22nd Annual Honolulu Festival - 03/12 - 3/13/2016

Every year, I look forward to going to the Honolulu Festival to see my favorite performers, the parade and the fireworks.

This year I caught the lantern performance.  They balance lanterns on their head, shoulder and back side.  Side note, it was super dark inside and w/o the high ISO and work in photoshop, it would be impossible to get any pics.

It was really awesome to see their balancing skill.

These lanterns aren't that small or light..even though it's paper and bamboo.

I walked around to catch some craft booths.. pounding this leaf-shaped copper piece.

It turns into a cool chopstick holder..

At the parade, there were groups from all over the world like this band from Mexico playing the song 'Tequila'.

This group's from Taiwan.

Flag throwers from Italy.

The setting sun was hard to shoot because of the bright glare, but after the sunset, it started to get dark and even harder to shoot. 

Finally the lighted floats started to arrive... meaning the end of the parade is near.

After waiting 2 hours, I finally get my shot at the fire breathing dragon... very difficult to shoot because it's dark, and very bright and lots of crowds.. 

At 8:30pm, the Nagaoka Firework Show started.  The crowd seem larger than previous year,  The tide seems higher so there was less sand to sit on.. so I ended up setting up in the crowd w/ my tripod. I didn't read my manual so I couldn't find the BULB setting!!  I nearly panicked and called it a day but then I realize I can just set it for 8 secs. It worked out quite well at F11.  

It started to get larger w/ this chrysanthemum pattern.  I had to zoom out.. thus catching the coconut tree in my shot.

Towards the end when the fireworks got really large, the entire trunk was caught in my shot.. 

I learned a few things from this shot.. 1) Found the BULB setting in the turn knob after I got home, 2) even though my 'neighbor' next to me kicked my tripod (3 times), the darkness and the long exposure didn't pick up any blurriness. 3)Next time check for coconut trees.  I had no idea it would block my view.

At the festival, the guy pointed out that the fireworks show used only the two smaller balls, the ones in Japan uses the larger size one.  From the looks of the firework show, The Nagaoka fireworks show must be HUGE.

Chinatown Finds - 03/06/2016

Here's a collections of the food finds in Chinatown over the past few months.

These were available during the Autumn Moon Festival.  I was attracted to the evil shape it had.. I did some research and found that you have to boil them well since the water these things grow in could have bacteria that can get you sick.  I was hesitant to try it, but I did.  

The white meat inside was not crunchy like a water chestnut. It was like eating a grainy potato (hmm.. maybe I boiled them too long).  Cracking it required a nut cracker as the shell is super hard.

One day, I heard these ladies talking about these kumquats.  I've only had those from crack seed store, but not fresh ones.  The lady said you can eat the skin and all and it's very sweet.  So I bought a bag of them.  I think for about $2/lb.

She was right. It was sweet, but not really juicy.  Kind of remind me of this Yuzu candy I tried.  I ate a soft one, thinking it would be sweeter.. then i realized it had WORMS inside!!  I ate the rest, but made sure to look really good for worms.

I have no idea what this is.  I took a pic of it hoping I'd be able to google to one day find its name.

My strangest find.. This is a cacao. The guy told me it was $3 each.  It was very intriguing.

I read about the fleshy meat inside so we cut it open and surprisingly, it wasn't too hard to cut it open.

As with other fruit finds, I googled 'is it safe to eat raw cacao'  and it mentioned it wasn't too safe to eat them. I read that ingesting too many of it has the effects of LSD. Animals in the wild don't eat this, or those that live long don't. I was really hesitant to even try.

I did try a piece. It was kinda sour and had a tangy taste.  It wasn't too tasty and was hard to get the meat off so we gave up.

We cleaned off the seed.

The shell was kinda cool though.

I had all this leftover seeds, I read that for making cocoa.you have to ferment it. So I put it in a paper bag for a week. It started to turn a brown cocoa like color but it had a nasty smell though.

I'm sure I did that previous step wrong since it was still wet, but I figure why not try and bake it to roast it.  It turned dark brown, but was still goopy.

I cut it open to see what it looks like. I was not even going to attempt to try to taste it.  It smelled roasted, but still had a sorta bad smell.

It's been a few months.  Although the cacao experiment didn't turn out well, I still have the dried shell and it turned out pretty really cool. I still have the cleaned seed. Perhaps I'd plant it to see if it'd sprout.

Sogetsu Hawaii Luncheon - 02/27/2016

I was invited to the Sogetsu Hawaii Luncheon held at the Ala Moana Hotel. I had no idea about the lighting but I figure w/ the high ISO of my new Canon 6D, it wouldn't be a problem. I was able to shoot most, if not all of these at ISO 1600! This is awesome since it would be so grainy w/ my 50D. I didn't need flash at all and I was using the 24-105mm with max aperture at F4.5 so it wasn't a low light lens. I think the lighting of the stage  and I had front row seat so those factors helped a lot. The sensei used a wide range of flowers.

It's a balancing act to keep the branches from falling as well as keeping with the design.

There's this mixed media arrangement made w/ an Itoen Green Tea can.

The finale was this huge arrangement.  I think she said the leafy branch was mock orange.  I think I only knew the name of one of the flower used in all of her arrangements.

Lechon -- 02/06/2016

Last week was the Chinatown festival on Maunakea street.  I spotted this unusual roast and it smelled great!  I didn't have time and had to leave so I didn't get to find out what it was.

Then today, they had another Chinatown Festival at the Chinese Cultural Plaza and there it was again. I got a closer look.. it was just like the Chinese roast pork, except it's boneless. 

I took a pic of the sign.. Lechon. I googled and found that "Lechón is a pork dish in several regions of the world, most specifically Spain and its former colonial possessions throughout the world. The word lechón originated from the Spanish term lechón, referring to a suckling pig that is roasted".  But also, I found that it's Filipino-style boiled and deep fried pork belly.

They had just started the BBQ. It looks like it'll take a while to roast over this small fire.

There'll be another festival at the Chinese Cultural Plaza next Saturday and Sunday and hopefully, I'll find better parking so I have time to give this a try.

New Year Ohana Festival - 01/10/2016

This year's Ohaha Festival at the Japanese Cultural Center seems a bit more crowded. There was a large tent filled with people at the Moilili Field where the entertainment was so it was hard to photograph. I try to go every year to see the pounding mochi and Taiko performance.  This year gave me another chance to practice with my camera.  

Canon 6D - 01/07/2016

Happy New Year! It's been a while. Finally, I am able to post some test shots I took with my Christmas present to myself:  my very first full frame camera, the Canon 6D. I got a pretty good deal from Amazon that included a 24-105mm lens, a camera bag, SD card, and non-canon rechargable battery (I'm hesitant to use them since I worry about it causing damage to my camera). I'm still getting used to it learning how to change the settings since it's way different from my 50D. Here are my test shots. The full frame is makes everything looks so wide now. I know I'm losing the distance end but wow! the wide is pretty cool. I had to do some distortion correction w/ PSE because the building wall was slanted.

Here's one I did not fix.. I used my 16-35mm and it looks like I was using a fisheye.

I always had a hard time with the 50D under the dark streetlights in Waikiki.. I took a walk during the last street festival and the high ISO was pretty amazing too. I shot this at 2300 ISO.  I did make some small adjustments to remove yellowing in PSE but there is very little noise.

Again this was shot with the 16mm and the bldg looked pretty cool with the wide shot.  I really like the upgrade I FINALLY made.  My 2016 new year resolution:. find more time to shoot with my new 6D.