Hope you are all enjoying the summer! The past few months have been a whirlwind of activity for us. Helen spent June & July at Maestro Lorin Maazel’s Castleton Festival, in the hills of Virginia, where she performed tons of opera rep and made lots of new friends. Randy worked hard as a bartender at Chef Ken Oringer’s Clio Restaurant, won a national cocktail contest, and learned a lot about the service industry. We’re back together in Boston now for a few weeks… before packing up our belongings and heading on a cross-country road trip to San Diego!! But that’s only half the way… from there we will ship our car further west… and finally make it back to Hawaii.

Over the past twelve years, Randy has basically been splitting his time between Honolulu and Boston, with dreams of permanently settling on O’ahu. We decided late this Spring that we should finally make the big leap. Boston winters, coupled with Helen’s long drives to/from teaching appointments and gigs, helped lead to our decision.

What’s next for us, and what’s happening to WAITIKI, you may ask? Well… Helen’s starting to line up some teaching gigs and Randy’s actually keeping his NEC faculty position and part-time job (working remotely). We have a few other things in the works but we’re gonna hold off on announcing that stuff for now. And in terms of the band, well it was already geographically split between East Coast / Los Angeles / Hawaii, and now it will be more weighted on the Hawaii side than on the Eastern Seaboard. So nothing will really change there, in fact, hopefully it will make it easier for the group to perform in the islands…

If you’re on the Mainland, we hope to see you sometime in Hawaii! And if you’re in Hawaii, we’re looking forward to seeing you soon!!

Love,

Randy & Helen

We’ve each developed new hobbies — Randy has become a bar consultant and barback at the Clio Restaurant in Boston, and Helen has grown two aquarium fish tanks in a just a few months! We are still doing local symphony orchestra gigs and teaching as a full-time career.

But after four years of living in the North End and having dealt with the ever-growing tourist population and declining age of neighbors (we had wanted to get away from rowdy students), we’ve decided to finally move out of our cozy apartment. This month we’ll be exploring the suburbs of Boston (hooray) — mostly Medford or Malden — and will hope to find something along the orange line. Wish us luck!

As most of you know, we haven’t had the time or chance to go on our honeymoon.  It’s kind of sad, but seriously, we have been too busy!  So when our wedding date started coming around to our minds, I think we had several ideas floating around in our heads that would qualify as a mini-moon.  We made our final decision around the time we left to spend Christmas and New Year’s in Hawaii with family and friends.  I wanted to visit any other island and Randy missed his childhood fun days at a hotel water resort called Waikoloa Hilton in Kona on the Big Island.  I guess what convinced me to go along with Randy’s wish was his overly dramatic descriptions of the water slides (he used words like “HUGE” and “FUN”), but when we actually saw them when we got there, they were …hehe…. um… far from what he said, but they were “CUTE” slides!  Our getaway was only three days and two nights, but we made sure to make it worthwhile.  While driving around, I was amazed to see the vast stretches of lava rock that is heavily punctuated with white rocks in various designs and words made by tourists.  We also tried to find Captain Cook’s Monument by using our iPhones, but it turned out we needed to hike for miles and snorkle to the destination (thanks alot, Google Maps!)  Anyways, check out some pictures below!

On our way to Kona….

Pictures of our eatings and sightseeing…

Overall, downtown Kona was too touristy for me, which reminded me of a low-scale Waikiki.  Even Randy was surprised at the number of tourists wandering around.  For those interested in visiting Kona, stay away from the Scandinavian shave ice!

The birthday / Father’s Day gathering was really sweet.  We got Randy’s dad a Reyn Spooner newly designed aloha shirt and some goodies from Sam’s Club like superfood and a thermo tote bag.  Most of the Wongs were there and it was fun to see the younger generation, meaning us and our cousins, take over grilling and serving food.  It was a blast and everyone loved to eat.  I think the big hits were Randy’s Sicilian mint pesto marinade with steak tips and potatoes, our super-lasagna, Jamie & Keith’s bacon-wrapped scallops, and bi-colored corn!  Oh my, I’m getting hungry again just thinking about everything cooked and devoured.   Oh yeah, and for my birthday, Randy and his friends Satomi and Shinya played a jazzy birthday song to celebrate and I got to enjoy my black-bottom cupcakes that we made the night before.  What a great time!  Thank you Wongs!!

The day after we had to pack and get ready to “move” to our next destination for the next few weeks: Aina Haina.  I’m excited because we’ll have a place all to ourselves and we’ll have duties to tend to such as feeding the dog and cat (Poki and Shyann), picking up poo, taking out the trash, wash dishes, etc… things that I’m used to doing.  I don’t know about anyone else, but I feel antsy when I don’t do those things on a consistent basis, except for the poo picking part of course.  So far things are good and comfortable, except for the suffocating heat and lack of internet, but we’ll make it I’m sure.  We’ve been hanging out at coffee shops and malls to snatch some free wi-fi, which I don’t mind at all :)

Places where we’ve eaten: Goma-ichi Ramen, Curryhouse at Manoa, Bubbies at Koko Marina, Shirokiya, Dave’s ice cream, Zippy’s, Poi Bowl, Coffee or Tea, Yogurt Land, Waiola Shave Ice, Jewels or Juice

Places where we want to eat: Tsukaneya, Shochan, Okonomiyaki Chibo, other ramen places…. (give us some suggestions!)

I’ll end this post with good news that just arrived today: The Waitiki 7 albums are here!!

Our picture stickers are made by MOO Designs in London, a company that works with Flickr.  They remind me of pikakura in Japan but the stickers aren’t as cute or creative since we had to order them online.  But they are made of good quality paper—thick and glossy—and they don’t seem to fade over time.  I’ve already used some on my credit cards (good for photo ID) and they don’t rub off like the Japanese picture stickers.  $10 for 90 stickers!

For dinner we decided to satisfy our craving for anything Japanese, so we made okonomiyaki (Japanese pancakes) on our stove.  Unlike New York City where one can find ramen, takoyaki, Beard Papa’s, and okonomiyaki, Boston is limited, but luckily we found okonomiyaki-making kits in Don Quijote in Hawaii and brought them back.  We found okonomi sauce in Porter Square and finally tonight was the night that we make our own!  It was soooo good :)  

      

But check out the forecast for tonight and tomorrow…

You wouldn’t find this in Hawaii (or anywhere else for that matter)

Hope everyone had a nice Easter. Helen and I have been busy with orchestra gigs playing duo gigs. (She has a new group called the Luna Duo with bridesmaid Lee-Wen). Helen and I performed as a duo last Friday at a faculty recital for the Bradford School of Music in North Andover, MA.

And we went to the circus a few days ago because Tim is in the Big Apple Circus!

We collected a whole bunch of them because they were so unique and because we wanted to use them in the wedding somehow, but it didn’t turn out.  So we just wanted to send this along and hope everyone had a wonderful Valentine’s Day with their loved ones.  Sorry it’s late!

Last week we spent the Inaugural celebration with our DC friends, Joe and Kyung. They kindly hosted us  in their spacious Capitol Hill apartment and treated us with good food and laughs.  Check out some pics below!