Chinese Celebration and Punahou Carnival

2010 is the year of the Tiger. This year, Chinese New Year was on Valentines Day but Chinatown celebrated the weekend before. I think it is so neat that Hawaii is so diverse. We are full of many cultures that we have adopted so many different customs.

This celebration downtown is like one giant block party. All the streets in Chinatown were shut down and lined with vendors and tons of people.


In the top left picture we were lucky to see those 3 dragons dancing in front of this store with VERY LOUD firecrackers going off. I heard that businesses will pay big bucks for them to come in for good luck in the coming year.

We were so happy that we got to spend some time with our friends Tau, Sarah and their cute son Noa in Chinatown. They were visiting from Utah. I think the last time we seen them was back in those pre-kid days and it was so much fun catching up.

The parade was the highlight of celebrating Chinese New Years. We saw tons of colorful dragons. Both Na'u and Noa fed the dragon their dollar. We are expecting good luck coming our way :). Maybe we should have been a little more generous but oh well.


Sarah (& Tau)...I just had to steal this picture from you. It was soooo CUTE! If you're wondering why we are holding the kids hands like this, let me tell you. Have you ever gone to a parade where they give out candy? The parade people only give candy to little kids and not adults so we figure...put the the kids to work :). Who could refuse giving these faces a little candy? Even my little teethless Iwi boy got some (YESSSS). After a while, the kids did it all by themselves. We taught them good.


After Chinatown, we went with our friends and saw the night show at PCC. The kids LOVED it! Thanks for spending time with us. Can't wait to see you next time!
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On February 5th, we went to the Punahou Carnival. We've been going every year since we moved back to Hawaii since it's so close to our house. This was also the first year that Na'u actually knew what was going on. She was too young last year to enjoy it so it was fun watching her get excited about everything that was happening.

Our biggest motivation for going is FOOD. Yes, they have rides and prizes and other carnival things but we LOVE the food. While we were there we had corn on the cob, saimin, fried saimin, teri burgers, cotton candy, and a gyro. We are not total slobs :)...we did share most of the food.


It was kind of hard to ride the rides because we didn't have any babysitters. If we did ride, we'd have to go alone while the other one watched the kids. It's NO FUN riding alone. Both Cameron and I have been on many rollercoasters and love the rush you get but lately, (I don't know if its because we're getting older) we get sick. Sad but true. Na'u on the other hand LOVED the merry-go-round. If you'd ask me, I think riding the rides was so expensive. It was $3 per person. Every "little" person needed an accompanying adult which had to pay full price too. I think the adults should pay less but thats just my opinion. Na'u went on with daddy but was so sad when it stopped. It didn't last very long. We paid $6 to stay on that thing for maybe 1 1/2 minutes. Of course she wanted to go again. We said no at first but who could say no to such a sweet face and a simple request. We gave in and I went around with her. She actually wanted to hold on all by herself.


The carnival had lots of other things including a plant sale. Cameron just couldn't resist buying a Samoan Dwarf Coconut Tree. I'm pretty sure that he bought it because it had "Samoan" in its' name but he says it's because it will stay close to the ground. It won't grow super high like regular coconut trees. Anyways, I hope it doesn't die. We're not very green thumby.


We had so much fun! We can't wait til next year.