Hoku’s House

After Hoku showed us around Waimea Valley and we took a swim in a waterfall, we headed over to his house. Hoku rode his motorcycle and we followed in our rental car.

hoku_motorcycle

We hung around Hoku’s house all night. There were many friends over. Some of them played beer pong. Dallas played with Hoku’s daughter’s toy and was absurdly happy when he got it working after I failed:
dallas_toy

At sunset we headed to the beach. Hoku lives about a 2 minute walk from Sunset Beach, so you better believe the sunset was spectacular.

sunset_beach

Hoku brought his ukulele and played some songs.

hoku_ukulele

He also told me an old Hawaiian tale about these flowers that he picked nearby, but I can’t remember it now.

slippers

I threw the ball for this dog a few times. That dog could run. FAST!

sunset_beach_dog

Then I came back and listened to Hoku play the uke a bit more. It was an idyllic setting.. the beach, the sound of the waves, the smell of the ocean and flowers, the sunset, soft music.

It looks like this setting made Dallas want to kill someone, but I think really he was just drunk already.

dallas_hoku

Hoku is in a band called Ill Valley. He does not play ukulele in the band, they’re a hip hop band and he sings. Ill Valley released an album in 2007 and in March of 2008 it was honored by being nominated for the 2008 Na Hoku Hanohano Award for “Best Rap or Hip Hop Album Released in 2007.” If you haven’t been following along, the Na Hoku Hanohano awards are like the Grammys for Hawaiian music. As I mentioned earlier, Kekoa, another of Dallas’s classmates, is in a band called Holunape that won a couple of these awards this month.

Anyway, Ill Valley had practice the night we visited so we got to hear them play. Lots of friends were over and everyone was just hanging out playing music, playing beer pong, and drinking beers.

beer_pong

I didn’t drink, though, because I had to drive from the North Shore back down to Waikiki at some point. Hoku had some business in Waikiki the following day so he came with us back down. That was an interesting drive. It’s about an hour to hour and a half drive. I had no idea where I was going and Dallas and Hoku kept falling asleep. There was a lot of arm punching and yelling “Which way!?!?” and a lot of mumbling, “Take a left by the Foodmart…zzzzzz…” Oh boy!

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