Friday, July 18, 2008

What is today?

Yesterday was farmer's market day in Kailua, so today must be Friday. Not that I can tell otherwise -- our days have been filled with finding a place to live, getting mail transferred and picked up, looking for furniture -- all the stuff that accompanies any major move. Except this move is somewhere between new-job-move and study-abroad-move.

Hawaii is a state, so that much is the same, and English is spoken (although with modifications). However so much feels like a different country. Not just the palm trees outside my window, or the rainbows that appear after every five-minute rain, or the stark, steep mountains with cloud whisps that look like somthing out of a Japanese print. It's the feel of customs that pre-date etiquette books, the sense that humans of various derivations have enjoyed this same view, this same spot of beach, this same seaside feast for centuries. Even now, the Japanese tourists, newly-arrived anglos and native Hawaiians react much the same. We were at a bus stop outside the Ala Moana mall when a small Japanese boy wandered to the edge of the sidewalk where buses arrive regularly. I noticed and made a noise, his mother grabbed him and started a lecture while the grandmother scolded them both. Without knowing a word of the language, I could guess pretty accurately the content of the communication.

I keep saying that I need a camera -- with the press to get a bed, coffee pot and other essentials, it hasn't risen to the top of the list. But there are so many things that just need to be seen.

Today's agenda is to find the local thrift shop to see what is on offer. Yesterday, we went to the morning People's Farmer's Market and the evening Farm Bureau Farmer's Market -- both fantastic and weekly year round. In between, we feasted on fresh veggies and a yellow-ripe mango.

July 18, 2008