Posts tagged with "food"

Maui Wowie

When Dave and Jenny asked me to film their wed­ding in Maui, there was no way I could say refuse. Soon1 I found myself in the only place in the world where Koa grows, and every tree I passed made me won­der if it would even­tu­al­ly be made into a ukulele or gui­tar. I was only there for two days, but it was worth every moment in the delight­ful weath­er, spend­ing time with some of the nicest peo­ple I’ve ever met.

The entire wed­ding group gath­ered for din­ner at Mala restau­rant, over­look­ing the Pacific Ocean and the islands of Lanai and Kaho‘olawe. At this time of year, the Maui sun­set pass­es in the blink of an eye.

I learned that there are only twelve let­ters in the Hawaiian alpha­bet (which is why so many of the words look the same to me), and the lan­guage uses Spanish vow­els. Each vow­el is usu­al­ly pro­nounced by itself (Wailea is said “Why-lay-ah”). I was sur­prised to see most signs in both English and Japanese; it turns out there used to be a sig­nif­i­cant Japanese com­mu­ni­ty in Hawaii, although most of the Japanese tourists go to see Pearl Harbor instead.

All the locals are super nice, per­haps due to the fact that tourism is one of the only indus­tries left in Maui2; it seems like most peo­ple liv­ing there are in the ser­vice indus­try in some form or anoth­er3.

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  1. “Soon” being a rel­a­tive term when com­pared to the lim­it­less of time, as it took me rough­ly a full day and three planes to get there, from Ottawa to Chicago to Honolulu to Kahalui. [↩]
  2. The oth­er being agri­cul­ture that’s most­ly been over­shad­owed by com­pe­ti­tion from Philippines. [↩]
  3. As opposed to those from Honolulu, who have jobs relat­ed to the mil­i­tary in some way. [↩]

the charms of our idle dreary days

Don’t have much to say late­ly. Sometimes I get stuck at the title.

I’ve been hold­ing off on start­ing var­i­ous class­es cause I’m not quite into my reg­u­lar pace of life. I’m still rid­ing the crests of over-stim­u­la­tion from my trip, not yet ready to be rou­tine­ly see­ing peo­ple. Consequently, this means I lose sense of time, week­ly class­es once being my anchor points for cer­tain days of the week.

Ottawa balanced art sculptures/Sculptures en Pierre Équilibrée

 

I always look for­ward to grey and drea­ry days, when it’s the per­fect excuse to stay inside and just tin­ker on the gui­tar.

I nev­er feel lone­ly any­more. I’m too com­fy in the house, too occu­pied with this sense of hedo­nism, too busy pour­ing myself into my projects, too spoiled by life I’m liv­ing, too blessed by the cards I was dealt. Sometimes I end up park­ing my car at a strange angle one could nev­er hope to repli­cate, and I’m sure this is how my neigh­bours can tell I haven’t been out in more than a week.

Hintonburger

The Hintonburger: a six ounce hand­made local beef pat­ty with bacon, cheese, sig­na­ture bar­beque sauce, and fuck yeah.

All I ever want­ed was a lit­tle bit of peace. Now that I’ve found it, I’ve stopped think­ing about the future. Right now is good enough.

Scotland, Day 10: Edinburgh

We watched Rory McIlroy take the most impres­sive lead in US Open his­to­ry to win the 2011 title, and when you see these golf super­stars mak­ing sat­is­fy­ing­ly effort­less shots, you long for the same kind of feel­ing that can only come from some­thing as pri­mal as hit­ting a ball. It’s been years since I held a club in my hand, but I was itch­ing to play and we head­ed to a dri­ving range, tak­ing it easy on my last day in Scotland.

I’m going home a dif­fer­ent per­son. Not a dras­tic change, but a refine­ment of the growth I’ve had in the last year, and a gal­va­niza­tion of the spir­it. This trip has taught me that life is full of hap­pi­ness, and my mem­o­ries of Europe will be filled with the peo­ple and places that have made the last three weeks a rich and won­der­ful expe­ri­ence.

Barney in the garden

Barney likes to roll around in the grass, and some­times he comes back in with pieces of foliage in his fur. He even has a shed with a duvet in it that allows him to sleep com­fort­ably out­side, even when it’s dark and the tem­per­a­ture drops. The back­yard pro­vides a tremen­dous amount of pri­va­cy, thanks to all the lush green­ery.

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Scotland, Day 7: Edinburgh

It’s slow going in the house of mirth. We’ve been explor­ing parts of Scotland every day, so we decid­ed to take a day off to watch acclaimed British sit­coms and movies. I’m so hap­py here. It final­ly feels like I’m on vaca­tion, as Dennis likes to remind me when I say I should­n’t eat any more ice cream. Where else does some­one keep my dish­es delight­ful­ly warm in the oven before serv­ing me? Luckily, Dennis is also some­thing of an accom­plished key­board play­er. Jamming with new peo­ple, learn­ing their unique strengths and the sound they can get from their instru­ments, is always more fun than I can describe.

Funny to think that we’d only met once before at Aaron’s wed­ding five years ago, and kept in touch from across of the pond. Introverts like us nev­er for­get those kinds of con­nec­tions, cause it’s so rare to find a per­son to whom you can eas­i­ly talk for hours. He lives the same life I have now, the same life I see myself hav­ing many years into the future. Even our cats are alike.

conservatory

Dennis had this con­ser­va­to­ry built as a room where he could lounge dur­ing the day. The poly­car­bon­ate ceil­ing lets plen­ty of light through and keeps the space bright and warm and sun­ny and I’ve decid­ed that I need a room like this.

When the sun sets it can get quite chilly, so then we move to the main room and put the fire on.

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Scotland, Day 6: Inverness to Edinburgh

We left for home the next morn­ing after a heavy meal at the bed and break­fast, where every­thing was deep fried, includ­ing my toast. Our route was cir­cuitous, planned care­ful­ly by Dennis so I could see as much of the coun­try as pos­si­ble.

The thing that strikes me most about the Scottish land­scape is that you don’t need to be on top of a moun­tain to get a good view. There’s breath­tak­ing beau­ty all around, nev­er obscured by sky­scrap­ers or tree­lines. The air is also some of the most pure and fresh you’ll ever get to breathe, yet neu­tral; it does­n’t smell par­tic­u­lar­ly like flow­ers or foliage, it just smells clean.

grazing sheep

 

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