Press: 2012 Okinawan Festival

The 2012 Okinawan Festival takes place this Saturday and Sunday, September 1st and 2nd, from 9am to 5pm at Kapiolani Park, in world-famous Waikiki, Honolulu, with a Bon Dance that follows starting at 5:30pm. This is by far the largest cultural event in Hawaii, with over 50,000 people in attendance and growing.

There will be an Okinawan Cultural tent, Ti Jukuishina-Mushimun Arts & Crafts Gallery, Heiwa Doori (specialty foods from Naha), Machiya-Gwa Country Store (fresh produce), Hanagi Machiya Gwa (plants), children’s games & bounce castles, and Okinawan Festival T-shirts.

Featured entertainers from Okinawa this year include Keiko Kina (Shoukichi Kina’s sister!) & Family, Mamoru Miyagi & Yoko Hizuki, and Naha Daiki & Suguru Ikeda.There will also be plenty of Okinawan cultural peformances as well.

Food booths this year will have the usual, plus a few new items, including Chicken Nishime, Anda Pops (Chocolate-dipped Andagi; available during the Bon Dance only), Andagi, Andadog, Champuru Plate, Oki Dog, Okinawa Soba, Pig’s Feet Soup, Yaki Soba, Taco Rice, Shave Ice, Chicken Plate, Chili & Rice, Chili Frank Plate, Maki Sushi and Yakitori Stick.

For more information, please visit www.OkinawanFestival.com.

For Tasty Island coverage of past Okinawan Festivals, see the following links…

Okinawan Shisa, about to eat Pomai for good luck. lol

Traditional Okinawan wear

Pomai with Okinawan Festival volunteer Sandy, night time aftah da’ Bon Dance all pau

Pomai Souza of TastyIslandHawaii.com with U.S. Congresswoman Mazie Hirono at the Okinawan Festival, Saturday, September 1, 2012

Comments

Press: 2012 Okinawan Festival — 10 Comments

Mark Wiens on August 31, 2012 at 4:42 pm said:

Oh man, wish I could be in attendance, looks like it’s going to be wonderful, enjoy!

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- Pomai on August 31, 2012 at 6:43 pm said:
  
  Mark, there’s NO way any one singular cultural festival could ever top the locales you visit as part of your Migrationological treck across the globe. Yet it is nice to have a focused event on one particular culture right in our own backyard.
  
  Looking through your archives, looks like you still have yet to hit-up Okinawa and Japan. By far two MUST-DO foodie destinations!
  
  Anyhow, I’ll be at the Okinawan Festival tomorrow (Saturday) around noon-ish (lunch time). So if you folks see me there (of course taking photos solo), say hi! Err, or make that “Haisai Ojisan”. lol
  
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Pomai on September 1, 2012 at 7:20 pm said:

Wow. What a BLAST I had today at the Okinawan Festival! The grindz of course were AWESOME. The cultural entertainment from Okinawa even AWESOMER!

I added a couple photos taken today at the end of this post. Of course there’s a GAZILLION more photos where that came from, which I’ll share in a future post covering this event.

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Simon Kau kau on September 1, 2012 at 9:44 pm said:

The Ashitibichi was really MAASAN!!!!

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- Pomai on September 3, 2012 at 12:58 pm said:
  
  Interesting how different the Okinawan language is compared to Japanese, yet there’s some similarities as well. I took a photo of the sign they had in the Cultural tent of the most “need-to-know” Okinawan words. I’ll post it in my coverage later. STILL working on my coverage of the Up in Smoke Cook-off event. Whew, that buggah’ is exhaustive.
  
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Musings on September 3, 2012 at 4:42 pm said:

Oh gracious! We went yesterday and I see we really missed a lot. Great post! You did a much better job than I did.

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- Pomai on September 3, 2012 at 4:59 pm said:
  
  I got lots more cool photos of the Okinawan Festival this past Saturday to share later for full coverage!
  
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Spotty on September 4, 2012 at 6:56 am said:

Wow, I totally missed this. I guess my planet didn’t get the news in time. I saw the first photo of the shisa and thought, “How in the world did they get that dog to wear the mask?” And then I noticed the tabi feet.

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- Pomai on September 4, 2012 at 4:52 pm said:
  
  Spotty, that’s too funny. You actually thought that was a real dog wearing a mask? LOL!!! You know how they make clothes for dogs, which I think is totally ridiculous. I wonder if they make doggie shoes? Let’s Google it real quick. *does a search*…
  
  Yup, sure enough, they make it! Check it out (totally bonkers if you ask me)…
  
  Petco Red & White Dog Shoes
  
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Debbie-chan on September 4, 2012 at 6:57 pm said:

Oh man, Pomai, I was there and I missed ya! If you saw someone on Saturday with a “Karcharshee” t-shirt on, that was me (Sunday I had my Okinawa soba shirt on). I was surprised how good the Andapops were. Good thing I only brought enough script for two!

Are you going to any of the Food & Wine Festival events?

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