Travel Possibility

I have learned a few things in my time spent in Hawaii. The first thing I learned is that there is no such thing as street food around here. That isn’t to say that we don’t have the types of food that you buy at some little tent and can eat on the spot standing up, but rather to say that we don’t have any street vendors. We put our street food altogether in one place, in a parking, every Thursday in the evenings. It’s a small event called the Kailua Farmer’s Market and is usually only inhabited by locals who are in the know. The funny thing about that is, I bet more tourists off the Hawaiian cruises would come in and buy a lot of stuff if they knew it was going on. The food in particular is really amazing.

Wander around there and you may find some interesting things, such as the disk jockey Tom Purdy sells what he calls Taro Delights. The one he pushes the most is his Oh Wow Laulau. This is a special dish he made on his own and consists of taro chunks and salmon belly wrapped in “plenty leaf”. The best part is that while it may seem a little expensive for street food at seven dollars, it is big enough to fill you up. If you are still hungry after that, I would suggest finding something small and saving room for dessert. My suggestion is that you find some fried Arancini. It is not native to Hawaii, but it a great dish and is usually there. Arancini is a Sicilian style rice ball. You start with a mushroom risotto with some mozzarella in the middle. You roll it in bread crumbs, and fry is to a golden brown. You can get them for two for three dollars and they are made right there. You can finish off your meal with the best ice creme you’ve ever had. Gerry Nakashima sitting behind his ColdFyyre booth makes ice creme that day from the products being sold around you. The apple bananas and sea asparagus come from various local farmers and were bought right at 5pm when the market opened so you know they are still fresh.

I know it can be hard being a tourist who has to get back to the Hawaii cruise ship you came into the island on, but if you ever have a chance to be on Kailua after five this is the happening place to be. It’s not that there aren’t other activities in Hawaii, but I suppose I just like experiencing a new place through their street food, and this is the only place in the area I know about where you can really do that.

This morning, I gave my presentation to Mr. Baum’s calculus class in Wichita, I thought it went really well, but I did notice that some of the students were dozing off. I put as many pictures in my presentation as I possibly could without overdoing it, I think visuals always makes things more interesting and is a good aid. Afterwards, some of the students thanked me for a great presentation!

I was talking to Mr. Baum after class, and Mr. Kilmer came by to join in our discussion. Mr. Kilmer is the physics professor at Hesston. Mr Baum mentioned to him that I did a great job, and thought Kilmer’s physics class might want to hear the presentation as well. I didn’t mined if Kilmer didn’t mind, and he was delighted to have me over to his class tomorrow morning. I went back to my room at this local hotel I booked online. I was only planning to leave tomorrow morning, but now that I get a chance to show my presentation to other class, I booked the room for one more night. I didn’t know if Kimer would want to continue our discussion further, so I wanted to play it cool, like it was no problem.

The next morning, I drove to Hesston and I noticed that there were some students in his class that were at my presentation yesterday, so I made sure to change up my presentation a bit. Plus, this time I showed a YouTube video demonstrating my formula car. I had just put it together before my trip to Wichita, and I think it turned out pretty good for such short notice. After the presentation, I was right, Kilmer did want to discuss things with me some more, he took me around campus and showed me a new building. He updated me about some recent changes in the media services. I attended the Hesston Mennonite church for a chapel service and notice that some of the people I went to college with were now faculty members. It was great to catch up with them after the service, we even went out to lunch.

Everyone had to get back to Hesston, so we all said goodbye and exchanged emails. I’m thinking that I might just be asked to become a faculty member, maybe, not sure, but who knows?

My whole family and I were on our way to Grand Rapids, Michigan. I was a little sad about leaving my dog all alone, I mean, someone will be checking up on her, well only be away 2 nights and 3 days, but my dogs never been without us. I hope she fares well.

So, I was sitting back, relaxing and enjoying the car trip to Grand Rapids, I watched the beautiful scenery pass by, then my Mom got hungry, so we stopped at McDonald’s. We got back in the car and heading back on the road again. After 3 hours, we saw the mile signs to Grand Rapids, 30 miles away. We were are eager to arrive and get settle in our hotel rooms, we had to book 2 rooms because there are 6 of us. My mom found the Grand Rapids Hotel, where we will be staying, on the Internet, she’s not one who great online, but she found this page: hotelsgrandrapids.com and the site made it very easy for her to book two rooms.

As soon as we got into Grand Rapids, my folks headed straight for the Community College Restaurant, it’s called The Heritage. The food there was excellent; it’s all prepared by students, and I give them an A+! After that we found our hotel, which was nicer than we expected. We called up my cousins to let them know we arrived. It was her Quinceanera tomorrow. That’s why we are here. Quinceanera’s are a big deal in the Mexican traditions. It’s when a girl turns fifteen and is considered a woman. But, I was really looking forward to all the great Mexican food that will be served.

The next day, when we arrived at the Quinceanera, we stuffed our faces with great Mexican food, while great Mexican music was playing. My cousin finally got to dance her waltz, while everyone else danced the salsa, the cumbia and the merengue. We started doing the traditional Chinelos Dance, which is a traditional dance from the Aztecs to scare off bad spirits. This dance lasts about 5 minutes, and we keep repeating the same 4 steps over and over.

We found the DJ to be not of this era, someone needs to tell him that there’s new music! When the party ended, we all went back to our cousins house, so we could all catch up and relax with one another. We didn’t get back to our hotel until 5am! Now that was some Quinceanera!