Day of the Dead

Our international cooking group through our host Atma really educated our cooking group a few nights ago with a Day of the Dead celebration showing everyone how important family and tradition is. Remembering beloved deceased members by visiting their graves and creating special dishes that they loved is what many cultures do to celebrate this occasion and enjoy this joyous event.

We usually do not celebrate this festive event in Hawaii compared to Halloween. But this event was a wonderful experience to really celebrate the origins of Halloween and understand both the pagan and christian beliefs that have lead to the actual events we know today as the Day of the Dead, the end of summer solstice, All Saints Day and our well celebrated Halloween all wrapped up into these various celebrations.

Our version included dishes we made in honor of some special in our lives and each made a tribute to that person and what this dish signified. It was a very symbolic and wonderful evening, something really experienced to the best intent of what this holiday signified and that is our Ohana or family.

Toss in the odd ball but fun mummy wrapping contest and it really brought out the crazy...talk about a strange tribute to our ancestors.  You can tell this was not a very serious event most of the time.

 Whats a celebration with out loud drumming and a wonderful bonfire to do some wild dancing and burning out the rubbish.

Atma made a special alter so we can bring photos of our relatives or friends and do a nice tribute to them, typical of what latin based celebrants do in their respective cultures in honoring the dead.

A more A-typical celebration to end our evening is the fire spinning display from one of our hosts, its was truly exciting to see in the dark!

This is my contribution to My World Tuesdays, to visit other views of the world go to http://showyourworld.blogspot.com/

Its Dark out There.

Its Dark out and the party has just begun...don't be afraid of shadows in the night - its only Halloween and our friends in Honolii are having their crazy Halloween event filled with some very lively characters. Tonight we have some familiar local politicians, pimps and fairies, Miss Dot Com to Cleopatra checking in for a visit. Things started off quickly thanks to the smashing drinks with the famous margaritas our host has created for these thirsty free-loaders.

Hmmm pizza, anyone up for a slice?

Its still early but our local pimp was working the hilo crowd and pimping away...not sure if business was brisk or not that night.

Aaaah the fairie from Volcano dropped by I see...boy she really got her party dress all shiny and ready

Our local politician Aunty Emily with her estranged husband who ran off to Alaska and claimed spousal abuse...I guess its going to be a tight race again this year with all the mud wrestling out there.

Cleopatra is all bejeweled and looking glamorous.

Don't they just make a lovely couple, just love all the dazzle.

Aaaay...I've been pillaging waaaaay to long, time for a nap before we check out the goodies!

What do you call this wild get up - well you can tell everyone you've seen a Puna-mabob for the first time,  consider that a treat!

Miss Dot.com loves to roll the dice with these two high rollers....keep it coming were going for broke.

Aaaaah Aunty Emily, always the first to the buffet line and working the crowds for the Puna vote :)

No I am not a witch says candidate Christine O'Donnell, although I love my black hat and pearls...btw where are my fellow tea baggers?

Aaaah the hot pink Leilani butterfly has dropped in for a bit of nectar...wonder what makes her eyelashes so pink??

What can I say, all that glitz in one corner is bound to attract alot of flies.

Well this is the first time I've seen a gorilla in tie-die, i guess he was in town for another crazy banana fest. Those Hilo partiers really know how to have a good time don't you think?

To see other posts about the dark go visit photo hunt today http://tnchick.com/

Photohunt Challenge = Orange

I enjoy the weekly photohunt challenges and this week the theme is orange. What a perfect theme to start of our halloween agenda just around the corner and orange is really the predominant color of this season.

One of my favorite Halloween spots is in the city of Petaluma about an hours drive north of San Francisco. Here you will find one of the largest corn mazes in California, along with the ubiquitous pumpkin patch, petting zoo and horse rides, huge sunflowers and of course lots of squeeling children.

The spectacular and huge blooms of these giant sunflowers are just that...bursting and huge circled eyes filled with millions of seeds. I'm surprised the birds haven't attacked all the flowers already - they look so inviting!

 

Well there were so many of these cute cut outs, I just had to ask someone to take a picture of me in one of these cute/silly frames - what a ham :)

Children are so fun to watch and their animated gestures and excited nature in participating in an event so delicious and lets them play is really special. I love to capture wonderful moments that shows you some of these magical moments.

Miniature pumpkins spilling out of containers and large displays of squash and other strange pumpkin colored vegetable draw you in to pick up one or more of them to take home for your Halloween displays.

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I really felt like a child again seeing all the colorful displays, the happy children and beautiful sunflowers and pumpkins, this time of year brings out the playful in everyone and thats such a nice thing to celebrate with family and dear friends.


To see more exciting photohunt submissions go and visit http://tnchick.com/

What a Gem

This is how I feel about this beautiful museum....visiting the De Young at Golden Gate park and just seeing the amazing views from the tower is worth the admission alone, the interior galleries are very eclectic and contain unusual combinations of treasures varying from local glass artists, to large contemporary artwork, to early California Lifestyle and history and then the wonderful temporary exhibits including the current showing of Impressionistic masterpieces on loan from the D'orsay Museum in Paris. Photographs are allowed with no flash, but unfortunately no photos were allowed for the Impressionistic exhibits. So, let me show you some of the galleries that I love to re-visit when I frequent this wonderful place.


I just love this gallery of local and international glass artisans that make such amazing glass sculptures and intimate objects with such color and imagination. The glass collection is so diverse with blown glass pieces to slumped or caste creations that just oooze with such vigor and draw you in like eye candy especially this huge collection of fruit almost the size of a human being.

Amazing sculpture attracts me immediately especially anything that uses backgrounds to create patterns and shadows like these exciting pieces by Ruth Asawa which is in a concrete room ,perfect for the cast shadows of her work.

These sweet ceramic teapots are so animated...the museum did an entire show of unusual teapots in an earlier exhibit and these are the remainders from their main collection. Another ceramic piece that drew me in immediately was this free formed piece over five foot tall and color, lines and curves were just magical.

Popular local artists like Wayne Theibaud and his gum ball machine along with the Bay Area figurative artists were predominant. I love to use people observing artwork like this couple fronting superman, I think the man was imagining being Clark Kent. Children doing papers on a artwork they were inspired, were an interesting to photograph as part of an overall composition to these photographs adding more dimension to these museum studies.

The entire building wrapped in copper metal sheathing was a sculptural piece in its own. I really enjoy walking around the building which was sited to create drama and exciting vistas within the park and I think it works so well in this area.

If you are visiting Golden Gate park in San Francisco, go and see this magnificent museum, it is one of the highlights of visiting the city.

This is my contribution to Thats my World to see other posts go visit http://showyourworld.blogspot.com/

A World Below in Miniature

Going back to the city to see some of the amazing museums San Francisco has to offer is always an enriching experience when I visit.  The De Young Museum in Golden Gate park is one of my favorite destinations. Not only are the exhibits outstanding, the beautiful vistas from the tower and various outlooks into the gardens and the outdoor exhibits make the entire visit a complete and satisfying experience.




One of my favorite things to explore is the tower which offers floor to ceiling vistas and almost surreal city views from the park all the way to downtown. There are amazing bay and hilltop panoramas one can explore up here to many of the areas in the city.

Isn't it amazing to have these fantastic views, stay tune for some of the interior treasure's I would like to show you on another post.

This is my contribution to this weeks photohunt challenge for miniature, to see other posts on this meme go visit http://tnchick.com/

Inspiring Views in a Beautiful City

Its wonderful being in San Francisco again at this time of the year...Arrived on a very Balmy 85 degrees, and then it cooled down considerably to winter-like conditions. Since I'm staying out here in the Sea Cliff area, very close to the Golden Gate bridge, I can feel the cool winds and see the fog roll in and out at different times of the day. Fortunately, I brought a nice warm Gortex jacket to windstand the cold and windy elements that I'm not used to.

There's so many exciting things about this area, just a block away on Clement street there are over 40-50 different restaurants with cuisine around the world in a three block span. There a many local produce markets providing fresh fruits and vegetables from local farms - its so amazing to see this much variety and at bargain prices.

I've been taking alot of walks along the myriad of trails nearby along the coastal cliffs in Sea Cliff - a gorgeous and wilder area around the Golden Gate, left intact because of the steep terrain and difficult building topography - that was actually a saving in disguise from many centuries of developers that I'm sure would have loved to take advantage of the magnificent views of the Golden Gate and the even more spectacular coastline, Take a look at these amazing views of this coastline and forested areas.

More to come on my visit back to the bay area, please stay tuned.



This is my contribution of views of the world today, to see other posts go visit http://showyourworld.blogspot.com/