of brownie stories. Anything that before was referred to as being a Manahune construction became Menehune, along with a lot of later Hawaiian constructions.
Death Valley does sound nice. I'd love to see Joshua trees and having a place with clear dark skies, I know they are a rarity on the continent. We are very lucky, our skies are about as dark as you can get. The can't-see-the-hand-in-front-of-your-face type of dark.
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Post by ilmatto on Apr 23, 2010 22:26:53 GMT -5
Death Valley would be nice but I would also like to go to Monument Valley in Utah. I was just watching Once Upon a Time in the West the other day and they had some extensive shooting in Monument Valley. I'd like to go there. I'd like to go to Meteor Crater AZ too; I've seen it from the air but not up close.
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Post by ilmatto on Apr 24, 2010 6:29:05 GMT -5
AFC I was reading an article not long ago that said the canned meat product Spam was very popular in Hawaii. I have read the same thing about Okinawa and the Philippines - but I have spent a lot of time in both those places and never saw Spam anywhere, but then again I did not live there as a local, which probably makes all the difference. Do you have any special recollections of particularly asymmetrical Spam consumption while growing up in HI?
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Post by afriendlychicken on Apr 25, 2010 5:39:22 GMT -5
Spam is extremely popular in Hawai'i. It's one of the top 10 foods you'll find in every kitchen on the islands, along with shoyu and rice. Every household I've ever been in had spam and local restaurants serve it with breakfast. I can remember eating spam all the time and we do usually cook it. The best tasting spam is cooked with rice vinegar. Spam musubi is a favorite of mine and there's a dinner recipe I can cook that includes spam. It's simple, all you need is a can of pineapple, a can of pineapple juice, brown sugar and spam. Mmmm mmmm! Today, I want to share some of Hawai'i's music. There are a few different styles in local music, we have a little bit of jazz, rock and hip hop. The most popular music is called Jawaiian which is a combination of reggae and local music and is my least favorite. There's traditional chants, ukulele and slack key instrumentals, hapa hoale hula's which is in english and danced to, and what is called traditional Hawaiian music, which is my favorite. The instruments used in a traditional band are a stand-up bass, ukulele, a steel guitar on occasion, and acoustic guitars played in slack key. it's called slack key because of the fact that the strings are loosened to create an open chord and is usually played by finger picking. I'll share a few of my favorites. This first video is a song from The Makaha Sons of Ni'ihau who the legendary Hawaiian musician Israel Kamakawiwo'ole was a part of, until 1993: "I'll Remember You" This second is from Gabby Pahinui, probably the most famous Hawaiian musician: "Wahine U'i" (This means Beautiful women.) Next, we have one of the most popular songs for residents of Hawai'i by the group Olomana: "Ku'u Home 'O Kahalu'u" (This means "my home in Kahalu'u." This is a typical youtube music "video." I don't mind, the song is what's important here) Lastly, a beautiful love song sung by Palani Vaughan: "Ipo Lei Manu" (Ipo Lei Manu translates as something close to "a feather lei for my sweetheart." Another typical youtube "video.") I find all these songs extremely beautiful and I hope you'll enjoy them too. Until next time, Aloha. PS: I give up on embedding!
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