Trowels and Coconuts: Learning Fieldwork in Hawaii

Photo

Fri, 24 Aug 2012 10:17:38 -0400

Hullo wind

Take 2

Diamond HeadWaikiki, O’ahu, Hawaii

Tue, 21 Aug 2012 18:59:30 -0400

Entering the crater

Can you make out the zig zag trail and people?

View from the trail

Rest stop along the trail

Stairs to the summit. Fml

Made it!

I could see my dorm!

Diamond Head
Waikiki, O’ahu, Hawaii

The Cats of Hale Manoa

Sun, 12 Aug 2012 19:24:00 -0400

7 cats

4 cats

The Cats of Hale Manoa

Recreating the photo of a Japanese-American family revisiting...

Sat, 28 Jul 2012 17:00:41 -0400

Family revisiting the mess hall

Recreating the photo! Same spot

Recreating the photo of a Japanese-American family revisiting the mess hall at Honouliuli Internment Camp. Notice the same wall in the background.

Time flies!

Sat, 28 Jul 2012 06:48:23 -0400

Field school ended today. It was a very loooong class day of 16 project presentations and grading the final exam.

Tomorrow morning I fly back to Virginia.

Once again I have fallen behind in updating this blog. I keep taking pictures, but creating a post is time-consuming and clearly my time has been full this last week!

I do not intend to stop now just because I will no longer actually be IN Hawaii. I will continue to update until I have covered all my adventures!

Then I will notify you of the last post, the true end.
Until then,

keep checking!

See that tiny plane? That’s me tomorrow. Minus the sunset :)

One of my classmates, Sandy, invited us to join her in a hike...

Sun, 22 Jul 2012 00:58:00 -0400

On the side of the road!

En route to Sandy's secret spot

So romantic and awesome

Hiking up the Makapu'u trail

Could see Molokai and Hawaii islands

The view

Makapu'u light house

Hanauma Bay

Post-snorkeling!

The snorkelers look tiny

One of my classmates, Sandy, invited us to join her in a hike and Hanauma Bay today. Sandy picked myself and Ashlee up at 10am and we headed to the Makapu’u lighthouse trail. But on the way, she surprised us with a special secretive area off the side of the road where her husband had proposed! We crossed the road, over the side railing, climbed down, and through a cave to find a beautiful rock face by the water.

After that mini adventure, we hiked up the trail. Thankfully it wasn’t too long, and paved, since it was mostly up a mountainside. The pictures don’t do the view justice. It was stunning!

Next stop was Hanauma Bay! We snorkeled among coral outcrops and saw a plethora of tropical fish. One even rushed at me when I reached out!

By 3:30 we were starving because we’d only had small breakfasts in the early morning. Sandy graciously treated us to a meal at Kono’s Brewing Company. It was a perfect end to a perfect day in Hawaii.

Tonight, I plan to keep it low key after such an exhausting day. Ashlee & I made plans to go grab Bubbies milkshakes and lounge with a viewing of Jurassic Park. Sandy told us that it was filmed in Hawaii, some on O’ahu, and I coincidentally brought my DVD with me!

Pale Scale: undetermined/10
1/3 of me is pale white
1/3 of me is varying shades of tan
1/3 of me is lobster red…the sun & surf penetrated the SPF 50 on my backside hardcore. Looks like I’m sleeping on my stomach tonight!

Field Archaeology Week 2

Sat, 21 Jul 2012 14:47:31 -0400

This week we were in the field, at Honouliuli, every day.

The day would start with the usual 7:15am carpool pickup from the dorm, then a drive to the Kiss & Ride parking lot that the rest of the class met up. Since we usually waited there for about half an hour, a trip to the nearby Starbucks became habit. (I managed to resist the temptation yesterday, but caved for Jack in the Box after class..).

Once everyone arrived, we carpooled over to the Monsanto building to get a daily safety talk and make use of their nice bathroom. Then, the Monsanto rep would drive us down and open the gate to the gulch.

After parking and bug-spraying, we broke off into our assigned groups. Each day, we’d rotate to another group so as to learn/experience a new skill. Here’s the breakdown and some pictures:

Field Day 1: Excavation

Excavation! Working very hard to clear the laundry room slab of huge mounds of dirt holding the strong gilli grass. It was grueling in the sun.
Photo by Jeff Burton I believe. Grabbed from the Honouliuli facebook page.

Field Day 2: Feature Drawing

First, my group examined some fallen metal telephone poles and checked the electrical insulators for dates. Above is my field journal, below is an action shot!

Then, we moved to the aqueduct and attempted mapping part of it. I missed some numbers and my scale got all messed up…but it was a learning process ;)

Field Day 3: Metal Detecting

My first and best find was an old horseshoe. I also found a piece of iron, cement with barbed wire, and…a sun-bleached Coors Light can.
Photo by Brianne!

Field Day 4: Total Mapping Station

Ron Beckwith gave the group an introductory tutorial in how to use a total mapping station. It works by placing the station at a central point of your desired area or feature, and collecting different points from the borders by bouncing a laser from the station to the prism and back. It can collect data on the location and elevation, which can then be used in a mapping program.

This was also the day that a tour led by JCCH visited, and a reporter from KITV!

Here’s Ron attempting to teach Clint while the tour presents in the background:

Here’s Ron getting interviewed, and the cameraman taking some footage of us using the station!

Taken by Pua!

Field Day 5: Fence Post Documentation

Yesterday, Friday, I worked in a small group to help with the documentation of some old posts that are found along the new paved road. The goal is to figure out which ones were part of the Honouliuli camp and which were newer additions from the time it was used for farming. We used a GPS to record the points, took measurements and pictures.

Next week we have two or three more days in the field, then we get a day to work on our project, then the class is over! It’s going by so fast, I can’t believe it!

My field school made the local Hawaiian news!

Fri, 20 Jul 2012 03:39:20 -0400

My field school made the local Hawaiian news!:

The video wouldn’t embed, but just click the link to watch!

My group basically forced Clint to be the one to get interviewed and he did a great job! Also note Ron, one of the awesome geeky hilarious archaeologists that gives a carpool from the Manoa campus (where they, and we, stay) every morning at 7:15am.

There were some other great faces of my classmates shown, but too many and too quickly to name them all :)

Meerkats at the Honolulu Zoo

Tue, 17 Jul 2012 21:43:00 -0400

Making his seat better

That's more comfy

Meerkats at the Honolulu Zoo

On Sunday I went to the Honolulu Zoo! It was right on Waikiki...

Tue, 17 Jul 2012 21:33:00 -0400

Flamingos

Lemur

Gibbon

Rusti the Orangutan

Warthog family!

Hippo on the glass

Zebra & giraffe

The giraffes were so close!

Klipspringers!

Fennec fox

On Sunday I went to the Honolulu Zoo! It was right on Waikiki Beach.

USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii

Sun, 15 Jul 2012 15:56:43 -0400

Honouliuli in the museum!

Leis thrown in respect

Pearl Harbor survivor sitting in front!

Oil bubbling up after all these years

Memorial wall

A possible relative?!

USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii

Field Archaeology Week 1

Fri, 13 Jul 2012 23:16:18 -0400

I’ve fallen behind in updating (with words) because I’ve been so tired and busy, so I keep putting it off and it’s just been snowballing. I find I’m even starting to get my days confused and it’s starting to blend together. Sorry this post will be so long. However, the next few posts will likely be photo-dumps from these various activities.

Day 1: Monday

Class begins at 8:30am at the West Oahu campus. Since we’re staying at a dorm at the Manoa campus, the out-of-staters catch a ride with the professors at 7:15am.

Here’s a picture of the class location:
(Click the picture to enlarge all the photos in this post)

The first day was a general introduction and history of the Honouliuli site. We also had a guest speaker, Ellen Carson, who was involved in the legal case suing the US government for the Japanese American internment proceedings. A class discussion became pretty heated when parallels between the 9/11 & Pearl Harbor attacks, and the connected fears of Japanese Americans and Muslim Americans/Middle Eastern Americans, became evident.

The view near the classroom:

Day 2: Tuesday

Field trip day 1! We went to the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii (JCCH) to learn more about the Japanese internment. Two volunteers at the JCCH have dedicated over 10 years to the discovery and research of the Honouliuli site. In 1998, a reporter called up JCCH for more information about the WWII Japanese interment in Hawaii sparked from the publicity surrounding the film Schindler’s List. The Center had so little information that they set out to find more and eventually recovered the site!

It all connects back to Steven Spielberg…

Here’s some classmates wearing Hachimakis and hanging wishes on the bamboo at the JCCH:

After class I rested and then visited the Japanese garden and Thai pavilion that are right next door to the dorm. At night, Ashlee and I headed down the street to a well-known ice cream place called Bubbies.
Here’s the menu:

I ordered “Buffy’s Aural Massage” and a chocolate-dipped vanilla mochi:

IT WAS SO GOOD.

Day 3: Wednesday

Field trip day 2! We went to the USS Arizona memorial at Pearl Harbor. The memorial was very touching. Even seeing the sunken Arizona, it was hard to envision such a devastating event occurring on that beautiful water. Oil was still bubbling up from ship that serves as a tomb for over 900 soldiers.

(Many more pictures to come)

After the memorial we lightened the mood with another trip to Waikiki beach.

Day 4: Thursday

Yesterday we had a guest lecturer, Dr. Lorraine Minatoishi. She lectured about preservation of architecture and some history of the architecture in Hawaii. She also went through a report that her firm put together when they analyzed the two remaining buildings at Honouliuli for possible restoration.
After her lecture, she taught how architects sketched and measured maps of buildings in the field and we practiced this on our campus buildings:

I also got my ID card that day, and my bus pass the day before when we went to Waikiki beach again:

After class, we set out for FOOD. We were starving because the break for lunch had been so early during class, 10am. We went down to the Waikiki beach shop area to start our quest for the “traditional” Hawaiian dish called Loco Moco. The first place we stopped, Chibo something, had been recommended by two different people, but when we got there we found out that they no longer had it on the menu! So we ordered off their happy hour menu because most of the dishes were super pricey.
Here’s my White Onion and Shiso Pork Wraps and a pretty margarita:

We were still kind of hungry afterward so we started hunting for another place with Loco Moco on the menu. One of Brianne’s previous teachers, who is a foodie, recommended the Rainbow Drive-In. Thankfully it was a success!

A Loco Moco consists of rice topped with a hamburger patty topped with an egg topped with gravy. I tend to dislike gravy, and the ingredients sound pretty disgusting, but it was surprisingly good! (And super cheap).

Day 5: Friday, TODAY!

Today we finally went to the field! After coordinating carpools and picking up starbucks, we headed to the Honouliuli field site. The land is owned by Monsanto, so we had to stop at their main building and hear a spiel from a Monsanto representative about safety and not taking pictures of their agricultural fields (because we’re totally spies </sarcasm>). We used their bathrooms before driving down, and upon exiting I saw a HUGE cane spider at the top of a wall. Google them. I freaked out. We had heard about them being around in Honolulu and at Honouliuli the other day, but actually seeing one was practically traumatizing. It was bigger than my hand, seriously. My excitement to go to the field had plummeted and become horror.

But after a while I had calmed down and focused on the land in front of me. We trekked through thick gilli grass and overgrown forest to see the concrete remains of the mess hall, aqueduct, guard tower, and various sewer remnants.

I’ll end with a couple of pictures, and hopefully I’ll be able to update more often so that these posts don’t become so long.

Hiking up to see the whole view of “Hell Valley:”

Imagine a couple hundred small buildings and tents exactly where all the green trees now stand:

Me and the mess hall concrete foundation:

Authentic Thai Pavillion at the East-West Center in Honolulu, HI

Thu, 12 Jul 2012 21:10:09 -0400

Camera flash makes it shiny!

Authentic Thai Pavillion at the East-West Center in Honolulu, HI

Authentic Japanese garden and tea house at the East-West Center...

Wed, 11 Jul 2012 04:24:00 -0400

Tea House

Huge Koi fish!

Authentic Japanese garden and tea house at the East-West Center in Honolulu

First full day in Hawaii! I arrived yesterday evening to my...

Mon, 09 Jul 2012 03:15:00 -0400

My room!

Window view to the left, Waikiki beach

Window view to the right, Diamond Head

View from the hallway

Famous? breakfast place

FOOD

Waikiki beach

Waikiki palms

There are FIVE black cats in this photo

First full day in Hawaii!

I arrived yesterday evening to my dorm. It’s surprisingly sad-looking and colorless. I’m working on a plan to fix that…
The building itself is pretty old, but it definitely has its charms. The views are fantastic and the kitchen is completely open to the outside with a nice seating area. The main hallways on each floor are open on the other side too, that side has the gorgeous mountain view.
There are also cats running around all over this campus. In the last photo, you can see five of the EIGHT black cats that were in that parking lot all at one time. I’m thinking they were a family? It was bizarre. Literally every time I look down from the building I see a cat. The first night I saw five within ten minutes, all strutting along the sidewalk.

Today, myself and the other four out-of-state girls set out to find breakfast at around 7:30am (I woke up naturally at 6am, yay..), which turned out to be more difficult than expected. Eventually Brianne found a place on her smartphone and we followed the GPS to Cafe Kaila. Strangely it had a large waitlist and line, but we were so starving by that time that we didn’t even care. A lot of people were taking pictures of the place and of their food, so I did too.

Then we met up with one of the archaeology professors so that she could give us a ride to the grocery store. I’m now stocked with quesadilla and sandwich supplies!

We got back to our rooms around noon. After changing clothes and fiddling with my ethernet a little more (I didn’t get it to work until about an hour ago), we left for Waikiki Beach! We took the bus, grabbed some grass mats at one of the hundreds of ABC Stores, and laid out in the sun. We were all exhausted and making dinner by around 6:30pm.
I’m telling myself that the jetlag is good though because tomorrow we have to be ready to go to our first class at 7:15am. Easy.

Related side-note: right now my laptop is telling me it’s 3:10am right now, phone says 9:10pm. Awesome.

Pale scale: 9/10
Random sunburn patches from where the sunscreen spray missed doesn’t make me any less pale. Slight sun tan on forearms from driving barely saves me from a 10/10.

Leaving for Hawaii tomorrow!It still hasn’t sunken...

Fri, 06 Jul 2012 18:14:00 -0400

Wendy and packing

Suitcase!

Leaving for Hawaii tomorrow!

It still hasn’t sunken in.

Right now I’m procrastinating the last few things I need to pack. But, as you can see in the pictures, I’m practically finished. (Also note, Wendy the distraction).

Want to play suitcase I, Spy?
Can you spot these essential tropical archaeological field school items:

Swimsuits
Sunscreen
Work gloves
Ethernet cable
Ridiculously shiny sneakers

Anyway, my basic itinerary for tomorrow starts with a 6am alarm (with 20 minutes of snooze-time). My flight departs Norfolk about 9:45, then a connection in Newark, NJ around lunchtime. THEN a really really really long flight to Honolulu! My flight is scheduled to arrive about 5:30pm their time, which, in my time, is 11:30pm. Needless to say I will likely be exhausted.

Do you think by then it will have sunken in?