It’s been great to be back in Hawaii. While I was born and raised on Maui, I’ve only lived on Oahu for 2 years before moving to Los Angeles nearly 11 years ago, and I feel like I’m beginning to learn about Hawaii all over again. So every weekend, my girlfriend (Loretta) and I make it a point to do something new. She’s only been living here for a year, so a lot of things are new to both of us.
Early last week, we went for a workout and run at Magic Island. We noticed that there were some large stages being constructed, and we went closer to see what was going on. Large screens and stages were being set up for the annual Lantern Floating Hawaii event that happens every Memorial Day weekend. We figured it would be cool to see, so we planned it in our schedule. We had a bit of shopping to do in the afternoon, so we just shopped at Ala Moana Center and walked over for the lantern floating event.
Boy, were we shocked at how many people showed up for this thing!
It seemed like everyone around the world flew in for this. Fortunately, I brought my camera to take a few photos. Unfortunately, I wasn’t prepared for the madness, and I didn’t have ideal positioning. Nevertheless, it was a cool experience, and if I were to go again in the future, I’d like to be closer to the action.
This year was particularly unique as a result of the tsunami damage in Japan.
If you want to learn more, visit the Lantern Floating Hawaii website for more details.
Here’s where we first stopped to watch the event. As you can see, the beach is nearly full. Not sure what the attendance was this year, but typically it’s in the tens of thousands.
P.S. Magic Island is a popular location for destination weddings. Perhaps sometime in the near future I’ll be doing some shooting there instead of exercising. 🙂
To be honest, I didn’t quite know what to expect when we decided to go to this event. Definitely shocked to see the size of the crowd! What took me by a greater surprise was how overwhelmingly emotional it was. I still remember looking at the big screen to see people writing messages on lanterns and others placing the lanterns on the water surface…with tears flowing down their face. Heartbreaking to watch. But from their expressions, it was clear that the freeing of the lanterns helped them let go of some of grief caused by the loss of loved ones.
It was truly a memorable way to spend Memorial Day. 🙂