shave ice & gelato

How strange! Until this morning, I have had 5 comments on my blog. Then, this morning, when I went into my login page, 13 more comments mysteriously appeared! Some were written as far back as the beginning of June!! Ann had emailed me once and said she tried to post a comment but nothing showed up. I thought that was strange. Then today, all of the comments appeared, all from Slow Travelers I believe, and all were published comments. In the past, I had to approve and publish each comment.

I now want to belatedly thank everyone again for all of your kind comments and tips and try to respond to a few.

First, thanks for all the well wishes for my trip. It was indeed fabulous! Even my getting sick at the beginning of my trip and my short lived (thank goodness) swollen foot could not stop me from enjoying Italy.

The cherries...well I can't say for certain if they worked or not. My problem was that I could not remember to eat them at night regularly for the first few nights. Also with getting sick during the beginning of my trip, I was up much of the night and dazed during the day. I did not do much better about remembering to eat them every night when I returned home. BUT, they are delicious and I am sure they are good for you so it certainly did not hurt to take them along.

Amy, I did not find that forno around the corner. I wish I had seen your comment earlier as I would have looked for it. I will just have to return!

I think my only regret was that I was only in Bologna for one night. I really love that city and am already thinking about going back there again, especially since I found such a wonderful place to stay! Palma, I have to thank you once again for the great find! I did not realize though that you also ate at Al Sangiovese.

Leslie, if you like peach gelato, you have to try kiwi sometime!! To die for!!

Anne, I can still picture him standing next to me! He was indeed a hunk!! Did you ever get a picture of your gorgeous Italian and his motorcycle?

Kim, I really think my swollen foot was also some sort of heat rash. Thankfully, it did not last too long.

Again thank you everyone for supporting me in this new venture of writing such a public blog. I never know if what I am writing is just a bunch of rambling words no one even cares about but me or if it is interesting enough for others to enjoy. At least now that I am back home, I can add some pictures to make it a little more interesting.

aloha...

Well, I guess I failed my test and a smart car is indeed smarter than I am. I thought somehow my post about smart cars would magically link to Leslie's smart car slide show once she approved my trackback. I am now properly linking this to Leslie's cool blog page with her smart car slide show. Kim, or anyone, what did I do wrong?

I was leaving for Italy in two weeks with tons still to do when I was first asked to start this blog to document my travels. I had no time to think up a "catchy" name. I chose a title that would describe my trip. Once I returned from Italy and started adding posts about Hawaii, I decided it was finally time to change the name of my blog. I wanted something that represented both Hawaii and Italy and so I came up with the idea of "shave ice & gelato" because it represents two unique treats - one relating to Hawaii and one relating to Italy. I hope you like it.

Just about everyone knows about gelato, but I am not sure if everyone knows about shave ice.

So, what is shave ice?

I have heard people trying to compare it to a slush cup or a snow cone. It is neither a slush cup nor a snow cone. It is soooo much better.

Snow cones and slush cups are usually made from ground ice. What makes shave ice unique is the way the ice is cut. You start with a block of ice. As the block of ice spins around, the razor-sharp blade "shaves" the ice making a soft fluffy texture. The "shaved" ice is then packed into a paper cone.

I found this video on YouTube which demonstrates how shave ice is made:

Once the ice is packed into the cone, various flavors of syrup are then poured on top. Because the shave ice is so fine, the flavors absorb into the ice rather than settling to the bottom of the cone.

When ordering a shave ice, you are faced with many choices. First, you must decide if you want a small or a large shave ice.

Next, you need to decide if you want just shave ice, a scoop of vanilla ice cream at the bottom of your cone, azuki beans at the bottom of your cone, or a combo of both ice cream and azuki beans. When I first heard of beans with shave ice, I could not imagine why anyone would want to have beans with shave ice. Once I tried it, I understood. The beans are not like regular beans. They are sweet and so ONO when mixed with ice cream and shave ice.

Finally, you must decide on the flavors. You can usually have three flavors poured on top of the ice. Two of the most famous shave ice places, both located in Haleiwa, on the North Shore are Matsumoto's and Aoki's. You will always find a long line at both of these shave ice stores. Below are the flavors each offer.

Matsumoto's offers:
Strawberry, Pineapple, Lemon, Coconut, Banana, Vanilla, Root Beer, Grape, Lime, Lilikoi (passion fruit), Orange, Honeydew, Melon, Mango, Raspberry, Coffee, Watermelon, Bubblegum, Cotton Candy, Pinacolada, Banana Cream, Lihing Mui, Lychee, and Cherry.

Aoki's offers:
Strawberry, Banana, Pineapple, Lemon, Lilikoi, Coconut, Rootbeer, Vanilla, Melona, Chocolate, Blue Hawaii, Coffee, Bubble Gum, Cherry, Lime, Orange, Watermelon, Guava, Mango, Rasberry, Cotton Candy, Li Hing Mui, Grape, Strawberry Cream, Lychee, and Pina Colada. As well as the following Sugar free flavors: Strawberry, Banana, & Watermelon.

And here are my dear friends Katia & Guido enjoying a shave ice from Aoki's:

I have learned a lot today. It took me more than half a day, but in the end, I was successful in adding bunch of new links and a cat. Of course I could have spent the time balancing my quicken account, cleaning my house, doing laundry, getting rid of some of my piles and piles of catalogs, or a dozen other things that I really need to do and have been avoiding. But then again, there is always tomorrow.

*Edited - I removed the cat...made the blog too long to load,

One of the reasons I have enjoyed Slow Travel, and now blogging and reading blogs, is the opportunity to get to know people from all over the world. It has always amazed me how we can all be so different but also have so much in common.

Recently, while visiting bleeding espresso, I discovered a new blog, .italiaball. I was pretty excited to find this blog as it is about Italian baseball. I started reading a few of the posts and noticed that there was a post mentioning how the blogger just returned from a trip back home to Boston. I posted a comment on the blog about my love of baseball, the Red Sox, and Italy. The following day, I received a nice email from Lango. He mentioned where he was from and asked where I was from. Well, I grew up right on the border of the town where he grew up. How amazing is that?

After reading a few of Lango's posts, I checked out a couple of blogs that he had listed on his "Check 'em Out..." list to see if there were any other blogs about baseball in Italy. I noticed right away on the bici vecchia: an errant in italy blog that the blogger's name was Fango and that he also lived in Codogno, Lombardy, Italy. Hmmmm, Lango & Fango? I then read a few of the posts and learned that Fango also grew up in the same town as Lango. This was becoming quite a mystery. My first thought was that perhaps Lango was running two blogs. I then wondered if they were twins. I even asked Lango this in my email back to him. Meanwhile, I was determined to figure out the answer to this mystery. I continued to read more of his posts. Finally, I found the answer. They are friends who have known each other since Kindergarten.

I have now discovered two bloggers, both living in a tiny town in Northern Italy and both from the town located right next to the town where I grew up. It sure is a very small world indeed!

I am joining a group of bloggers from Slow Travel, and of course anyone else who wants to give it a try, or I believe as they say in Australia, "give it a go", on attempting to blog every day for the month of February. Turns out this year is a leap year, so that will be 29 posts in 29 days :-)

**Updated to add some of the bloggers posting every day in February:
A Journey of a Thousand Miles Begins With ... Too Much Luggage
Blonde Momentos
Churches in Venice
Home is where my bed is
In and Out of the Garden
Jerry's Thoughts, Musings, and Rants!
Kaleidoscope
Old Shoes - New Trip
Palmabella's Passions
Postcards from the Trail
There and Back Again ...
Vagabond Artist
What I Really Think

If I forgot anyone, post a comment and I will add you. AND a special thanks to Vagabond Artist for starting this!!

To my February blogging buddies, congratulations, we did it!! We spent a month blogging daily, getting to know each other a little better, and cheering each other on. I have appreciated all of your comments and want to give a big mahalo to Angie for starting this challenge. I also plan to continue to read all of your blogs and plan to try to post as often as I can. We did it!!

Last night, after I published my "countdown post", I went back to edit my post. After I finished, I checked out my sitemeter to see if anyone was visiting while I was making the changes. I had one visitor during that time period, my first visitor from Korea.

Like Jerry and Jill, I have also been curious as to how people find my blog. The details of this visit indicated that the person found my blog by searching "focaccia col formaggio" on the Korean version of google. I went to the Korean google site and then clicked on my blog link. It took me to my blog post - but in Korean!

Computer snapshot of part of my "focaccia col formaggio" post in Korean:

I not only checked out the page that was searched on google, but I also clicked on my blog name at the top to check out the home page of my blog in Korean and even clicked on a few other blog links to see even more blogs in Korean.

I obviously have no life and much too much time on my hands. Either that, or I am procrastinating on more important things like getting ready for my refrigerator delivery, cleaning my house, doing my laundry, and a ton of other things I should be doing.

Sandi, one of my March Madness blogging buddies, awarded me (along with a few of my other March Madness blogging buddies) with this beautiful:

Besides the specialness (is that a word?) of being chosen, what else makes this so special is that I cannot enjoy a bouquet of flowers in person because of my hyper-sensitivity to fragrant smells (a huge migraine trigger). I absolutely love flowers of all kinds but there are only a few I can get near.

Imagine living in Hawaii and having to stay clear of just about all leis! I have been most fortunate to have many thoughtful co-workers who have been very considerate with my need to avoid fragrances. Yesterday, one of my students, who spends the first half of his day with me in preschool and the second half of his day in Kindergarten, brought his first ever home lunch to school. I went next door to alert his Kindergarten teacher that he may need extra help figuring out what to do at lunch time. She was wearing a beautiful ginger lei. It was like a comedy act. She stood at the far end of the room while I stood outside the door as we chatted back and forth planning how we would help our student figure out the lunch routine. The children in the class just stared (probably wondering why the heck we were both talking to each other from across the room).

Thank you so much Sandi for making my day!! Make sure to stop by and check out her blog, Whistlestop Cafe Cooking, where you will find some great recipes and wonderful southern humor.

I would like to pass this award along to Anne who could use some flowers, support, and love right now. Anne, you have always made my day with all of your supportive comments. Sending hugs your way.

It took me a while today to find a simple countdown widget to put on my blog to countdown the days til my trip to Italy. At first, all I could find were widgets that linked to advertisements. Finally, I found one I liked, a simple countdown widget that I could even customize with my own photo. 40 more days and I am on that jet plane!!! I am starting to get in my panic mode and my major procrastination mode. I am also beginning my...maybe I need new luggage, a different day bag, new shoes, etc. etc. Does this happen to you? So, what do I do? First, I spend hours and hours checking out new luggage - this year it is "Should I get a different carry on? One that can roll and slip on top of my check in rolling bag?". Then, I begin the procrastination stage. No decisions are made. Instead, I watch TV and spend time on the internet reading blogs.

Tonight, while reading one of the Italy blogs I follow, the olive notes... , I noticed a cool widget on the sidebar that plays short travel videos. I probably wouldn't have noticed this widget if I hadn't spent much of my morning checking out a bunch of countdown widgets.

I watched the video about the Campo in Siena and I was hooked. I clicked on the link below the widget and was taken to a site called geobeats. This cool video site plays short videos of destinations all over the world. Something new to do instead of cleaning my house, going through all my piles that need to be organized, starting to get organized for my trip, and the many other things I love to avoid. Check it out.

I was also going to add the Bush countdown widget to my sidebar. I actually did, but after 5 minutes, I changed my mind and deleted it. I decided I did not want to look at his name every day. 253 more days.... sigh.... still too many more days (although for me, one day is too many days).

Today was the last day for kids and tomorrow is my last day of work!!! Yippeeeee!!!! Well, sort of my last day, except for the 5 meetings I need to attend and 3 IEPs I need to write before I leave for Italy.

After a long day of closing up my room, I came home to trails of ants, which were marching all over my house. I am beat and too tired to think up a new post so I decided to put a link (click here) to the post I did back in October which describes how I chose the name of my blog, shave ice & gelato.

I have not had time to respond to all of the comments until now.

Hard hat - I did not think about having my picture taken while wearing the hard hat until after I left. I really should have and do regret it, so you will all just have to use your imagination. And yes, I did think about it messing up my hair. It was so hot that day though that it really didn't matter since sweat was pouring from my brow all day.

My swollen feet...actually it was more my ankles and legs (near my ankles) that were swollen although my feet were a little puffy also. I do think it was from the heat on the days that I walked quite a bit. I did do the rice (rest, ice, c ? forgot what that is, and elevate), which all helped. I even had to take off my ring for a couple of days since my fingers were also swollen. I am back to normal at the moment, which is nice. Thanks everyone for all of your tips and yes this happened to me last year also, but it was much worse last year.

I did see the turtles on my second visit (missed them the first time I was there). I watched this one little turtle try so hard to get up on one of the rocks. All the other turtles ignored him or her but finally after not giving up and trying a few rocks, the turtle succeeded and got up on one of the rocks to sunbathe.

Chiocciola, I am sorry to hear that you have tendinitis. Not being able to type must be driving you crazy!

I will definitely post a few of the photos of the jellyfish once I get home. I also had no idea what the hard hat was for and at first thought it was ridiculous to wear until I smacked my head into one of the archways.

It has been wonderful having AC on the vary hot days, although I still kept my room pretty warm - around 78-80? 27-28 degrees centigrade as I am not fond of chilly rooms. Since being in Acqui, the temperature has been more in the 80s with a breeze so I have not even used the AC.

Granita is like a slush drink but oh so good!

Kim - surfing? where? I hate thunder storms. The weather today mentioned we could be in for some here today or tomorrow. I have never thought about the DH and pitchers not getting hit as much when they also get up to bat. Interesting... I could really go either way on the DH issue. The day that the New York pitcher got hurt running the bases, one of the Red Sox pitchers also got hurt swinging the bat. Now that is bad if a pitcher cannot even swing a bat without getting hurt!

Yes, blogging can be a challenge in Italy. I finally after all of these years have gotten the keyboard down and now only occasionally have to search for the correct key. I have been fortunate to have some internet access at my first hotel and found a good internet cafè thanks to Diana and Jan here in Acqui Terme.

I hope I have not missed any comments to respond to. I really did love my stay on the Ligurian Coast. It was a perfect way to ease into the time change and I do think the cherries helped a little bit. Either that or my 6 hour sleep did the trick. I forgot to mention the other reason I only had 1 hour of sleep on the Newark to Milan flight. The flight attendants turned all the lights on and woke everyone up at 4 am somewhere (can't remember exactly which time zone that was) to let us know they would be coming through the aisles selling duty free items. I could not believe they actually woke everyone up for that breaking news bulletin.

And speaking of breaking news, the big news on CNN yesterday - the "just in" report was that 600 Starbuck stores will be closing. What will everyone do?

I have enjoyed though getting to watch the BBC and Sky News. I think that the British news brings much more of a world view to the news. The situation in Zimbabwe is heart breaking for all of the people there and has been covered quite a bit here.

Oh, and my one regret besides not getting my photo with the hard hat is that I went to Portofino on the wrong day! The day after I went there, I read in the local newspaper that Naomi Campbell was in Portofino. I missed being able to hang out with her...what a pity :-)

ciao!!!!

I am alive and well but also overwhelmed and exhausted with the beginning of a new school year. This is not a unique year. It happens to me every year. I have not been able to keep up with any blogs except for a peek here and there. With the Olympics starting (which I am really looking forward to watching), I probably will only have time for two maybe three posts a week (mostly on the weekends) for the next couple of weeks. After that, life should return to normal.

I left work on time for the first day this week and have a little time before the Olympics start. I was just over at Michelle's bleeding espresso blog. She is playing a fun game on her blog (which I am copying...thank you Michelle). She calls it "blog my blog". She got the idea from the blog, An Island Life. Interesting how this is coming full circle - Hawaii to Italy to Hawaii!!

Here's how it works:

I will start with a question.

The next person answers the question and then asks a new question.

The next person answers that question (the question the second person asked) and then asks a new question. And so forth...

The questions can be general questions, fill in the blank sentences, a “tell me about a time when,” etc.

I will turn my automatic comments on for a few days, hoping that the irritating person from Afghanistan (WHOOPS - I don't know why I thought Afghanistan - I should have said Pakistan!!) who keeps leaving disgusting comments on my blog won't be leaving any new comments in the next few days. I don't think you will be wanting to answer his or her comments! Anyone know how to block this??

If you are still confused, check out Michelle's post, and even if you are not, check out her blog! She is a very talented and entertaining blogger. Her blog was one of the first I started reading a couple of years ago.

Here goes...the first question:

If you were given only one day to spend in your favorite place in the world, what would you do? (Oh I guess this is sort of two questions since you will have to also say what your favorite place in the world is).

*Click on comments to play along...

Happy 8-8-08 and Happy Weekend!!

I would like to share a couple of Hawaii blogs...

The first is Honolulu Daily Photos.
I discovered this blog a couple of years ago in a round about way through some of the daily photo blogs and then again through City Daily Photo, a blog which posts entries from various daily photo blogs from around the world. The Honolulu Daily Photos blog does not post a photo daily anymore, but the photos that are posted on this blog are always fabulous. They represent many areas of Oahu and not just the city of Honolulu. If you have some free time check out this blog.

The second is Beat of Hawaii and Beyond.
The full name of this blog is: Beat of Hawaii and Beyond: Travel Deals, Tips, Events, Culture - A Travel Chronicle from Hawaii. I discovered this blog through Pauline's Slow Europe blog last spring. The Beat of Hawaii blog shares lots of great travel deals and tips as well as other interesting information related to Hawaii. If you are planning to travel to or from Hawaii in the near future or just want to learn more about Hawaii, check out this blog.

Cable is out, internet is out...

I am not a happy blogger right now. Earliest someone can come out to check out the situation will be Saturday OR Sunday. I am "borrowing" someone else's wireless connection to post this.

Hopefully I will be back online sooner than later...