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.

Lunch at Fresh Cafe

On Sunday after the Honolulu Academy of Arts, we were starved! We thought we would eat at the cafe in the Honolulu Academy of Arts, but they aren't open on Sunday. We decided to drive down Ward Avenue and visit "Fresh Cafe". Fresh Cafe is a new cafe located in Kakaako at 831 Queen Street. It's nestled between dozens of industrial shops as Kakaako's businesses comprise moslty of businesses like auto body shops, auto mechanic shops, car dealerships, machine shops, etc. It's a nice oasis in the midst of all these shops. The location is quite nostalgic for me as I spent several of my automotive racing industry years working on another corner lot in Kakaako. The shop was called Speedtek and it was in a blue building on the corner of Halekauwila and Keawe Streets. This was back in the early-mid 90's. Quite some time ago. Anyway, I recall having such limited options for lunch those days. It was either Queen's BBQ, Tsukenjo's, Kakaako Kitchen, Kiawe Cafe or that other Korean BBQ place. Almost daily I remember opting for the barbecue chicken plate from Queen's BBQ because almost everything is sold out at Tsukenjo's by the time we had lunch and the only thing left is roast pork. Tsukenjo's roast pork plate is fine, but I can't be eating that every day! Now the community has a new option! Fresh Cafe has opened up and provides a unique setting for the area. I can sit there, relax and have an iced coffee out on the deck area without realizing I'm in the middle of one of Honolulu's most industrious neighborhoods. It also happens to be operated by friends of my friends that have a little automotive garage space next door! What a convenient place to visit and catch up with the car tuning world. Unfortunately for me, my current diet restrictions limit my meals that I eat from restaurants to very plain salads without any dressings. Because of that, I can't really say much for the great food options now. I was able to order a spinach salad with bacon and garlic. I requested no dressing (normally comes with a homemade creamy house dressing) and got a little olive oil on the side. I'm already used to eating my salads plain so it was great for me. Kelli ordered the turkey pesto melt sandwich on a spinach bagel. She paired it with a tomato soup. It was too filling for her to finish, but she enjoyed it. She also had an iced tea to go with lunch. It has fresh blueberries and a cube of watermelon in the tea for some visual appeal and a slight essence of flavor. Fresh Cafe was also featured on KHON2's Morning Show. Here is a link to that. The set up of this cafe is ironically very similar to what I've wanted to set up for the past 10 years. It's the goal I'm working towards and the reason why I actually became a Realtor. It continues to be a goal of mine and some day it will become a reality. One spot with all my passions (or few of the top) combined.