Kaneohe, HI

Instead of going home, we stopped at the Byodo-in, a Buddhist temple at the Valley of the Temples in Kaneohe. My mom used to take me to see the temple when I was a kid, and I’ve been looking forward to seeing it for a long time. The temple itself is beautiful, as are the surroundings: set deep in the valley with the lush mountains in the background, surrounded by a big koi pond, with a huge gong off to the left, and a bamboo forest to the right. As with a lot of things I’ve seen and done on this visit, the temple was more crowded than I’ve ever seen it. We arrived at the same time as a cursed Russian family who were loud and generally pretty irritating. Try as we did, we had a hard time avoiding them. On our way out, two tour busses unloaded a bunch of tourists. Still gorgeous, and very much worth our time to check out (we had a blast feeding the koi and the birds, especially), but not the hushed solemnity and peaceful calm I was hoping for.

From there back to Times Coffee Shop in Koolau Shopping Center for lunch. Teri chicken for me; local breakfast staple loco moco (rice, hamburger patty,* fried egg, and brown gravy). Pretty good food, and a nice, clean place. Basically, I’m so happy to be able to get local food that even the decent stuff tastes really good to me.

*In her case, a veggie burger. [Ed. note: How could I not try this delicacy once a veg burger was a possibility?! And don't even think about pointing out to me that there was still (presumably meat-based) gravy in the mix. My very selective memory is choosing to ignore that detail.]