The Importance of Shoes

Are you a shoe person or a purse person? It's very sad but true, shoes and purses are my guilty pleasures. It's comforting to know, however, I'm not the only woman who possesses such obsession. In fact, it's probably quite normal for our population, except for a few outstanding individuals I know and admire, who have unsurpassed self discipline and self control to disregard material things. I continue to strive to become one of those exceptional people.

I try hard to reject the temptation of those things, but in my weaker moments, finding good pairs of shoes and a nice purse brighten my day. Until the next good find comes along, which haunts me at night.

Creepy Things

#1 The two Tans
Jack's 3rd Ave. kiteboarding webcam was down for close to half a year now, because someone dropped it when moving it. As the kiteboarding season started this year, more and more people were noticing the absence of the webcam, and emails inquiries came to Jack's mailbox.

One day Jack told me Tan offered to donate his home computer to host the webcam server, so we wouldn't have to rely on the company hosting the webcam. Jack refused it a few times, because the hosting server was not the root cause of the problem. Jack just needed to get the webcam fixed and get it back on line. After a few times of unsuccessful engagement and many technical suggestions, Tan stopped emailing Jack with further offerings. Both Jack and I were quite amazed what a persistent person our friend Tan was.

Last week Jack came home and told me, "this guy walked up to me and said: it's good to finally meet you." It turned out it was the Tan who was emailing Jack, who was a different guy from our friend Tan.

#2 Confused about the singer
Finding out my favorite love song from high school was sung by a man rather than a woman.

#3 Are you alright?
One day I found Jack in the bed room lying on his belly. I was startled thinking he was fainting.

I screamed: "Are you alright?"

He looked up and said, "yes, I'm fine."

It turned out he was trying to deflate an inflated globe, and he was lying on it to squeeze the last bit of the air out of it.

What Happened in the Car

One day Jack and I drove to 3rd Ave. I was holding a coffee, because there was no cup holder available in the car. As we talked, I made all kinds of hand gestures as my usual animated self.

At the red light, I turned to look into the blue truck next to us, and the driver was also looking at me. I looked away as Jack and I were still talking about an exciting topic. All of a sudden I lost grip of my coffee and it almost flew out of my hands. I spilled coffee all over me. In a hurry, I wiped myself and from the seat belt. I turned to look at the guy in the blue truck again, he was looking straight ahead, bouncing his head with the music from his radio, while shaving his mustache with an electric razor in a nonchalant kind of way.

Just the other day in the car, I saw the driver of an SUV pouring coffee from one Starbucks cup to another.

You'll be surprise what you found people doing in the car nowadays, and it is ever so amusing.

Uke Lesson

During my Kauai trip, I made an appointment to take a beginner's Ukulele lesson from an accomplished Slack Key Guitar and Ukulele player. I can't tell you his name until I become a good uke player myself.

My teacher was very good and he was very serious about teaching, so Jack and I were very serious too. He said Jack could sit in the room while I was taking the lesson, as long as he stayed quiet.

My appointment was at 10. Jack drove me to find his place, and we were 30 minutes early, so we parked the rental car in the neighborhood community center parking lot. About 5 minutes before 10'clock, Jack said: "Did you clip your nails?" I showed him my left hand's finger nails, and he said they weren't short enough to play a Ukulele. I didn't bring my nail clipper, so we had to drive across the street to a convenient store to buy a nail clipper.

I bought a Ms. Manicure brand pink nail clipper. We only had 2 minutes left, so Jack drove straight to the class, while I carefully clipped my nails.

"This is a good nail clipper. Look, my nail is so smooth now." I said, as I was carefully clipping methodically starting from my thumb.

Jack took a look at my hand and started laughing: "You don't have to clip your thumb nail!"

Yoga home practice

When I first met Jack's mother, Sue, who was in her 70s and a retired Yoga teacher, I was amazed at how straight her back was and how strong she was, because at the time I was in my early 30s, I was already slouching and bothered by back pain.

I determined to revert the pain and prevent premature aging, I started to practice Yoga. I go to Yoga and Pilates class weekly, and a third day in the week I do cardio exercise plus extensive stretching. It is funny, when I was younger, I never had the patience to stretch before or after exercises, as I didn't see it any use. I actually feel that my body a living organism, like a machine, all the moving parts need proper care, and stretching of the muscles is to prevent stiffness so that they don't have to remind me their existence. I have done this exercise routine for over three years. After a good Yoga or Pilates class, I would fell that my body was "lubricated". Now as I walk around, I can proudly feel my back is straight, my abs tight and most of the time my muscles are OK.

I have always wanted to add home practice to my normal routine. It can be challenging to do, when you don't have the right frame of mind or the discipline. It's not impossible, but it is hard for someone like me, who have been avoiding order and organization in life. But I never stop trying despite multiple failures over a long time.

During our Spring Kauai trip, I actually had a breakthrough and possibly found the tricks to building my own Yoga home practice.

To have a good home Yoga practice, the first thing is to give in to your normal lifestyle, if it is the stressful kind - rushing from home to the office; rushing to finish the email at the same time responding to multiple chat windows; rushing to head to the gym or make an appointment on time; rushing to go home and make dinner and feed the dogs. Like learning new things after you already know quite a lot of other stuff. You have to give up certain things on your plate so that there is room for the new stuff.

Try to give up the need of meeting all the deadlines and obligations, you will find that you and others which demand your time will survive, then you can find some space and energy to do this wonderful practice. Yoga is rejuvenating because it gives you a chance to empty your mind; to breathe deep into your heart and lungs, send all the much needed oxygen - the life source - to your whole body, your limbs and your brain. At the same time, your muscles from head to toe got properly stretched, building strong muscles and joints.

Removing the obligations from life? Easier said than done, right? Yes, that's why I could only get a breakthrough during my vacation, when I dropped everything from my work and life, went to a remote island and have plans of doing nothing. Then I could quiet down and figure out my needs and design a program that fits that need.

Namaste.

My Yoga Retreat Day 2

Day 2 I did Yoga in the early morning, and it was very nice, as I got to stretch out my calve and legs as needed. Then we lingered at home doing this and that: I wasted a little time online, and Jack was reading from his ipet - the name I gave to his iPad.

At around 11, we left home and drove toward Poipu beach to see the Shrimp Lady, Susan. We ordered two Bahia (coconut garlic shrimp), and Susan asked if we live here on the island. We said, no, but we came every year, and the last time we came was December 2010. She said you were lucky to be able to come every year. As she was quite busy, we didn't stay to offer our sympathy about the not readiness of her new shop.

We took our food and went to spouting horn to have a picnic. A bold rooster drew by the smell of the food, and he paced around our picnic table, crowing proudly responding to another rooster's challenge. Jack gave him a bit of rice, and he took it with his beak. He got bolder with the simple invitation. He jumped up on the picnic table came next to my food.

Jack told him: "My wife is very stingy."

"That's because I am very hungry." I enjoyed my shrimp slowly, sucking all the coconut and garlic flavor out of the shells.

Jack said: "how come you always get more shrimp than I do?" Looking at his own plate with what became more of a pile of shells, and the reduced number of shrimps.

I said: "It does look like that way, doesn't it? I think we each got 10 pieces and I think she told you how many pieces there were in each plate on the menu. I just ate slowly."

Jack finished his food and left me alone with the rooster friend - who was standing on the picnic table inches away from my plate, starring at my food with interest - when I still had 3 pieces of shrimp left. The rooster was very valorous.

I have to admit I was intimidated by this rooster, because I had this unpleasant image of being pecked by chickens in my mind. It would be very stupid to be pecked by a good looking, colorful rooster on my annual visit to the island. Since I already finished my rice, I had nothing else to give him but some pieces of shells and bits of coleslaw. I gave him bits of those while I quickly finished my shrimp and felt a bit ripped off. I wished Jack stayed with me when I ate!

After lunch we went watch the spouting horn for a while - it was windy and wavy, and there were big spouts. We then walked passed the souvenir vendors on the way back to the car. I am proud to say I didn't spend a penny there this time - so far. When we got back to the parking lot, Jack stood in front of two identical looking white Nissan Sentra and asked: "Which one is ours?" Before I could answer, he recognized the hotel parking permit on the dashboard, and jumped into the right car.

After we left spouting horn, we wondered where we should go next. We didn't want to go to the botanical garden, which was on the way back, because it would be very troublesome to have to put on bug spray aka deet on our skins. I always felt that I was poisoning my skin when I used that stuff. So we decided to go to check out the Ukulele shop at Old Kaloa Town - Larry's Music.

We walked into the small shop, where a middle age man was playing his Ukulele. We looked around and find different sizes of Ukuleles made of different kind of woods and in different size shapes hung on the walls. After a while the man stopped playing and asked us: "Can I help you?"

SO the conversation began. Jack walked toward him and said: "We don't know squat about Ukuleles. Can you tell us something about it?" He first told us the different kind of Ukuleles - concert, soprano, and tenor. Then he explained different kind of wood, and how their Ukuleles were made. He also went on to tell us how his son had to work with the Chinese manufacturer and make their 3rd rate product become top of the line - "The trick is all on quality control, now we know it, but it sure was painful when it first started." He also told us about his friends who were famous Ukulele makers or players. He went over all the local famous players, and their stories. He told us about his wife, his son's wife, and his grandson who also plays Ukulele with his own style. This guy was so friendly, if we didn't inch our way toward the door, for we got bitten by bugs so badly, we would probably stay there for dinner. Anyway, three hours later we left the shop with no Ukulele. But feeling like soaked sponges full of knowledge about this miniature guitar looking instrument.

This was a guy who entrusted his life's story to two stranger, tourists from the States, who just happened to stepped into his store when he had no other customers. He called this season the newly weds or nearly deads ... Which we didn't appreciate, but he quickly added: "of course you guys are exceptions."

It was a full day for us. We went home, and I made BBQ chicken fried rice and stir-fried bok choy for dinner. Then we fell asleep while watching "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory".

My Kauai Yoga Retreat Day 1

My Thursday night Yoga teacher Jean is on a Yoga Retreat in Mexico. She advertised it many months ago, but it happened to be on the same week I would be in Kauai. So I didn't have to debate whether to join her retreat.

On this annual Kauai trip, we didn't have anything planned. We thought maybe if we were super bored of doing nothing, we could go hiking and try out paddle boarding, but we didn't have any specific plans as to when to do what in what order. After the second time here, we gave up scheduling many exciting events to fill up everyday of the week. We just want to lounge and enjoy doing nothing for a week for a change.

Inspired by Jean's Mexico Yoga Retreat, I thought I would try it on my own too. So on Tuesday - the day after we got here - after I got up at 7 AM, I did my Yoga. I played New Age musics from Pandora, and it put me in the right mood. Usually when I tried to do Yoga at home, I found it difficult to focus, and I never felt like I stretched enough. With the music, it was so much easier for me to focus on my practice, and it slowed my mind down a lot. I didn't try to rush from one pose to another, but rather flowed from one pose to another with ease. The sound of the waves and the breeze for sure helped calm me down too.

After Yoga, we got out of the hotel at around 10:30 AM. Went to Kapaa to have breakfast at our favorite breakfast place - Kountry Style Kitchen. We en-routed to get some local fruit and vegetable at the Sunshine Market in the Coconut Market Place. I bought 2 papayas, some tomatoes, a small bunch of fragrant basil, a bunch of big bok choy. When I saw the bok choy, my eyes lit up, and the woman said immediately: "it's $2 each" - hitting the iron when it's still hot, so to speak. Jack got 3 packages of home-made coconut powder. People there were so friendly. One woman asked if I was a Japanese, and another guy asked if I was a Chinese. The day started to be really fun already. But it was also too warm, so we left and head over to breakfast.

We got to Kountry Kitchen at a little before 11 AM. Wanting to have some local food, I ordered 2 scramble eggs with rice and Kalua pork. Jack ordered his usual, 2 eggs breakfast with hash brown and toasts. I love Kalua pork!! It was moist, nicely roasted, spiced just right and very well made. I love to have Hawaiian food, which just means some kind of meat with rice instead of potatoes and some veggies. It's so Asian in that way. :)

After the delicious breakfast, we headed north toward Hanalei/Princeville. We stopped by the lighthouse to visit the bird sanctuary. We stayed there when I tried to take pictures of the birds. We also made a detour to stop by Anini beach, which was one of the kiting spots on the island. The beach was surrounded by reefs, and it was made like a big protected pool. It was windy and cross shore. The water was clear and beautifully blue or turquoise in different spots. I made a tree pose in the water, and actually looks pretty good.

We went northbound, passing Hanalei's famous tourist village. We didn't make another stops until we got to the dry cave and wet cave. At 2 PM, we got to the end of the road, which was also the trial head of a famous north shore hike. We made an impromptu decision to go for a short hike since we were already there and we had time. The whole hike would be 11 miles one way, but we decided to just go for a couple of hours. Luckily, we both had our new hiking boots with us. They were truly my best friend on this hike, because it was challenging all the way. There were rocks of different sizes paved the path, and you had to be very careful not to mis-step, as it would have been easy to twist an angle or slip. We went up and we went down. There were places where we were among lush forest, and there were places where we were at the ridge looking out the beautifully blue ocean and sky. After we got to 1.5 miles, Na Pali Coast was right in front of us, and it was breathtaking. We stopped there to admire the view for a while before we decided to turn around and face the challenging way back. This hike made us all sticky, sweaty and tired, but it was worth it!

At night, we made BBQ chicken and had rice and caesar salad. It was a wonderful day already, and the best part was we didn't even plan anything.