the HI life.

  This past weekend was a busy and eventful one. It wasn't eventful as in a roller coaster ride of good and bad. It was the sort of eventful that gives you this positive high the following week.

On Friday, I finally got to help through my mom the best birthday surprise party-ever. Promise. I even took the day off of work for it. It's very difficult to keep a secret from my mom but everyone managed to do it and she was surprised. I think it worked because it wasn't on her birthday and she thought that she was going to a regular lunch meeting. She was greeted by a room full of her friends and family (MakKen came too).
Unfortunately for me, Brent and I got there just after she did so we were doing some serious espionage tailing and hiding while she cluelessly walked towards the restaurant, Beijing, at the Royal Hawaiian Center. Why were we late? I was in charge of buying the cupcakes, which I ordered through Frosted Hawaii, a company whose website was designed by Chiri (also how I found out about them).  Although Brent and I picked them up in the morning, the pick up place was closer to my house so we took them to my place, went on a balloon hunt (failed) and then ended up going heading in to town where, of course we hit traffic.
The good news was that the cakes turned out to be super cute and were a huge hit. I ordered three flavors: Monkey business--banana cake with a peanut butter center and chocolate frosting (with the Paul Frank monkey face), Coconut with a coconut frosting and topping (the coconut shreds were dyed blye to look like water and she topped it with yellow surfboards) and mint dark chocolate with mint chocolate frosting (topped with yellow flowers). I decided to order the minis so that everyone could get a taste of all of the flavors...because I knew that I wanted a bit of each.  They were all awesome but my favorite was "monkey business." The rave reviews the cupcakes got were well worth it.
  That night, Brent and I went to see Shrek Forever After in 3D--yet another brilliant movie in the Shrek franchise and one that will definitely be added to our DVD collection down the road.

  On Saturday morning, Brent came over to pick me up early (and by early I mean 930ish...maybe it was 10am) and he surprised me with a drive out to the North Shore for a brunch at Kono's. I had the banana mac-nut waffles while he got some freakin' French toast. It was delicious! After we ate, we went to the beach and saw sea turtles (too bad they didn't show in this picture) and sea-snail called pipi'i (pictured). It was nice to just chill for a bit before Brent insisted on going to Matsumoto's for some shaved ice. Of course I got excited and over-ate. I ordered a small azuki (red beans) and ice cream cone with strawberry cream-flavored shaved ice...topped with condense milk. I was pretty proud of the amount I ate. Brent kept saying, "don't worry, it's all just liquid anyway..." and egged me on till I nearly finished the entire thing. Now that was a challenge. I couldn't believe that I ate  two full meals in less than two hours. Can you say chubbin?

  We left shortly after and then went to my place to get ready for his dance battle at Fresh Café where he had been asked to be by 330p....Needless to say, we waited for a long time before Brent and Hype Beasts went on ( I think he did his first battle at around 9pm). You can watch the dance battle on Brent's blog...they won, duh :) I could tell that he was really enjoying himself out there, especially since he's been the judge for the past few times there's been a battle (and I know he was itching to dance).  It was also nice that MakKen  made it in time to watch Brent battle and afterward, we all went to Millions to celebrate.

  Sunday was my mother's actual birthday so after sending her off to surf, my sister and I started our dinner preparations. My mom said she just wanted a simple dinner, "like spaghetti is fine," so that's what I made, spaghetti....and eggplant parmigiana, meatballs, salad, French bread and wine :) I'm sorry, there's no such thing as half-assing a dinner for an occasion like my mother's birthday. She enjoyed it. I made sure everyone was present: MakKen, Hannie, Brent, Salena and Harada. The only person missing was Junior and that couldn't be helped because he was on tour in Japan.

  Junior came home on Monday but since he won't be here for Father's Day, we decided to do dinner yesterday. Grandma, Grandpa, Salena, Mommy, Brent and I went to dinner at Maile's Thai Bistro in Hawaii Kai. The food was awesome and I overate, again. When we came home, Ken and Makke were here so we got to spend some family time with the gang again.

  Today, my mom, sister and I went to the Farmer's Market. I ran in to my favorite English teacher from high school and was pleasantly surprised that she remembered me. I guess she's a regular at that particular market as well so she said, "I'm sure I'll see you again soon!"

  As I look back on my past week, I can't help but notice how lucky I am. Great family, great boyfriend, great friends and great life in Hawaii. I'm not high nor do I mean to ge all emotional on you or anything, but seriously, lucky I live Hawaii and lucky to be me :)

 My aunties, aka my other moms aka the women who put together my mom's awesome surprise party! I love them all.

Yum! and the food looks great, too ;)

At the beach...

Seriously, beautiful day!

pipi'i...ew...

Mastumoto's!

He almost went for seconds...

Leaving North shore..awww...

His battle-face...

Someone got this picture of us in line. He looks so mad...

That's better...

 MakKen support team! 

 

 At Millions!

Ken did that on purpose...grr...

Momma's bday dinner!

Birthday cake...can you see? It was an ice cream cake from Cold Stone...Strawberry ice cream with red velvet cake.

At the Farmer's Market.

Shower Trees in full bloom...told you, lucky me ♥

manager duties!

Btw, Brent's entering a dance battle this Saturday,  June 12 @ Fresh Café. The event, APEX 2010, starts at 430p but I'm not sure when the battle starts. He will be representing HypeBeasts of Hypersquad Dance Studio (as in the same company as Hype 5-O). If you are here in Hawaii, please feel come out to support. Entry fee is $12 at the door.  I'm also not quite sure what this event is exactly for but all proceed from the Silent Auction will go towards the Mighty4 Arts Foundation HAWAII.

  I've also posted the *official* event fliers, just in case you were doubting me (I mean, I know that my flier looks a lot cooler, but you're going to have to deal with that...just scroll back up to take a look at mine if the other one upsets you--just kidding!). You can also get more information from the Freelance Clothing Worldwide website...they're hosting the event.

random happens

    Here's another "too lazy to write" post.  I mean, yeah, my life is full of interesting things and I could go in to more detail about it but right now...I'm too lazy to do it. So I'm going to give you the gift of pictures and captions. Enjoy!

Farmer's Market!

We went to the Farmer's Market at the Blaisdell yesterday. 

Salena was a big spender. She bought veggies...

and more veggies...

...seriously, she's out of control!

My mom picked up a tofu musubi that really did taste like spam. It was pretty good.

I also bought a plate lunch from Grandma G's. They're only available at the Farmer's Market.

 

I invested $10 on an Opakapaka plate. It was delicious.

They had my sister's favorite, the dragon fruit but it was $4!!! for something so small, we decided against it.

They had really pretty orchids

...and eggplant trees! How cool... 

Miscellaneously random...

Speaking of trees, we came home and found this planted in front of our house.

Its got potential but the flowers are slightly wilted right now.

Btw, I didn't realize that we had a mango tree behind our house...How very, very strange. And random. We also have a banana tree growing back there. I think there is, in fact, an entire orchard. Huh.

Coming in from left field, I went to the Ala Moana food court for lunch last week. I picked up food from Naniwaya Ramen.

Did you know that they make their gyoza right there? The lady was a pro. Sey and I stared at her making these for an uncomfortably long time...oops.

Speaking of staring...I finally got to see Papi again. It's been over a month. I miss my pet.

Aren't they so cute?

  All this food and cuteness made me hungry. Time to eat...k, bye!

btw, Jake Gyllenhaal is a fine piece of

I finally saw the movie, Prince of Persia. It was brilliant. I loved the actress, I loved the actor, great action-packed-love story-adventure-comedy-drama-blockbuster Jerry Bruckheimer film. I'm definitely planning on adding it to my DVD collection, mainly because I love me a good Hollywood film, Bruckheimer style.

I also think I have a new celebrity crush. If you were wondering (because I'm sure deep down you were), I do, in fact have a list of celebrity crushes. It always changes but my top 5 are usually pretty consistent. I thought it would be sort of fun to do my own version of the "Sexiest Man Alive 2010" in salute to People magazine's list that's coming out soonish (I think?). So, here's the order of my Celeb Crush list. It's the one that counts :)

honorable mentions:
15. Bradley Cooper (he comes and goes on my radar)
14.  Ewan McGregor (Moulin Rouge was awesome),
13. Ryan Reynolds (has his moments),
12. Taylor Lautner (only because seeing him with his shirt off makes me feel weird about checking out a high schooler c/o 2010),
11. Jude Law (he made a good Dr. Watson)
10. Orlando Bloom (he was once in my top 5...once...)
9. Justin Timberlake (teaming up with Timbaland was the smartest thing he's ever done. breaking up with Cameron was the dumbest.)
8. Gerard Butler (he sings, he's bad ass, he's got an accent...)
7.  Robert Downey Jr. (he made a good Sherlock Holmes) 
6. David Beckham (because it's Beckham)

5th- Harada (I mean really though, look at this guy)
4th- Brad Pitt (who doesn't think he's sexy?)
3rd- Pharrell Williams (...sigh...he's such a N*E*R*D)
2nd- Johnny Depp (he got bumped down because of Jake)
1st runner up-Jake Gyllenhaal (that Prince of Persia movie had a great impact on me. Also being weird and quirky is a plus for me.)
Grand prize- Brent Koki (hands down...duh...)

  Of course, I don't know what I would do if I ever met any of these guys. Mostly, I'd be silent (for once) or smile and ask if I could take a picture and have really sweaty hands as they lean in for the picture. I'd be embarrassing and awkward, probably. It's best that I admire them from afar. After all, I get to keep the grand prize. Pretty good trade off if you ask me.

Dancer face. photo by J. Fletch, 2009

Bask in my awesomeness. Thank you.

  Although I had been a self-declared manager for Brent for quite some time now, I knew that it was useless to call myself that and boss him around when he didn't look to me as his manager. The nagging he could handle, to a certain extent. The self-proclaimed title however, usually tended to rub him the wrong way and he was always quick to remind me that I wasn't his manager. Why would I think such a thing? Mainly because he always said, "No, babe. You're not my manager."

  So recently, when he started calling me "manager," I was a bit suspicious. I didn't realize he'd actually given up and decided to go with what could only be called destiny. I won't lie, I was a bit worried at first. Like maybe he'd hit his head too hard on something or something. Or maybe he was really depressed and looked to the world as a bleak and miserable place and that his only source of inspiration and motivation was me, so therefore he felt that I was entitled to run his professional life forever. Or perhaps--and I'm going out on a limb here--perhaps he's finally realized the potential and the infinite benefits of making his genius, bilingual, beautiful, intellectual, writer girlfriend, his manager. I'd like to think that I'm not too far from the true on this one, mainly because this truth flatters me the most and I get all the credit....I like that. Him getting hit on the head has nothing to do with me so there's something very wrong with that picture.

  Anyway, my point is that yes, I am officially Brent's manager, I think. I mean, it's not like I get paid for this gig nor do I feel any sort of innate desire to go and make myself a business card with this new title or anything but, it does make the most sense and most importantly, I know I'll have fun doing this. I can't really trust anyone else with it (well with the exception of my mother). You should be excited too because this means I have full liberty to post more about Brent in this blog and entitles me to do things like tell you his class and workshop schedules, up-coming gigs, funny stories, more pictures...the works. I should change the title of my blog to ブレマネ日記 (translation: Brent's manager's journal = Bure+mane+ nikki) but then people would see it as a knock off of my mother's blog, ジュニマネ日記 (translation: Herb Ohta Jr. (my step-papa)'s manager's journal = Juni+ mane + nikki) and that's just not cool. I'd rather just lure people in to think that I'm going to run an actual marathon (which is still debatable) and then make people realize that the title was a bit of an egocentric play on my name. Besides, I'd rather slowly incorporate Brent and his professional and personal image in to my blog instead of having to start up a whole new blog just for him. I mean, he's got his own blog for that--did you know? It's called ...actually, I'm not sure but, click here to check it out.

Because I'm such an awesome girlfriend--err--manager.

I dream in 35mm, fish-eyed, and long range

  Someday I will own my very own uber professional camera with a sexy click equipped with flash bulbs, mega lenses and reflectors. I will own my very own studio, not because I want to be a professional photographer and do it as a living but simply because, knowing me, I will force all of my friends and family to sit in my studio with a white backdrop and lights all around and I will take their portrait shots whether they like it or not. Actually, I know that deep down they've all wanted to try it at some point, so I'll get as many smiles as I will complaints.

  Confession time: I've always been in love with photography. Ok, it's not so much of a confession if you already knew that about me. But, as Biggie puts it, "if you don't know, now you know." Where does this enthusiasm come from? When I was in high school, I was fortunate enough to have attended a very small, art-centric all-girl's school. Having been somewhat of a camerawhore all of my life, it was obvious that I would be compelled to take photography as a course. And boy was it something! I was in love with taking pictures on those old camera, developing film in the dark room, learning about exposure, focus, centering, balance and the joy of hearing that satisfying click. We even got to spend the day in an actual studio and play dress-up and take turns being model and photographer (gee, I wonder why I like to do that to this day?).  It was such a fun class that I took the next level, Photo II and I probably would have died in ecstasy if I majored in it (or did a photo-journalism major) but I completely denied myself that simply pleasure in life and...didn't.

  Thinking back on it, I really should have just gone for it. I even ran in to an old classmate (well, she was in the grade above me) and she told me that she was a photo-journalism major and loved every minute of it. I remember sighing heavily with envy and still I didn't switch majors. Probably because I knew that photography fell under art and as much as I have a deep-seated love for the arts, I also had a deep-seated loathing for college (at the time) so I opted for the quick-exit strategy instead, knowing that Art-majors had a notoriety for being on the six-year track (nothing wrong with that, it was just that I was very impatient at that point). Now that I've been out of school for a year, I can appreciate it from a distance and l've learned to miss it, which, is so cliche and true. I've always had an inner-geek desire to learn,  it's no secret that I'm an English nerd (with bad grammar) and I do have a curiosity that easily competes with George the monkey so naturally, I wanna learn it all and I wanna do it all. Just today, I was in the car and telling my mom that I want to
travel,
go to culinary school,
take cosmetician courses,
get a massage license,
travel,
perhaps move away for a while,
open my own cafe,
oh--and bookstore,
I should start taking Bikram yoga again soon, huh? I miss it,
I wouldn't mind take a few more classes in photography,
and fashion classes, since I've been doing a lot of stylist work,
maybe I should start subscribing to WWD...
I should really invest in a lens for that Nikon camera Junior keeps reminding me about,
I love forensics--I would have loved to be a forensic scientist if I corpses didn't freak me out so much,
still wanna go to culinary school though, like Le Cordon Bleu or Art Institute,
did I mention I'd like to travel? It would be great as a job.

  Ok, ok, no I didn't say all of that in the car today with my mother, but they're all things I've mentioned to her at some point or another because, well, it's all true. And bless her heart, she sits there and actually listens to me (and if she tunes me out, she's great enough to at least pretend by smiling and nodding at the right time). She also gives me great advice and hears out all of my eagerness with just as much eagerness.

  There was no real point to this entry, I simply thought that you should know that I'm a day-dream believer and optimist.

Here are some of the slightly less embarrassing pictures I took in high school. There's a reason why you only get to see the thumbnail version...the rest really are all crap. 2003

I thought I was so unique, taking this. 2003?

More recent stuff. I like portraits. Ken and his guitar, 2007.

This is Jace. Isn't she pretty? Jace, 2009.

Brent, obviously. 2010.

Told you, we take turns being model and photographer. Photo by Jace, 2009.

 Just wanted a reason to post this. You're allowed to say, "aww." Photo by Seychelle, 2010.