In Hawaii. I've been here for two months, and been very lazy about getting the promised blog going, but here it is at last! I've just had a most pleasant evening involving some of my favorite things about being here in Honolulu, which was quite timely as I was feeling a bit depressed earlier in the week.
My Thursday routine is to go to an evening ashtanga yoga class in Chinatown. It's challenging, but that's good. I need to get back into good shape and I really like to feel my body working. And it's a time to let go of everything going on outside and just focus on my breathing and the postures. In some ways it reminds me a lot of karate. When class is done I am soaked through with sweat, but feeling really relaxed and open. I go use a little bathroom that has straw mats on the floor, where I can hear a fountain splashing just outside. I really like that bathroom. Then I get on my bike and roll home through the night. Biking at night in Hawaii is very pleasant: 1) the temperature is perfect and the air feels good against your skin, 2) there is a lot less traffic, and 3) certain flowers bloom at night that smell really good. I also like riding through Chinatown at night. It's my favorite area of the city so far. The streets are narrower there than elsewhere in Honolulu so it's less sprawling, but at the same time it's not built up. I actually feel like it has more of a European flavor- it even has one street closed off to vehicles, and has open-air markets every day. At night it smells like jasmine.
Now I am at home in my little breezy apartment eating a breadfruit. It's my first breadfruit, and I am liking it quite a bit. The flavor is sweet and almost tastes like some kind of artificial fruit candy, though not in a bad way. When ripe like this, it has the consistency of pizza dough. I am definitely going to buy it again, I have read that it is a very versatile fruit and can be used as a potato substitute when less mature. You can even fry up chips with it. It's a pretty versatile and important tropical fruit.
P.S. Chipotle hummus is awesome too.
