Hawaii (Part III) Hang Ten

No trip to Hawaii would be complete without an attempt to hang ten. We found Brother, our surf instructor in a little beach hut just outside the Waikiki Outrigger Hotel. In his mid 40s, bronzed like cocoa, bearing a pot belly, he appeared an unsuspecting instructor. Without wasting a minute, he got us suited up, giving us a crash course on the basics before taking us in the water to test our moxie.

Little did I know that the hardest part of surfing was not the balancing act.  With a little push and the right timing, finding balance on the board took little effort. Half the battle was the paddling back to our starting point, which seemed to take triple the time it took to ride the 3o second wave. Between waves, Brother revealed that he was a former pro-surfer, who used to compete in California. Every once in a while we’d see a sinewy old man skim past us. Brother would give him a shout-out. He told us later that the man, who is in his 80′s, has been around since Brother was a kid, and is still riding the waves in his twilight years. Brother no longer competes. He teaches surfing Monday to Friday, and in between trains his nephew, a former pro-baseball player, to surf. His life is simple, but content.  He beams with pride as he tells me he has repeat customers from Australia who look him up every time they’re back on the island.

No sooner had I stripped off my wet suit, I was already itching to get back on the board. Brother chuckled and said, he’d didn’t know about me, but he’d be having breakfast. He told me I could return after lunch if I really wanted a second go, but his prescription was simply to relax.  If not today, he warned us our arms would be fatigued by tomorrow. Of course he was right. Nonetheless, we found ourselves back a few days later for round two of hang ten the Hawaiian way.

Hawaii (Part II): Culinary Redux

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I’ve since learnt that the zoo is only a hop, skip, away from Kapahulu street, which houses many a Hawaiian institution, including The Rainbow Drive-In, where the price of a hamburger was just $0.25 back in 1961. Prices haven’t changed much after 50 years, and you can still get a hamburger for $2. It’s also touted as an old haunt of President Obama’s student days. Further along the strip, you’ll come across Bailey’s Antiques and Aloha Shirts, an authentic Hawaiian shirt shop, where you will find vintage styles for $3000 dollars, or modern replicas for $3.99 and everything in between. Its walls are packed with rails and rails of Hawaiian shirts. Anthony Bourdain featured the shop on his show No Reservations, and was corralled into purchasing a $800 vintage Hawaiian number.

Tucked away on a side street is one of the best original shaved ice stands, Waiolas. You will be greeted by multiple flavours of syrup drizzled over a generous mountain of shaved ice. Just the thing on a hot day, and pretty hard to resist when topped with condensed milk. A few blocks down you’ll hit Leonard’s, a Portuguese bakery, where they are famous for their malasadas, which is described as “a donut without the hole”.  Best savoured when fresh and piping hot, either sprinkled with lillikoi or plain sugar, or stuffed with guava and coconut custards.

Rounding your way back on the other side of Kapahulu street, a pit stop at Ono’s is a must. A little mom and pop shop, it serves up traditional Hawaiian comfort food. The combination plate will give you a generous portion of pork lau lau, pork wrapped in taro leaf and slow cooked for hours, served with a side of rice, a dash of sea salt, raw onion, taro paste and hot chili sauce. Dead simple food, but deliciously comforting.

Because the locals have had to endure so many tourists, they may initially appear a little weary, but greeted with a smile and curious conversation they open up easily. We found Art behind the bar at the Side Street Inn, a local dive where chefs frequent after their long shifts, a place to shoot the shit over a beer.  Spicy Chicken (battered, marinated boneless chicken, deep-fried then dipped in the house spicy sauce), fresh Ahi Tuna Poke and “Side Style Fried Rice” (a salivating concoction of char sui, portuguese sausage, bacon, peas, carrots and green onion) are must-haves amongst other local pub fare.

Surging with adrenaline after our flight, my friend and I decided to walk all the way to the famed Side Street Inn, on a quiet Monday night from the main strip. A little ambitious to say the least, we made it there just before midnight. Finding the place hidden in an alley, we walked in to see a bunch of guys just staring at two girls who were clearly out of place. A little hesitant, we took a seat at the bar, where we were greeted by Art, who found humour in two lost tourists, and after warning us not to make the ‘Long March” back, he helped us successfully navigate the late night menu. I decided to consult Art with my list of researched restaurants, with every name I threw out, he chuckled unabashedly. Apparently my research was filled with tourist traps, he mocked my “taco Tuesday” joint and shrimp trucks. In pity, he offered up a few of his favourites, amongst them, the aforementioned Ono’s before sending us safely on our way in a cab.

Hawaii (Part I): Lost and Found

Honolulu holds a place in my heart. It’s the first place I traveled to while still in my mother’s womb, and up to the age of six,  our little family of three visited frequently. While Waikiki may be garish, my childhood memories of it aren’t. When I think of Waikiki, I think of my uncle and aunt jogging along the board walk, going about their daily routine. Both of them have since passed, and my most recent visit to Honolulu after over two decades was a study in retrieving lost and found memories.

Much of Honolulu hasn’t changed in over two decades. The architecture remains frozen in the “Tropical Modernist” style of the 50′s and 60′s post-war boom. Prior to Hawaii’s statehood in 1959, many young Modernist architects arrived on the island to find a solution to adapt the current design style of the era to the tropical climates of island life.  Today, the concrete masses of a bygone time are encroached by high-rises lining the strip, and hotels clamoring for real estate on the beach. It remains rampant with Japanese tourists. Macadamian nuts are still the souvenir de jour.

It’s impossible to know what is a memory from the age of six and below, or just fabricated fragments from stories and old photos. But, there are things that will always stick out, like the pool in my uncle and aunt’s apartment, which appeared so much larger as a child, but upon inspection now, it seemed fairly standard, almost small. I recall the zoo, and of course as child, it held no geographical context in my mind. I didn’t visit the zoo on this visit, but I passed its periphery many a time, and now I know its relevance on a map. It didn’t stop me from wondering whether the giraffes and elephants were still there though.

Regional Assembly of Text

If you stumbled across a stationary shop named “The Regional Assembly of Text“, you better be armed with an instrument, preferably one that wields the written word with a hefty salute before you march in.  Lucky for those devoted pen pals, this aptly named stationary store supplies just the apparatus to tackle the task.

The first Thursday of every month, The Regional Assembly of Text hosts a Letter Writing Club.  Ardent letter writers diligently queue up at this neighbourhood stationary store, eagerly awaiting the doors to unlock, ready to stake a seat at one of over a dozen vintage typewriters neatly assembled on a long table.  Tea and biscuits sit next to a generous supply of complimentary paper and envelopes.

A concentrated hush hoovers over the room.  With heads hunkered down, the only movement are fingers furiously tapping away.  Those that didn’t arrive early enough to snag a typewriter are stuck with good old fashion pen and paper.  They can’t help but steal furtive glances in the direction of the cacophonous symphony of sound, hoping they may entreat someone to relinquish their seat, so that they may finally trade in their pen for a mightier tool.

I spent one fine evening tapping out letters to friends around the globe.  Nothing really beats a handwritten, or in this case hand-typed letter.  There is no backspace or delete.  If you make a mistake, it sticks (although I cheat, and try to remedy my errors by unsuccessfully typing over them…).  There is something sacred about the art of letter writing, which is swiftly being diminished in an era of instant gratification.  Lost is the sense of anticipation that comes with delivering a postcard, a note, or a letter, and with it the anticipation of awaiting a response.

While I’m no less dependent on email, letter writing is one of my finer vices that I hope to defend. If you’re ever seeking inspiration for a letter to pen, visit Letters of Note. It’s a fanciful collection of letters, telegrams, memos, and postcards of fascinating correspondence between known and unknown individuals.

The Regional Assembly of Text, 3934 Main Street, Vancouver, BC.

Letter Writing Club – First Thursday of every month. All supplies provided.

In Pictures: South China

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Myths & Misadventures: South China

“Since China launched its reform and opening-up policy 30 years ago, Foshan has experienced a rapid and continued socio-economic growth. At present, she is dedicated to building a prosperous and harmonious city and a modern metropolis of profound culture and distinctive industry.” – Foreword, Guide for Foreigners in Foshan, 2010

I picked up a”Guide for Foreigners in Foshan” during a recent visit to South China, at one of the purported 5 star hotels we resided in. I, along with 13 of my extended family members, mostly comprised of septuagenarian aunts plus 2 uncles, and 4 cousins, were on a family sojourn to trace the roots of my paternal great grandfather. Foshan, was just one of the cities we passed on our 7 day bus tour of South China’s Guangdong Province.

There are no blue skies in South China. Even on a sunny day, the region is covered in a haze of brown smog. While “beautiful” isn’t the first word that comes to mind, “industrious” is. Everywhere you look, the region is eager to display what the process of “rapid and continued socio-economic growth” appears to be. What it looked like was a country impatiently building up their idea of a “modern metropolis”. Along the highway, derelict stone houses stand next to vast expanses of farmland, lined with the occasional palm tree. Tall cranes hoover like storks in a koi pond, while scaffolding surrounds the skeleton of the newest 50 storey plus high-rise. It’s all very disconcerting, and the dichotomies are stark.

Wahe Guru

“It is not how good, how spiritual you look, or how wonderful you appear. It is what is inside that matters.” ~ Yogi Bhajan

Wahe Guru literally translates as the “wonderful enlightener”.

This past month marks the 3 year anniversary of my yoga journey. My first venture into yoga began while I was living in London. My best friend introduced me to Bikram yoga, and before I knew it I found myself in a 38C plus room, inches away from half naked strangers, sweating from places I never knew sweat could pour from. It wasn’t attractive, and didn’t smell good. Yet, I kept going back, repeating the same 26 poses every time, because it felt so darn euphoric.

The irony of all of this is Bikram yoga isn’t cheap, nor is living in London, and should I have wanted to go 3 times a week, which I roughly did, I would have been paying £145, which in Canadian $ would have translated to $319 for a monthly unlimited yoga pass. That is 3 times the amount of what a monthly yoga pass is in North America. So, i did the most un-Zen thing you could do. I scammed them. You see, they offered a monthly “deal” for “new” students, in which you could pay £30 (equivalent to $66 Cdn) for 1 month of unlimited yoga. Now that’s more like a deal! I would sign up under various aliases, and made sure to do so by rotation at all 3 studio locations. After awhile, I surely lost track of who I was when I signed up for the “first time” for the fifth time.  I am not proud of this, rather quite ashamed that I went to all this trouble to go to yoga, only to defeat all my moral standing with lies.

Shakey ground to begin what is suppose to be a grounding practice. I eventually left London for good, and with it Bikram yoga. I re-encountered a different yoga practice when I was visiting family in Hong Kong. My cousin introduced me to who I would like to call my first yoga teacher, Tiana Hariela who taught at the Mandarin Oriental Landmark. There, I went to my first Ashtanga yoga class, and discovered that real heat in yoga isn’t generated from being in an unnaturally hot sauna. It comes from the breath and  pranayama, a term that refers to deep breathing. From there, I learned that true strength is built slowly over time, and flexibility isn’t overly twisting relaxed muscles into a pretzel. Conversely, the results isn’t just relinquished water weight, what’s left is a more profound and enduring strength.

Tiana’s class was the first of many yoga classes in the last 3 years, including power, hatha, kundalini and yin to name a few. Since then, I have moved back to the city I was born in, and have transitioned through many changes. The one constant in my life has been yoga. It has kept me sane when everything else around me seemed to crumble.

I started yoga because I wanted a workout, but continue with it as a lifestyle because the balance I learn from the mat translates directly into my life. Whether I am having a good or bad week, when I bring myself back to the mat, it’s as if I have pressed the re-set button back to center. I always leave yoga with what I describe as a “shiny happy” feeling. It’s true, next time you’re at your local yoga studio, take a look around, everyone seems to be bathed in a little bit of radiance.

Namaste.

Sell my clothes or keep my thoughts?

“Women usually love what they buy, yet hate two-thirds of what is in their closets” – Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic’s Notebook, 1960

What’s old is new and what’s new becomes old – fast. In the past few months I have been trying to overhaul and unload my wardrobe and as a result my closets have poured themselves inside out and into collected mole hills on the bedroom floor. I am a self-confessed hoarder, and have never been known to refuse a red tag deal. That’s right, I’m the one at Nordstrom Rack with the giant shopping cart, loading it up and grabbing anything and everything in sight because it’s on sale, not because I necessarily like it, much less need it. I am also a label whore. Just because it says “See by Chloe” I will buy it, even if it’s a lame piss yellow cotton shirt with two inexplicable holes in the middle. I am guilty on all counts as charged.

Over the past 7 years, I’ve lived in 3 countries, and 3 cities and have amassed a heaping collection of clothes, shoes and accessories along the way.  The closet didn’t seem to implode quite as much when I lived abroad, but after numerous trips of loading and unloading to finally unload it all in one spot, the realization sinks in that my apparel is wearing me out, and I’m not wearing half of it.

I am burdened by the weight of this, yet find it difficult to break the patterns of acquisition. Through it all, I recently decided to pursue a career in the very fashion industry of which I am currently drowning in its detritus. With two new jobs, I have suddenly landed myself in a fashion hotbed, one belonging to a handbag designer, the other a clothing boutique. Doubly irresistible you might think. Initially it is. It’s also a classic case of gluttony. While being saturated amongst these beautiful things that I would normally lust over, being in their midst, actually satiates all desire to covet them. It’s a strange irony.

In the process of purging and re-evaluating my wardrobe, I have given away old favourites, and consigned the impulse buys I never quite justified when they were unwrapped and untagged. What’s left is still significant, but I can at least see what is in my drawers and closet.

What I am finding is a new appreciation for what is old, and respect for the value of craftsmanship. Working behind the scenes for a handbag designer, I am surrounded in a rare enclave, in which all the leather handbags and accessories are not only locally produced in studio, the materials are either sourced from recycled leather (i.e. vintage leather pants, jackets, and skirts) or an ethical supplier. Once you are privy to the hours of painstaking toil it requires to make one single handbag, you think twice the next time you buy a branded label that slaps its good name on something churned out of a factory from a third world country. The label doesn’t bear half the weight it used to.

I am by no means declaring I am an arbiter of ethical fashion, but it has certainly made me more aware of what I buy and when I buy. Taking a peek into my edited closet, I find that my most beloved items are vintage. They are memories sourced from my travels, and treasured because they are one-of-a-kind. Each holds with it an unforetold story and now a continued legacy as I don it years from its hey day and wonder how many continents it has journeyed before it arrived to hang in my closet.

On that note, I’ll take a cue from Henry David Thoreau, “Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends…. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts.” He just might be onto something.…

California day dreaming…

“I will embrace the first opportunity to get to California and it is altogether probable that when once there I shall never again leave it.”

~ George Stoneman

It is only apropos that this particular entry be inspired by a new friend I met from Switzerland on one most unsuspecting day of adventure in L.A. What started out as a visit to LACMA (LA County Museum) to discover it closed on a Wednesday, turned into a day of walking much of greater West Hollywood and ended at the Viper Room. There were also a few characters, local and foreign encountered in between.

With LACMA off the agenda, I wandered down Fairfax Avenue to see a queue formed in front of CBS studios. It wasn’t long before I found myself filing in with the crowd to a free taping of the Craig Ferguson show and catching a glimpse of Brooke Shields on the night’s celebrity roster. Emerging from the studios three hours later, I continued down the street and stumbled across Catwalk, a vintage huntress’ bedazzled dream, replete with rack upon rack of collectable finds. On what was a uncharacteristically brisk April day, trench coats were wrapped around my mind. Without hesitation, the eccentric duel running the shop, whisked out Burberry’s, Yohji Yamamoto’s and YSL for an impromptu dress-up whirl.

While, I couldn’t afford the designer price tags accompanying the collectable labels, I could afford homemade gelato at Golden State across the street, where I settled on oatmeal crunch and an earl grey green tea combo. Gelato cup and spoon in hand, I stopped to peruse at Family an independent neighbourhood book store next door, with carefully displayed art books; my idea of coffee table indulgence.

Stepping out into the early evening, I looked across the street and saw an ivy covered movie theatre, which featured double bill silent movies for the night. I watched as a dapper gentleman who appeared as if he had not aged since the cinema’s heyday in a full pinstripe suit and fedora purchase a ticket. In the end, the night was too young to be had in silence. So I continued trekking on foot to see if the night would find me on Melrose Avenue at dusk…

Les Chaussures d’été

“My shoes are special shoes for discerning feet” – Manolo Blahnik

I look forward to parading around town with these 3 pairs of shoes this summer.

Erin Templeton leather sandals with rope

I think I might be trading in my Havianas for my new favourite pair of sandals from Erin Templeton. Feels like a flip flop, but wears like a sophisticated Roman sandal with what was dubbed a candy cane or Dr. Seuss inspired rope by one sandal admirer.

Sky high vintage Vivienne Westwood brown leather pumps from London

My dear friend Jane from London recently sent me these beautiful brown vintage Vivienne Westwood pumps. I proudly inherited them at my own peril, since they arrived with a caveat from Jane that the heels were indeed vertigo inducing high. Walking any further than a block in these stilts, is like Bambi wobbling on ice.

Vintage Joan & David metallic silver pumps

Who could resist these vintage Joan & David metallic silver pumps? Straight out of the 80s, they are a pinch too narrow (which seems to be a common trend for Joan & David shoes), but I still plan to squeeze my tootsies in them, at least for a few toe numbing hours.