hawaii culture

It's Bon Dance season in Hawaii. I think it starts in July.

Anyway, the bon dance in Hawaii is great to experience because not only are you able to welcome your ancestors home with dancing, but there is also lots of great food too.

Many churches in Hawaii have their own bon dance groups, they dress up in their church happi coat (short jacket) and go around dancing at other bon dances.

Some churches feed these dancing groups afterwards.

In Japan, they have bon dances but they are not held at temples or churches (at least the ones I've seen in Osaka are not). And the types of foods are different.

Anyway, my cousin is here from the mainland for a really, really short visit and we haven't seen each other in 4 years.

We checked out the Bon Dance at the Koganji and my Aunty M, who goes to this church and was working there, gave us scrips to buy our dinner.

We shared this mixed plate with homemade beef stew and sweet sour spareribs. So good, comfort food at its best! A scoop of mac salad and 2 scoops of rice...Yum!

We also tried their "Kimono Dog" which is like a corn dog except that they use a Polish sausage and the batter for the andagi (Okinawan donut)...different but good!

It's been awhile since my cousin had a spam musubi so we got one for her.

And we had to have some andagi (Okinawan donut) so we got one each.

It was nice spending time with my cousin and being able to see what the bon dance was like. (When we were growing up we used to work in the booths, so it was nice to see it from a "guest" perspective.)

It was also nice to see this rainbow. It was as if our ancestors were smiling down at us. (Thanks again for the scrips, Aunty!)