Hey, food junkies! Just got some cake doughnuts and sweet potato mochi from the Big Island.  The cake doughnuts are so HUGE but so ono!  I actually have to eat them by layers, and each layer is like an individual doughnut … kind of like three doughnuts in one!  The sweet potato mochi are rich and chewy … kind of like my favorite taffy candy.  This stuff is definitely going to do major damage to my girlie figure!  Hahaha!  I want to send a big mahalo to the Noyles for bringing us these wonderful treats …

I just saw a very cool video which was sent to me by Ms. Junko Nagai, a teaching assistant at kumu hula Sandii’s hula studio in Japan.  The video consisted of two hulas – each choreographed and performed by Sandii’s Yokohama and Shibuya keiki hula classes to ManoaDNA’s “ALOHA YOU – KIZUNA”.  This song was featured last year on NHK’s Minna No Uta TV show and has since become a favorite of many of Japan’s keiki.  The song speaks about the first Japanese who immigrated to Hawai’i and the hardships they experienced living in a new land. I was told that the keiki hula girls researched the history and meaning of our song, then came up with their own choreography to it.  When I saw the video, I was so overwhelmed that it almost brought me to tears!  IT WAS SOOOOOO AWESOME!!  They took an important part of history between our two cultures and created a way to tell the story via their passion – hula!  Wow …

I want to send my heartfelt aloha & mahalo out to Chie, Hamoa, and the rest of the Yokohama and Shibuya keiki hula group for your wonderful performance!

Aloha, “D”