Satan's Luau

Well, SheDev has some kind of persistent cough, and no it's probably not what you overmediaed people are thinking it could be ... we are about a good 4000 or so miles away from that place

So yesterday after a minor crisis involving SheDev's very OLD family dog (there's something about her family and MAJOR crises with animals...yeah), we went to Ala Moana Beach ... braved the TRAFFIC and the huge huge huge crowds in the late afternoon to go see the "lantern festival"

So our shared mixed large vanilla coke and strawberry slurpee in hand ... bentos and beach implements in hand we walked and walked and walked to find a place to park ourselves ... after finding one of the many NONSHADY spots remaining at the beach, and me seeing the notorious Sharlito's Way (back in town, nice to see her again), we then proceeded to enjoy the skin cancer effects of the late afternoon still really HOT sun

I know, there's something about a lantern festival in May that doesn't click with my and maybe your Japanese cultural sensibilities ... heck, even me the know-nothing about my background knows that usually they don't do the floating lanterns at sea during May ... I actually think that it is usually done at the end of the Bon Dance season

Of course, as you and I know, the Japanese cultural has an old belief that during the summer months the departed return to earth to visit and at the end of the season are sent back home ... the way that they are sent back is by following the lights back out to sea ... from the shore of suffering (the earth) to the shore of happiness (heaven/nirvana)

Okay, so back to yesterday, it was a total production ... it had hula ... it had a haka ...it had samoan dance ... it had many many buddhist priests ... it had many many paddlers ... it had TWO massive stadium sized lighting rigs with jumbotrons that would make the Rolling Stones jealous

It also had prayer booths, where you made an offering of money to have your prayer slip (what you wrote) put in a lantern and be set out to sea for you ... I don't know how I feel about commercializing it up, but hey, people have needs to pray about ... and I suppose Jumbotron rentals aint cheap ... so suspend the critical disbelief that one church in Honolulu is heavily cheesing a usually somber and serious commemoration to appeal largely to tourists

And wow, did the tourists show up in droves to see this, there was a good five thousand easy at this thing ... I guess most of them were fascinated by the spectacle ... I mean where else do you see hula, hawaiian chants, buddhist chants, outrigger canoes, and a procession to set 1000 or so lanterns to see ... and you can see it all for FREE, get a FREE paper fan with a misprint of Hawaii Aloha lyrics ... see what happens when you use Chinese prison labor ... ha, and are FREE to talk really loud during the ceremony and make fun of the buddhist chanting --- the total tourist experience, too bad it didn't come with FREE sunscreen lotion too ... ah well, bachi

(Hawaii`i --- is that the correct spelling, jeez been mispelling it for years ... ha)

So finally when the sun went down, SheDev was like "did you see the green flash" ... I was like umm no, but then you shouldn't be lining up 400 deep to go to the women's restroom, just about when the sun is going down either

We saw them set the lanterns off, and it was pretty awesome

Well then, our cultural sensibilities gave way like marching fastwalking lemmings to the notion that as much as we wanted to stay and watch them float off ... we didn't want to be stuck in traffic for the next hour

After all the world peace stuff, all we could think about is traffic ... ironic, isn't it?

(Image (c) 2003 Hookups)