I showed this to my coworker, and he cracked up at the first panel. "The fence! It looks like you're in prison! 'Wanna see where I'm living now? In JAIL!!'"
I hadn't thought of that. I just thought it was Pretty.
Here's a couple of photos from my time there. My friends in the TV lounge:
"To all my old-skool bone thugz on Tha Middle Path..."
[May 10, 2005] My pictures from the Songshan Shaolin exhibition turned out better than I expected. In the above photo, a monk is balanced on the points of six spears, and they didn't break his skin. It was insane.
There were 18 monks in this exhibition, ranging in ages from 5 to 22 (yes, they're all younger than me. It was humbling. Like most things in my life), plus their grandmaster, who did some incredibly badass feats. In fact, they all did incredibly badass feats.
Like doing handstands, using only two fingers... and then doing one-handed handstands, using only two fingers.
The coolest part was that the youngest monks... were 5-year-old triplets. The Shaolin Triplets. They were not only badass, they were adorable too -- kind of shy when they first came out on stage, and then way cool when they started doing things. They did headsprings. People did lots of headspings in this show. They also leaned over and planted their heads on the ground... and then walked around them spinning their bodies, keeping their heads planted on the stage.
There were lots of weapons demonstrations, and animal-style demonstrations. There was a guy who demonstrated drunken boxing, and then drunken sword fighting, and then drunken staff fighting. There were kip-ups in every single demonstration. They did lots of flips and tucks and cartwheels and stuff, all right out of my gymnastics class -- except they never landed on their feet, they always landed on their backs, which was a little odd.
The grandmaster did demonstrations where big, burly men in the audience would get a chance to try to hurt him. He took repeated kicks to the crotch from very large men, and chain-punches to the stomach... and then the monks brought in a battering ram, and a bunch of them rammed it into his stomach a lot. The Shaolin Triplets did a 'shell game,' where kids from the audience had to close their eyes while the three kids ran around and rearranged themselves, and then the kids had to guess which of the three was which. And there was a really cheezy computer animated video accompanying it, and a very '80s World music soundtrack. So in addition to being extremely badass, it was also extremely exploitative.
Afterwards, they signed autographs and posed for pictures... and my friend Japalino was totally crushing on her 'dreamboat monk' (which was the coolest thing ever -- my friend had a crush on a monk! A monk who could kick your ass!). And I was thinking...
This is a bunch of monks, from China. And here they are, in the West, encountering women who wear less clothing than they've ever seen, and getting treated like rockstars.
How weird must that be?
On April Fool's Day in 1957, a tsunami hit the coast of O'ahu, and the water literally punched a hole through solid rock on that island. Historically, La'ie Point was once a puuhonua (a refuge where criminals could go to be forgiven), and the islands out in the ocean were said to have been the broken pieces of a giant lizard that a local hero defeated.Lunch Hours:
Mon-Fri 11am-2:30pm
No lunch on Sat, Sun
Dinner Hours:
Mon-Thurs 5-10pm
Fri 5-11pm
Sat 4-11pm
Sun 4-10pm
Bar Hours:
Mon-Thurs 11am-11pm
Fri 11am-1am
Sat 4-1am
Sun 4-11pm
Happy Hour:
Everyday 4pm - 7pm
Every night after 10:00pm
Non-smoking restaurant and bar
Kids menu, booster seats and high chairs available.
Large parties can be accommodated; call manager in advance.
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Here's Olga from Germany and the 18-foot-tall Buddha.
