Christmas in Hawaii (with HULA!)

This is the first time for me to have Christmas in HOT place. Here in Hawaii, they also celebrate Christmas. (For me, it is bizarre to be so warm and sunny in Christmas season).

Christmas tree in front of Ward Center

You can see the blue sky with a Christmas tree. Hmmm, it's summer Christmas.

The entrance of Ward Cinema.

There is a wreath, too.

I came to Ward Center in Honolulu because I wanted to see the Hula dance show.
My friend started to take the lesson of Hula with me (!) and I quit it the second time. But she continues and she is now a good hula dancer. Her Hula school showed up at the stage of Ward Center.

Hula dance of children 1

Hula dance of youngest dancers. So cute!

Hula dance of children 2. Their technique is great and they are pretty.

Here is an adult Hula. My friend is in this group.

Oldest girls? Very beautiful!

In general, I like to see Hula dances. This time, I enjoyed a lot because this is Christmas version. Costumes are decorated and musics are Christmas songs. I don't know the titles of the musics but some of them are Hawaiian Christmas songs. The lyrics about the Christmas in Hawaii. Some musics are also in Hawaiian language. I should have learned the language. As the Hula expression includes a lot of pantomimes with meanings, it must be fun to understand the lyrics and the mime at the same time. Anyway, it was heart warming show in hot Hawaiian shopping center. After the show, I enjoyed the lunch of "Kua'aina" Hamburger with avocado. It's my favorite hamburger. Mmmmmm, delicious!

HAPPY CHRISTMAS !!

Presentation of Ballerinas

I would like to introduce my friends from the same ballet school where I take ballet classes.
This school had a show at the Ala Moana shopping center last Friday. They prepared for more than two months. My teacher kindly suggested me to dance on the stage but I couldn't as I traveled a lot this autumn.
Anyway, here are some photos from the show.

 I loved beautiful costumes. They are hand made by teachers and mothers. What a great job!

Fishes

 I recognized music of cute honey bees. ?? What's this?? I can dance with this music but not the same choreography. Wow, this music was a music for my dance show when I was seven years old. It was my second stage. I started to use point shoes in that show. After that I had a problem with my foot and I didn't dance for eight years until I decided to come back to the ballet class at the age of 15.

Honey bees

You can see my teacher with also black and yellow costume to help youngest dancers (pretty!). She is a great teacher. She is always optimistic and cheerful. She pointed out my weakness and I improved a lot. I really thank her.

Mermaids

 They are mermaids. My friend was in this group. She is an adult woman but she is taking the classes with girls. I was happy that she danced on the stage. I respect her because she is diligently taking classes and enjoying ballet a lot! 

Neapolitan from Swan lake

 From Neapolitan, they are my class mates. Their skills are quite high. Their smiles were so goood!!

Variation of Aurora from Sleeping Beauty

 Here is our star, dancing Aurora. This variation is famous for happy pretty dance. She is the best person to dance this variation, I think.

Variation from Le Corsaire

 Another heroine danced the beautiful and dynamic variation from Le Corsaire. When I was a teenager, my friend danced this variation in the presentation. At that time, I dreamed "One day, I will dance this!".  You can imagine how this dance is attractive!

Pas de Trois

 Again, my class mates. They are great! Look, their timing of arabesque is perfect!

Finish!

To have a great teamwork, you have to be humble and respect others. You cannot skip classes easily. So, I respect them a lot. They smiled in the show. But just before the show, they were so tired by having hard schedules with many classes. I couldn't believe they showed such pretty smile.
Great job! Well done!!!

Conference in Colima, Mexico

A series of conferences named "Cities on Volcanoes (COV)" are quite nice for me because I am interested in hazard mitigation of volcanic eruption. I had already attended COV3 (Hilo, Hawaii, in 2003) and COV 6 (Tenerife, Spain, in 2009). This time was COV7 and it was held in Colima, Mexico. Colima is a city close to the volcano "Colima" (it is also called "Fuego").

A flag of Cities on Volcanoes 7 in the town center.

Colima Volcano

Colina sometimes erupts and produce pyroclastic flows, lava flows and secondly, lahars. Especially lahar occurs very often and people around volcanoes are accustomed to evacuate quickly.

People in the community close to the vent and they have lahars quite often.

We visited the town where the community is well prepared for the evacuation in the case of lahars. Lahar occurs when it rains heavily because there are always some volcanic ashes on the slope of the volcano. So, rain can easily make muddy flow. They are so accustomed to recognize the sound of lahars when it happens. Then they evacuate without any evacuation alarm from civil protection. When someone notice the lahar, they ring the bell of the church and tell all people in community to evacuate.

Police only for us while we are in field excursion.

During the field excursion, our buses are protected by police and civil protections. Actually, they were also around conference venue everyday. I heard that Mexico is a bit dangerous. However, I didn't feel so scary because of their good protection. Also Colima was fairly safe city and even during the night we walked from the university to the hotel (but not alone).

Mexican fireworks at the party on Wednesday

They made "Mexican night" in the middle of conference on Wednesday. There were Mexican foods and drinks. They had folklore dancing show and music. At the end of the event, there were Mexican fireworks. It was great!! This conference series become more and more entertainment. Actually I am not sure that it is really good thing or not?? because much money has been used to make such gorgeous events. If the village or the city is not so wealthy, I guess it is large amount of outgo. Maybe I worry too much...
Anyway, it was wonderful experience including nice discussions with many passionate researchers and related people.