Sing Cheong Yuan Bakery - 1027 Maunakea Street, Chinatown, Honolulu

1027 Maunakea Street was listed for sale a little over a year ago by my partner and me. Rather than securing a buyer, a promising tenant was found. Sing Cheong Yuan Bakery leased the building, renovated it and opened this popular Chinese bakery and candy shop. As you can see by this photo, it is a highly trafficked street (by foot & car). Their location is directly across the entrance & exit of the Maunakea Street Municipal Parking Lot so there is lots of convenient and affordable parking. I usually stop by and pick up some candied fruits or brittle whenever I'm visiting Chinatown. They have candied strawberries, lotus root, coconut, pineapple, melon, kumquat, carrot & some others. It is sold by weight and runs just a little under $7 a pound. My favorites are the kumquats, strawberries, lotus root and melon! They make great treats and they are REAL FRUITS! This is after all a bakery so they also have baked goods here. They have a variety of cookies and brittles. A very popular Chinese cookie is the Almond Cookie which they bake and sell here. The have several different brittles including the popular peanuts & macadamia nuts. They also sell fresh made Gao (Chinese Sweet Mochi Rice) and some other baked goods like hot dog rolls and Bao. Chinese New Year Celebrations are coming up. Couple of events are scheduled for this weekend. Check out the calendar at http://chinatownhi.com/. If you visit Chinatown, stop by and pick up a snack! Let me know what your favorites are so I can try some next time I visit!

The Thunderbirds Air Show at Hickam AFB Honolulu

There's not much to say about it... it's one of those "you had to have been there..." things. Even photos or videos would not bring nearly the level of excitement one would receive standing there (in the the baking hot sun). I've been to quite a few air shows in my lifetime, but they were all shows that were in Hawaii. I last watched the Thunderbirds perform for the Waikiki area in 2007 and I've watched the Blue Angels perform several times. No matter how hot, dehydrating, humid, crowded, dusty and secured the events may be I still manage to go and enjoy the display. When anything is held on an air strip or air force base, you need to expect that there will be a lack of shade. <--Here is Solomish standing "solo" in the middle of baking hot pavement. Check out Solomish's photo blog here. Here I am -->trying to keep cool under the shelter of a helicopter. This is what a whole bunch of other people need to do if they want to find some shade. v*Below*v This is 1 day that I'm glad I need to bring my own things to eat with me (due to my diet). It was worth lugging around this hand carry bag full of water, a banana & some Fritos. I had it in my backpack, but hesitated bringing the backpack in because a "large backpack" would not be allowed into the show area. I didn't know what a large backpack's size actually was so I abandoned my backpack in my car and lugged this lovely bag around the whole afternoon. This man & his family obviously knew what size of a backpack would be acceptable... What ever the type of bag you were carrying your refreshments in, it was worth it to avoid the crowds at the refreshment tents. Check out some of my video clips below. This is a slideshow of some of the photos I took. Since I only take photos & video with my Nokia N82 mobile phone, I doubt they will be as good as any of these guys' photos (below), but at least I can slip my camera back in my pocket, send some emails, check out Facebook, Tweet or even make a phone call.

A few Interesting Things I read in some blogs that I follow...

I came across these neat pears that are grown in the shape of a Buddah on Jaden's Steamy Kitchen. Check them out! <--. Kat blogged about tandoori chicken and couscous. Makes me want to check if I can eat couscous for one of my starch replacements since I can't eat wheat or rice. Kat's Blog<--. Affairs of Living Gluten Free... posted a tomato free red sauce this week that I'm anxious to try. It's based on beets & complies with my diet restrictions. Photos by Jalna posted a bunch of old photos of Hawaii that she received from a friend. Those photos are amazing! <-- Solomish has been posting his hiking adventures. So have a few other friends on Facebook. I can't link their page Facebook posts because Facebook doesn't work that way. Anyway, it's been making me want to go on an adventurous hiking trip! Last Friday I watched my 1st movie at the Movie Museum in Kaimuki. Neat little place there. The movie we watched is Kamome Shokudo, an excellent movie from 2006. It's a Japanese film that is filmed in Finland. I highly recommend watching it. Finally, the Thunderbirds will be performing for Honolulu this weekend! I'm looking forward to watching the show tomorrow. This links to my blog about them in 2007.

The Honolulu Academy of Arts & The Pavillion Cafe...

Over the Labor Day Weekend, we visited the Honolulu Academy of Arts. I estimate that I haven't been there for perhaps 20 years! I used to go there a lot for elementary school field trips and that's the last I remember of it prior to this last weekend. I have been to the Contemporary Museum of Art several times in recent years, but just never made it to the Honolulu Academy of Arts. I think it must be due to the difficult parking options, but Sunday afternoon is a great option for free street parking directly in front! It is very nice now. I don't even remember the museum having that many things to see back then. I think when we visited for school fielt trips, the tours are cut short to keep elementary school students interested. I definitely know that the galleries were not so well air-conditioned back then and also did not have automatic sensory lighting that would adjust slightly brighter when you entered the gallery. Very impressive renovations done to the Honolulu Academy of Arts since the last time I've been there! =P I don't have many photos of the great displays of art because photography isn't allowed in the galleries. Although, photography is allowed in the open courtyard areas. There are some special collections on display right now. There was a collection of drawings titled "Goya's Disasters of War" by Francisco Goya. They are a very detailed collection of drawings that appears to be done in pencil. Read the museum's description of this collection here. The Honolulu Academy of Arts is on the web at http://www.HonoluluAcademy.org and they are located at 900 South Beretania Street, Honolulu, Hawaii 96814 <--Google Map. General admission is $10 and they do have other discounted admission rates. Their normal hours are Tuesday - Saturday: 10a-430p and Sunday 1p-5p. They are closed on Mondays, New Year's Day, 4th of July, Thanksgiving and Christmas according to their guide sheet. The first Wednesday of every month is supposed to be FREE and you are able to visit the shop, The Pavillion Cafe and the library for free too. We actually went to the Honolulu Academy of Arts to check out The Pavillion Cafe, but it's not open on Sundays. We're considering the location as a potential spot for an upcoming party. Looks good so far, but I haven't asked if they can accomodate our event yet. We'll try to check out The Pavillion Cafe another time, but they are only open Tuesday - Saturday during lunch (1130a-2p) so it might be difficult!

Emperor of Japan in Hawaii

AIA Honolulu Third Annual Free Historic Walking Tour of Honolulu Down Town

On Saturday the 25th of April, Kelli and I joined up with a friend of mine who invited us to the "Third Annual Free Historic Walking Tour" conducted by the AIA Honolulu. We registered and started our walking tour at 1015am and finished our walk a little over time at about 100pm. It was a cool and sunny day. The registration and tour started at 119 Merchant Street at the AIA Honolulu Building, formerly known as the tallest highrise building of Downtown, Honolulu (at 6 stories high). A guide book was provided with color photos of the buildings on the tour and a brief, but detailed summary of the building's highlights. It was very interesting to be able to spend so much time in each spot and reflect upon the surroundings. I think this is the most time in my life that I have ever spent in Downtown Honolulu. It's not the same driving through or walking from 1 parking structure to another office building for appointments. The sidewalks were not crowded with other business people rushing from point to point because it was on a Saturday. To be able to recognize the fine detail in most of the older buildings and see the back drop of modern day highrises towering over them was a very dramatic feeling. I wouldn't mind signing up for some of the paid walking tours and other candle light walking tours that are conducted through out the year or even this AIA walk again! It was a fun way to burn some calories and spend the day out on an urban Honolulu walking trek. No mosquitos or mud provided in this experience... Most of you know I only take and publish photos taken from my Nokia N82 5.0MP Camera Phone. I don't like carrying extra devices on me everyday or any day. My friend's blog should have photos from a "real camera" posted up soon.