Pat's Blog

This year from my house, I could hear the slack-key Hawaiian guitar and slow “oi-oi-lei-lei” “huka-heiki-huka” chants wafting across the warm air from a kilometer away. Don’t ask, I have no idea what it means? But it did sound rather soft & inviting. Walking down for a look, I could quickly see there’s not much future in hula dancing as it’s a shaky business. (boom-boom)

One of the things I like about the Japanese is they don’t do things by half-measures. Once they take up a sport, interest or any activity at all, it’s 100% full-on. They dress the part, look the part and have all the right gear & hula dancing is no exception. Disappointingly, I didn’t see anyone in a grass skirt as I’d hoped … however I did think coconut-shell bras would have been a nicer, more authentic touch.

The area was packed; the colors screamed summer and the dancers looked nice even without coconuts.

A large retinue of grooming assistants, hairdressers and sales people with all the Hawaiian gear on sale were there and business looked brisk. This hula dance thing is pretty serious for these people and they don’t fool around. Many were it seemed, very professional, not that I’m any judge of hula dancing but they looked that way.

There will be a few more events like this in the summer and I’ll try to report on them before they start for you, should you be either in Takamatsu or coming here.

Takamatsu is a very friendly city and easy to get around. The City office promotes using bicycles and as an avid cyclist I approve of it. “one less car” as we cyclists say. When you come here, you’ll find rent-a-cycles available right outside the station. (well, actually it’s underground) there’s a huge and very cheap bicycle rental service with a minimum of fuss to rent and many places to park cycles throughout the city. A new map of great routes the city want to promote is about to be released. I’ll be writing about that next week for you. Until then …