Event Hosted By Gary Link To Event Start slideshow Okinawan Festival 2008 08/30 Written By Gary 09/01/2008 click for full size (Photos provided by Cameraman Gary) Okinawan Festival 08/30/2008 The group met up at the corner of Kalakaua and Monserrat. Unbeknownst to some of us, another parade had been taking place and Kalakaua Ave. had been closed. This created endless traffic jams and caused delays for several members. The good news is that this was a long event and so the arrival time was not critical. As with most festival events, we decided to take the group picture as soon as possible before people started heading off in their own little groups. We were fortunate to run into David who played a key role in the entertainment that evening where he was the most awesome Taiko drummer at the festival! After watching David perform some amazing stunts on stage the group headed over to the food booths to check out the terrific aroma of delicious food that was being blown toward the stage. I must say this was one of the better festivals where there were plenty of good choices among the booths. Some of us settled on the premiere "Okinawan Plate" (champuru). Does anyone know where we can get these when the festival is over??? Others settled for the scrumptious pig's feet soup and the non-Okinawan huli huli chicken. All of this was topped off by shave ice, okidogs and yummy andagi! By the way, but I couldn’t help but notice why there were so many people by the okidog booth with little Pomeranians, Chihuahuas and Dachshunds...hmmm We had about a half an hour to spend before the bon dance started and so some of us headed over to the open market where they had numerous Okinawan food items on sale. The best part about this was that there were free samples of each item and they must have had over 200 things to choose from. The bon dance began around 5:30pm and soon it became apparent why this festival receives top honors for having the largest bon dance in the State of Hawaii. It was pretty cool seeing 7 or 8 hundred people dancing in circles. Soon members of the group began to join in and, as you can see from the last photo, everyone became lost in the crowd. By the end of the festival some of us were thirsty and so we headed over to Tikis for the infamous nightcap. Mari and I had a terrific evening with the group and we would like to thank everyone who came out and enjoyed the Okinawan Festival! ATTENDEES: TAYO, KEVIN, MELISSA & RASHAN, AMELA & ARI, HELEN, REGINA & DAVID, ETHAN, ALICIA & TOM, KAYO & FERNANDO, MARI & GARY More Photos

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Alicia	Taiko Wow! David's a fantastic Taiko performer! :) Great to see everyone. Champuru plate = tasty.
David	hey Thanks for checking us out!
Michael	didn't i didn't make it out cuz i was sickly...someone should do this again real soon