Jake Shimabukuro at the Zoo...Oh, and Tigger pooped in my closet

Zo and her entourage caught the free concert series down at the Waikiki Zoo tonight and it was the best part of the trip so far. It was Jake Shimabukuro and it cost a painful three bucks each. It was all locals and easily the best time so far.

June and I have developed a nasty aversion to the tourist trap that most travel has become...we just don't wanna participate. We do our best to settle into a place and then just really get in tune with it's rhythm and soul and roll with it. Waikiki was feeling a little touristy until tonight. We sat on a lawn in front of the stage with a few hundred families it seemed like, all of our kids playing together, Jake strumming away in the background. Zoey cranked out an easy three or four good buddies that she played with the whole time...a little Hawaiian girl named Layla and a couple of beautiful little sisters. They were all enjoying a rousing game of jumping around (Zoey with some help) when the youngest girl suddenly stopped and told June and I that her cat Tigger pooped in her closet. See what I mean? Best part of the trip.

There must have been a few hundred families on the lawn and I think Zo was the whitest of the bunch...Hawaiian, Japanese, more Japanese, and then a few more Japanese kids just for good measure...It's the most beautiful mix of people here you've ever seen...ever. We both spend every day marveling at the attractiveness of everyone around here...Throw together the next generation of mixed cultures and you're flat out floored by the beautiful kids running around. Mixed marriages are everywhere and it's a nice knock out punch to the jaw of any thoughtless aryan types...Mash up a couple of cultures and just watch the beautiful kids giggle and smile forever after. Just like our little Zo, to a lesser extent I suppose. She's only 1/4 Japanese but man oh man is she ever a popular girl with everyone here. Everyone is telling her how beautiful she is and I'm worried it's going straight to her head.


Zo chillin' on a street cruise a few hours before Jake

Anyway, Jake was great...the families all hanging out and picnicing together etc...was even better. It's a nice little zoo too...we'll be back just to check it out a little better and then there are two more Wednesday concerts coming up too. Looks like we'll be regulars at the Waikiki Zoo.

Wow, tonight felt great...better than some teenager trying to rent you a stand up paddle board for $40 an hour. Tonight was beautiful.

Almost as beautiful as these two turtles we found making sweet, sweet love before the show...



Beautiful...just beautiful...mostly the night and not as much the turtles doing it. #$%&ing turtles...that's pretty cool though. Just short of beautiful, but cool as hell I think.