we have the same style

i went to the italian street painting festival in san rafael yesterday. the adult stuff is cool, but the really good stuff is the kids':



haha, this looks like an angry guy holding a drink... um... yeah, that's what it looks like:





this totally looks like my damn good fruit, doesn't it? we think alike!

i think this one's my favorite:

some of the pictures are distorted because i took them from far away, but i think these are fleshy butterflies frolicking with a cat:

when i took this shot i saw only darth vader, but now i see that i've cut off the people fighting with lightsabers on the right, oops!



i wonder if that was the same artist who did C-3PO and R2-D2 (scroll all the way to the right) last year.

there were many other spongebob fans, but i liked how these girls depicted him here in action, jellyfishing:



now i'm inspired to draw and draw and draw and draw!

from another's eyes

here are some photos courtesy of my friend, T. Luu.

she had reserved a one bedroom / 2 baths (what we thought was a) hotel room, and we ended up with a 3 bedroom / 3 baths condo with a kitchen, living room, washer, dryer, vacuum cleaner -- you name it, we got it! the place ran out of the type of room that we had requested so we got upgraded to a luxury condo for free! and there were only two of us! the refrigerator and microwave were much used and appreciated. i even hung my wet bathing suit in the other bathroom just because i could, hee!

this is the view from T's room on the top floor (in kihei):



when T was snapping pictures up atop haleakala crater, she got this shot with bubbles in them and thought it might be dirt on her lens, but there were no bubbles in any of the other pictures... i'm convinced they're angels!

Click on photo for larger view

i just saw the rest of her pictures and found this other one of the full moon that also has some bubbles, but i still think they're angels:



T's sunrise shot is gorgeous:



this caption from her album made me laugh:

What is my friend looking at? A cute guy - Captain Jack Sparrow? :)

we were on a sunset dinner cruise at kaanapali, that's why i was on a boat. and this is the sunset we saw:



cookhouse next to the wo hing temple in lahaina -- big wok!



tram tour of the maui tropical plantation in wailuku:





thanks for the pictures, T! and thanks for travelling with me! :)

the sky & buddhist-themed things

my friend did most of the picture-taking during our trip. i was carrying a backpack and had to take it off to whip out my camera, so that's why most of my pictures are of the sky and buddhist-themed things -- they inspired me to overcome my inertia.

it was already lighter on the east side, but this was how dark it was at the top of the haleakala crater:



this reminds me of the lifesavers candy commercial where a dad and his little girl were watching the sun set and when it sank into the horizon, she said, "do it again, daddy," except, of course, this is in reverse:









the bell at the jodo mission in lahaina:



the red building with the 3 tiers and pointy top that i had labeled a temple is probably not called a temple, but i didn't know what else to call it. but this, i think, is really the temple, because there's seating inside:



very beautiful interior -- the ceiling is all circles of individual paintings:

moonmoon in maui

i just got back last night from my 6-day trip to maui. the most memorable experience, i would say, was driving up the volcano at 3 o'clock in the morning. oh, the sunrise up there, the reason why we went in the first place, was pretty cool, too, but the drive, my goodness, the drive was an adventure in itself! it was pitch black, and we were going most of the way at 15 mph on a winding road all the way up to 10,000 feet, with no barriers or any railing to keep us from rolling off the side. my previous day had been extra long, waking at 7:00 a.m. san francisco time to fly to maui, and then because i get anxious about having to wake up early, i wasn't able to sleep the few hours before getting up at 2:15 a.m. for this trek. even so, i was so alert, so aware that our lives were in my hands as i was driving, that i tried to make jokes about it but my mouth was shaking from the fear of dropping off the edge of the road, hahaha! i was so proud of myself when we finally made it up top and we were both still alive and had actually found our way there without getting lost.



the sunrise was miraculous. it felt like we were in heaven, literally, because we were above the clouds.





and we had a full moon, too!



i was really lucky to have driven up and then taken a motion sickness pill before driving part of the way down, because my friend who normally doesn't get carsick was the passenger and she threw up twice (!), once on the way up and then again on the way down. thank god i had a good ole sturdy Target bag in my backpack, because it took a while to find a place to pull over on the way down. she took over driving after that and felt much better. without having to be alert anymore, i lost control of my eyelids and slept the rest of the way back.

then it was more driving, sun, sights, water, sand, food, food, and more food -- you know, just regular hawaiian fun, except light on the beach and heavy on the picture-taking.

we had a mahimahi takeout lunch here on the beach somewhere between honokowai and kaanapali:



buddha at the jodo mission in lahaina:



temple next to the buddha at the jodo mission in lahaina:



little buddhas in bibs in front of shingon buddhist temple, also in lahaina:



we used the restroom here at the ritz carlton in kapalua and then tresspassed through a golf course down there to the left:



my friend had been wanting a genuine maui fruit smoothie for days and finally got her wish at the hula grill in the whalers village in kaanapali:



that's me on the left, a banana bailey's kahlua macadamia nut liquer something or other with vanilla ice cream, and that's her on the right, a strawberry mango smoothie. our drinks were hungry, so i ordered them a crab and macadamia nut fried wonton, while we had baja fish tacos.

as with most trips, there were things about home that i missed while i was away:

• monosyllabic street names
  
• my super soft two-ply quilted northern toilet paper
  
• chinese people
  
• streetlights and excessive use of electricity
  
• drinking of hot beverages
  
• TV channels that are in the order that i know them
  
• my gecko-less bedroom (although i was greeted with a big hairy spider in my bathroom last night)
  
• my civic, with parking brake on the right where it's supposed to be

when we went to pick up our rental car, i drove first and sat in our saturn aura. i'd only ever driven my dad's BMW's and my honda's, and once my other friend's toyota, so i was like, "where's the parking brake?" my friend is all about japanese cars, too, so we searched around and i concluded that maybe these new cars don't have parking brakes anymore and i was ready to take off. good thing my friend decided to go ask the alamo guy, who laughed at her and then came over to show us that it's on the floor, to the left of the regular brake pedal. even so, we probably forgot to release or set the parking brake every other time we drove or parked the car.

so i'm back, driving my lovely civic, drinking my hot water, and my ass happy once again. i wonder where i'll go next...