Honolulu Festival Part 1 - 03/03/2013

I was able to go to the 2nd day of the Honolulu Festival at the Convention center to see the performances. There were 2 stages with different entertainment throughout the day.  I had lots of exercise going from the outside stage to the inside stage, but it was very challenging having to change my camera setting from outside lighting to indoor lighting.  This year, I tried to frame my shots a little differently by doing mostly landscape shots.  I had a great time enjoying the entertainment and taking photos.

There were different lively groups performing taiko.

In the indoor stage, there was a group from Japan performing the Hula.

Then on the outside stage, this lively group of young rock and roll performers doing songs from the 80's. These were the most talented youngsters I've seen. 

I stayed for this jazz group from the Joint Forces at Hickam.  I enjoyed their performance as much as they enjoyed performing together.

For the finale on the Indoor stage, the Yosakoi Team Tokiwa.  I've seen a lot of the performers from previous year but I still enjoy seeing them again year after year.

During some breaks in performances I was able to take some shots of the art work displays.

I saw this mask on the news and I was glad to be able to catch a shot of it as well as the master carver.

There was a floral group who displayed different bouquets. I really couldn't tell if these were real or fake flowers.  

Chinese New Year Festival - 01/26/2013

Just a couple of weeks ago, I was at the Japanese New year celebration, today I was in Chinatown and checked out the Pre-Chinese New Year Festivities at the Chinese Cultural Plaza. There were booths selling new year good luck trinkets and food as well as lion dance performance.

Almost everything in this booth is red and gold color.  

This booth had Jung (mochi rice wrapped in bamboo leaves) and I have no idea what is in the other pot.

They also had jin dui and other dim sum and desserts..

They set up the firecrackers before the lion dance.

There were two troops so there was twice as many drums and cymbols and it was very noisy.  When I went to lunch, my ears were still ringing for the first 10mins of sitting down.

There was a booth selling these cherry blossom which were pretty pricey, but people buy them to display in their homes for good luck.  The real Chinese New Year festivities will be next weekend on Feb. 1 and 2 when there will be a parade w/ many lion dances and street festival on Maunakea Street. 

New Year Ohana Festival - 01/13/2013

Somehow, I managed to miss this event every year but I finally got a chance to check out the Ohana Festival this year at the Japanese Cultural Center. I was worried it would rain, so I didn't bring my 50D but it turned out to be a great but super hot day.  The Lumix is great for sunny outdoor shots, but too slow for action  shots so I  didn't get any good performance shots. Still i managed to click at the right time to get some good mochi pounding pics and the long zoom helped get great closeups.

When I arrived, they were doing the Mochi Pounding or "mochi-tsuki" demonstration. It was really cool how they managed to pound the grains of mochi rice into a sticky dough.

I wanted to get pics of the entire process so I came back later to get better shots of the mochi-tsuki process.

At the cultural center, they had calligraphy writing make-it take-its.

 I watched a dance performance by these girls in brightly colored kimonos.

And of course the Taiko performers.  I recognized them from the Okinawan Festival.

I wasn't a fan of Kikaida when I was little because of the language barrier, but saw that the actor was going to appear so I fought the crowd to try get some pics..  I think he is Kikaida..

And here's the actor Ban Daisuke who came all the way from Japan.

There were also appearance of Kikaida's Friend, who I have no idea what his name is.. but I know he is a 'good guy'.  It was great fun and the kids young and old loved it.  

Honolulu City Lights - 12/27/2012

For the HPS last outing of the year, we always choose to see the Christmas lights after Christmas to avoid the crowds. There were still some crowd, but at least it was manageable so that I could get shots w/o people. I got there before sunset shortly after 5 pm and it was still very bright outside. I thought this angle was cool because it was distinctively a Hawaiian Christmas with the coconut trees.

It was still early that they hadn't even turn on all the light yet.  I decided to change it up a bit and added PSE effects to the daytime shots.

I got to try different angles of the tree since there wasn't much crowd.  

For the night shot, I decided to use bulb mode so I can control and test different shutter speeds.  I even tried lighting the poinsettia plants w/ my flash using 'manual' remote flash method by holding it in one hand and setting it off using the test flash button on the flash. it was so cool there's not even a person caught in my shot.

Since i wasn't able to get a clear shot of Mr. and Mrs. Santa, I decided to apply effects again for some distraction.

Earlier when I first arrived, i went to check out the wreath display.. alas.. no crowd..

There were some funky wreaths. Somehow I think this year's theme was on recycling.

Here are these angels made w/ those foam wrappers they use on pears.

I believe this is the winner.  It is really detailed and quite exquisite..and made of shards of cd/dvd disks.

In a closeup you can see how many pieces of CDs were used.. it was quite amazing.

Heron's Catch - 12/29/2012

I went to the Ala Wai Park and saw this Heron. I was fascinated by how he was hunting for his meal.

I watched him catch a small fish and swallowed it whole.

I watched him catch a couple more..he'd be really still (which made it easier for my camera to get a sharp shot) then go in for the quick grab.

Then he caught this humongous fish.  I was wondering how he's gonna eat that..

I can't believe he also managed to gulp it down.. I could see his neck get fat..

After about 6 fishes or so, he finally was full, I swear he looked fatter.

On my walk, I also saw this pair of cardinals.. they were really cute...but really fast.

Gingerbread Houses - Xmas 2012

I haven't posted in a while since I've been busy w/ my 'other life' and haven't gotten to take out my camera. I finally got a chance to pull out my small camera on my walk to the Princess Kaiulani Hotel to see their annual gingerbread house creation. It is really cool to see, but difficult to photograph because the gingerbread is dark and the lighting is not so great there, however, the work of art is awesome. Here are some of them.. This year, they added the Eiffel Tower and the Tower Bridge.

I had a second chance to see gingerbread houses at the KCC culinary school for the Eyes of Hawaii Christmas Party.  These were really cute.