I ka inoa i ka Makua, a me ke Keiki, a me ka 'Uhane Hemolele ... (Day 5)

Being an early riser to begin with and my 2 hours jet-lag ADD UP instead of balancing out and that leads to breakfast at 4:30 am. But this can also have some positive side-effects (and I'm not only talking about 2nd breakfast at 8 ;-)

For example, there is a Hawaiian church service at The Painted Church about half hour drive away at 7:15 am.  The Hawaiian service (so far I'm thinking ham and pineapples, but decreasing my ignancy level is the whole reason for going ;-) is only offered on the 2nd Sunday of each month, so today is my only chance this year.

It's been roughly 30 years since I've been to a church service, and even then the only reason to go for this ingrained infidel  was to get out of watch duty while on maneuvers during my German army days. I will try to show some respect to the faithful worshipers by shaving today and even wearing long pants to the service (I remember the days of my youth when one couldn't get into a church in Spain if one was wearing shorts). In retrospect that was superfluous, since most regulars wore shorts.

Men in Black (not my pic)

Actually, I just remember that I went to a Hutterite church service 2.5 years ago.
 I'm grateful for that opportunity and experience, but in addition to a lot of listening to OLD German, there was a lot of time kneeling on a very hard stone floor. But I'm the first to admit that these were some of the most down-to-earth, intelligent, honest, hospitable, cordial, and respect-worthy people I have met anywhere !

My lei was not quite this fancy ;-( not my pic either)

But this is Hawaii, not the Prairies!   I'd never heard a bamboo trumpet being blown.  I'd never heard an ipu (percussion instrument made from a gourd) being played. I'd never heard Hawaiian being spoken, never mind being sung & chanted. No pictures were taken since I did not want to repay these people for their warm welcome by being an ARSE TOURIST. For my taste the service contained too much of that STAND, SIT, STAND, KNEEL, SIT, STAND roman catholic liturgy, which I always find utterly confusing, but quite a lot of the talking and most of the singing was in Hawaiian, which I truly enjoyed and at points brought tears to my eyes (Not religiously motivated ones; I get them when I experience something entirely NEW; I shed tears in planes landing in Hong Kong and Ireland, when first spying the northern coastline of France on a ferry this summer, etc etc ;-). Newcomers to the church were colourfully identified with a wool-thread Lei, but I did not stay long enough to find out or share the fate of those uniquely identified churchgoers, because after one hour I had to answer a call of nature and decided that one hour was enough for this infidel. And do not worry about the people wearing Leis; the Lei is the  Hawaiian sign of "Welcome!".   If this infidel (note: infidel literally translated means 'not happy', which I take exception to, but I like the word because it is the title of one of Bob Dylan's songs) got very much enjoyment out the service I'm sure anyone with faith would enjoy it even more.

'Amene  (pronounced with an A as in Amish ;-)

As for the rest of the day:  I found some free coffee cast over a wall by the road:

I saw a lot of CRAP (old and new)

wonder how long that's been here

What does Martha know about umbrellas (broken parts in the back) except that she can buy them cheap in China?

Is it crap, art, or KAPU ?

 Going to church did not prevent the puncture in my bicycle tire, but at least I got to fix the flat right on a lovely beach ;-)




























This is when I saw my dream house (dream house before I get sea-sick on/it it for the first time ;-)

After a short nap (at noon I have been awake for 8 hours !) it is almost time for the evening shopping bike trip (I fixed the punctured tube by now).  Some things that caught my eye (and were worth a shot ;-)

Stuff on the lawn (plumeria fell off the tree but is still gorgeous)

Stuff on the rocks

More stuff on the rocks

Stuff in the water ( a good post title would be "A turtle a day keeps the cold away !" ;-)




























And that would have been the day, had it not been for this WICKED sunset ;-)
Since I took about 50 pictures over 20 minutes of an ever changing sunset, the sunset will get its own post! Look for it tomorrow, but here is a teaser ;-)