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Marvo Mavro!

Marvo is short for marvelous in Australian.  We Australians are lazy, don’t like wasting syllables and like to shorten names by cutting most of it and adding an o at the end, like John-o, Mike-o, or their last name shortened with an o. Had he emigrated to Australia like me, George Mavrothalassitis would have been […]

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Ihilani Means? Heavenly Splendour

The Hawaiian people take great pride in their language and the naming of places are carefully crafted to contain great meaning or thought.  As a child name it translates as ‘sacred one from Heaven’ but as a place name it means ‘Heavenly Splendor’.  The Ihilani I’ve just stayed at lives up to its name as […]

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Trump Hostage Crisis; Day 2

There you have it, a ground’s eye view of the glass-sided Trump Hotel Waikiki where in one of the front facing corner suites, it’s all happening.  One of the property’s catch cries is “Discover a New You, You Never Knew Existed”.  I have.   I’m a prisoner of luxury In my second day of being held […]

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Early Morning Dribbling Down my Chin

Every time I head for Honolulu, I make sure that I include a Saturday to be able to head for the KCC Farmer’s Market held on the lower slope of back-end Diamond Head. I make sure to get there at just past dawn (6:30 today) to be able to get a parking spot before the […]

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Ocean Vodka at 9am to Surfing Goat

    The 13th Ka’anapali Fresh Festival in Lahaina Hawaii has started with a bang for me. #kfresh13 As well as the other 30 or so travel and food writers invited to immerse ourselves in locavore fare. While the youngsters went ziplining, I opted for agritourism starting with the Ocean Vodka farm and distillery at […]

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Moaning for Moana

The magic in the air in Hawai’i is known as Mana and you know it better when you miss it. Though I am on an other island now, my thoughts keep going back to the Big Island, Hilo-side, down Pahoa-way, just off the volcano’s flow at Hale Moana, a comfy bed and breakfast tucked into […]

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Mama’s Fish House–35 years and counting

In 1978, I stage managed the Kol Pacific Jazz Festival at Waikiki Shell and my reward was a week in Maui with a Hawaiian honey who took me to this new little restaurant.  The owner Floyd had a dream to make the best eatery on Maui and acquired the land and a private beach area […]

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Maui On My Mind and In My Eyes

Ahhhhh moment… when that hot sun melts over the horizon and falls off just that side of Lanai.  I was in a public park on the side of a road when this moment came up and glad I captured it.  Just outside Lahaina.  

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Layin’ Out Lookin’ at Lanai

Up in the hills above Lahaina lays a lovely property called Ho’oilo House, a quiet, breezy, luxury Bed and Breakfast with six suites, an enticing pool and a Balinese feel, overlooking the Pacific and the island of Lanai across the channel.  Luxe!       Lush gardens, sweeping palm trees, shady massive saucers pouring water […]

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Two Steps To a Watery Nirvana

  When in Kona, I take the 30 mile drive to the Place of Refuge south of town, early in the morning where the ‘Two Step’ set of lava shelves make entry into this watery wonderland an easy in.  I scuba dive there with two tanks when I can and it’s a snap to get […]

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Choy’s Choice of a New Kona Eatery

I had a special lunch today with the irrepressible chef Sam Choy and his wonderful wife Carol at a new Kona restaurant called He’e on 74-5590 Palani Rd in a small shopping centre.  We talked story for an hour about all sorts of things interspersed with the locals paying homage to him at the table.  It […]

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Kona Hawaii Restaurant update

You’ll see a section Phil’s Phave Places here that spotlights my favourite place, Kona Hawaii.   I spent six days in Kona late August and found some old flavorful  friends closed but some hot new contenders rocking it. Last year I experienced the raw fish restaurant Da Poke Shack on Alii Drive outside the Kona Bali […]

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In The Belly of The Beast

The crater of Halemaumau in Hawaii’s Kilauea Caldera is a staggering sight at night as the lava lake lights up the skies and clouds with the Milky Way behind it. I’ve been to this crater maybe 50 times over the past three decades and this is it at its most brilliant.

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The Absinthe Temple

Facing the valley from the back of the Bird Room is a hutch full of spirits and glasses as well as reflections of Jackson’s Parrot Day House. The skin you see arcing across the hutch is a 3.5 metre, five year old shedding from Petula, the house Carpet Python, who resides in the roof cavity. […]

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Ride ‘Em Cowboy

Jackson loved to ride the blender that made margaritas of all sorts as well as daiquiris or other frozen concotions and he rode it well! But after 15 years of heavy use, the Breville, which is as old as Jackson is young, finally gave up the ghost in a cloud of rubber smoke. So today, […]

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First Week In… Just starting up the site now that a few glitches have been cured. This is my first post though I’ve read no manual nor had instruction. That happens Thursday when the webmistress ( Sam Howland of Bad Hat Harry, who created this site from the previous HTML site, comes in and tutors […]

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