HAWAII 1 : LUAU's

If you know me, like most of you do, I'm quite passionate about the food I cook and the food I eat. So to me, it seems only logical that I start off with a lovely FOOD section.

The thing that I love about Hawaiian food is that it is the role model for fusion cooking. With strong influences from western and asian cooking, which both add a little something to an already well established culinary tradition. But the thing that I love most about it is that it still IS able to keep their culinary traditions, there are things like the Luau, which is a celebration of culture and food.

Now I know when a lot of you think about Luau's, there is a very specific image of what you would expect to find there, and for a lot of those counts, there is some depth of truth. You would expect suckling pig, and an over-abundance of gorgeously presented dishes, and some traditional cultural events. And you can find all of this in almost all the professionally run luau's.

While for most people, going to a professionally organised cultural event can be rather tacky, but that's something that I really love, for sheer entertainment than any cultural activity. I think a lot of the main points in things like this is that you think that you're getting your dose of culture. Which is exactly what they do.

Here are a few good places to check out, they seem to look really good on my part. A lot of luau's are run by the big hotels, but that doesn't mean that you're going to have any less fun. I've found that a lot of the activities that you'll want to end up doing are run by large companies, and with hotels ever-present in Hawaii, it just makes sense. Anyway, there is the Island Breeze Luau, which seems to be rated one of the best in Hawaii. It's on the Big Island, and I think that I would definitely make a trip to the big island and not just stay on Oahu, even though it may be very tempting. But if you don't get off Oahu, there is always the Paradise Cove Luau. But really, have a look for yourself, because there are hundreds of luaus that you can frequent.

And believe me, this is definitely something that I would do, maybe as a nice first night, or maybe even second night wind down. Go check it out.

aloha x

sorry for the blog neglect

Things have been a little hectic these past few days, I've been working everyday and I just haven't found the perfect space of time to do all the blogging that I have planned to do. I will, however, try and write up anything in any form I can possibly manage, even if I'm writing my blog posts on a notepad in the train on the way to the work this afternoon.

Believe me, I haven't forgotten about the blog, and I will endeavour to rise a little earlier tomorrow morning and give you the wonderous part for Eating in my Hawaiian series.

Thanks for the patience :D
peace x

HAWAII SPECIAL

Ok.

So here is the kind of thing that I wanted to do here, I'm not exactly sure how successful it's going to be, but I'll give it a go at least. It's my blog anyway, I can do what I want. Not that I'm so dictatorial, but yeah.
I wanted to give what I think would be my ideal itinerary for a trip to Hawaii.

Ive done a whole lot of research, and while this isn't necessarily a travel blog post, I'd like to think that it is. I've never been to Hawaii, so a lot of what I'll be going off for the next little while is travel brochures and books, photos, websites, videos, pretty much basically all your media.

I've kind of tried to include a little bit on everything that you could think of doing, including things like dining out, hotels, shows to see, places to visit, beaches to check out, and all that type of stuff. I'm really looking forward to these next 10 posts or so, I'm really pleased to have a concept out there.

I'll leave you hanging for the moment, but watch this space for a nifty 10 day holiday itinerary by yours truly. I hope you enjoy all the hard hitting research I've been doing for it, I've got literally tens of pages of ideas and suggestions :D

peace x

New Years Resolutions

So I thought, along with a birthday, I should make a good new life years' resolution, or something to that extent at least.

Something that I think will kind of be a little bit more attainable now that I've come across a good program for it is to run a mile in half an hour, and then just build on anything more from there. Ideally, it would be great it I could get into good shape by the time I turn twenty. Wishfull thinking, but I am going to try and work my guts out and see how it goes.

Anyway, the program that I've been looking at is called Couch to 5K, and you can find all the information you need here. It looks pretty good, building up your running repetoire slowly and it just keeps getting better and better. And I've heard of a lot of good stories about this program just by looking around a little bit, so I think that it is something that might give me a little bit more structure to exercise.

I think one of the best things about this is that it's free. Being unemployed and just being a student means that you often don't have a lot of money to spend on gym classes and stuff like that, so you just have to fend for yourself in terms of exercise structure, which is an ultimate deterrent. So having this kind of formality, and just setting it straight out, what you need to do and stuff like that, seems like a very promising kind of thing, you know?

And I probably won't post tomorrow, because it is my BIRTHDAY, hence all this rumination about resolutions and stuff.

Oh, on a little sidenote, i got the deluxe edition of Nigella Lawson's cooking series. I am so happy.
That actually may be my downfall to getting fit. Or maybe if I exercise a lot, I can eat more of the food I make. I think that I'll look at the glass half full here :D

Peace x

FINALLY DONE!!!

With much joy, I now protest that I have finally completed the sweater I have been working on, the pattern of which can be found here.
I must say that I am really pleased with the final result of the jumper as a whole, and I think that it really is one of the best things that I've made as well, because I've sucked it up and finished it up to as high a standard as I'm possibly able to do.

So pretty much all of my time has been going into this for the past couple of weeks, so I think that I'll have a little break, and then I'm going onto continue with my other work in progress, which I very eagerly started yesterday. It should be pretty simple, and will give me plenty of time to work on my upcoming blog post series, which I am quite excited about. At least I have some focus for my blog at the moment, but I do hope that everything turns out well for what I have in mind.

But for now, I think that that is me spent for the day, so I'll leave it at that.

xPeace folks.

It's Nice to Be Involved in Another Kathy Reichs Novel Again

I guess it's just the type of writing that she employs, a lot of the language is very technical, but that doesn't really impact on the overall aesthetic of her books.
Whenever I read any of her books, I always feel like I'm right there, and that the protagonist is just bouncing ideas off of the reader, because they are about as good as anyone else, right? I suppose it does help that it is written in the first person, which helps with connectivity, but there just seems to be that little something else, that I can't really put my finger on, which makes Reichs' novels stand a head above anything that I have read before.

But I must say, I could well be biased. My favourite TV series, Bones, is based on the stories of Kathy Reichs, but even between the two of them there are a fair amount of differences, namely how much you get to know 'Temperance Brennan' in a certain amount of time. I don't think that that will phase me, to be honest, I can hardly put her stuff down. It's really gripping and I definitely recommend anything that she's written.

So anyway, I went to the library today, and there were little kids screaming everywhere, which really doesn't go with the entire idea of a library, but I'm not really one to complain. My problem with libraries is actually finding something that I think that I would like. A lot of the time i just think to myself, I really should just start at A and work through the list, and sometimes I'll do that. I find that I'm really fickle with what I read, so sometimes I'll come out with a whole lot of books and travel journalism, and then the next time I'll come out with a stack of books whose authors' last names all begin with the letter 't', or a pile of red books. I'm really not good with making literary decisions, I generally enjoy reading everything, so it stands to reason that everything I pick up in the library I would more than love to take home and read.

The same thing happens when I go to the video rental store as well, although when I go there I tend to come out with something from each section, or a couple from the western section. I must say that my life has been fully deprived of western movies, and I always love to try and keep that balance right if I can.

Other methods to help me decide what movies to watch or what books to read are websites like I Check Movies or Good Reads, which list the top ten books or movies from this certain genre, and there are literally thousands of lists out there that I can work on.

As I've said before too, it's nice to be able to read for pleasure again for a little while, when uni is back up and running there's no doubt that I'll have a magnitude of set texts to get through with English this term, so I should enjoy leisure reading as much as I can.

Oh, and on a final note, I'm planning at 10 blog post special coming up, covering my seventieth to eightieth posts. It's great that I finally have some type of focus to work to with this blog. For a little spoiler, it's travel blogging with a bit of a twist!

x Peace for now folks

I never remember it being this fun :|

But it sure does seem to be a whole lot of fun, to be honest.

It kind of makes me laugh, I love watching all the advertisements from the earlier and simpler times. They always seem to be outside, which might be indicative of something or other. :D
Plus I've never played twister on the beach. I must make sure to write that one down on the list, so I can check it off come summertime, all I'll have to do is find three other willing participants.

Maybe that is the key to solving childhood obesity, if we just start to play twister outside again.

:D
cool post still in progress,
peace

SICK

Sorry that I haven't been on for a little while, I was so so sick on Friday, and it's taken a couple of days to get over it, I just couldn't really be bothered to do a whole lot.

But I am still working on the surprise new blog post, so there is stuff coming, it's just going to take a little longer than i thought it was going to, I just have to make sure I have recuperated and have enough energy to do things.

So for the meantime, all I have to show for the past few days is this little blog post, so I hope you all hold tight.

Peace

Thinks that make you chuckle

And kind of roll your eyes as well.

My first little bit I got from an American hot dog eating contest. God they take those things so seriously, but it could be just about one of the most disgusting things I've witnessed in a long time.
But that's not really the good part.
I just love how much people take this stuff so intensely seriously. I mean, getting sent to jail for a hot dog eating contest-related crime has got to be one of the weirdest things that I've heard for a while.
Apparently for some reason the japanese guy was banned from participating, and then he got up on stage anyway, so the cops put him in jail for a day or so. And his biggest complaint was that there was not enough to eat.
I suppose if you can down about 50 or so hotdogs in 10 minutes, a sandwich and milk would kind of make you go looking for some more food around the house.

Then I have no idea where to start with my next topic. I think I'll just have to leave it to you to check it our for yourselves, it's Dumb Criminals. I think that the name pretty much just says it all.

Finally, guess how long the worlds longest scarf is?
According to this website, a group of 200 knitters were successful in knitting a scarf that was 33.74 miles long. Thats MILES! The thing with that though, is when do you actually make the decision to stop knitting, or just leave to to be knitted on for the rest of eternity, eventually providing a cover blanket for the entire world. That could be another innovative plan as well.

And finally, just the ridiculous types of shows that are on the Food channel these days on foxtel. I especially love the cake making reality tv shows.

Peace x

GERMS

I don't know if it is just me, but has anyone else kind of noticed how our homes are now supposedly become 100% germ free these days?

Last night when I was watching TV, no fewer than 4 ads in a row came up trying to sell us products that will get rid of 99.99 percent of the germs, leaving your house pest free, etc. etc.

But what happens when you go outside? That's right. The germs find the little germ-free surface that they can and will go to town. No wonder why people are getting so sick nowadays just from a cold or basic things like that. I think if you over-sanitise your house, ridding it of all types of germs, you're also going to rid yourself of the ability to create an immunity to them.

Not that it's good to have an overly messy house, or dirty for that matter, but I don't really see the need for a residential house to be hospital grade sterile. ><

Something we all should remember

                                                              Via We♥It
I'm sure that people keep forgetting this vital piece of information. But it's nice to have a great image like this to help remind us.
To be honest though, I'm finding it kind of difficult to come up with a lot of great blog topics at the moment. Things are obviously waiting in the wings, like the fact that I start work on MONDAY!, but apart from that, not a whole lot is happening which is remotely comment-worthy. I am doing what everyone should be doing during holidays, just relaxing and taking it easy, but I must say that I am looking forward to getting some money, and being able to start saving up again.
I might post a few blog posts on what I've been listening to and watching at the moment though, it's cool, I've been listening to a far more eclectic range of music, and as you know, I've been watching movies from around the world, so I might pick out a few and just go over them, you might be able to find something that you like.
In the meantime, I'm just going to go trawling out throughout the blog world and see if I can find some cool sites to check out. Either way, I'll leave it at this for now

Peace x