Not everyone on the island was at yesterday’s Taste of Hawai‘i fundraiser for the Rotary Club of Kapa‘a. Perhaps it had to do with the legendary traffic on the Eastside, or trying to find parking amid the throng of cars
Not everyone on the island was at yesterday’s Taste of Hawai‘i fundraiser for the Rotary Club of Kapa‘a. Perhaps it had to do with the legendary traffic on the Eastside, or trying to find parking amid the throng of cars and hungry Kauaians and tourists alike that started congregating well before the advertised 11:30 a.m. start time.
Instead, Aja Saiki of Wailua Houselots opted for a late lunch with her sister, Brienne, her aunt, Ginger Saiki, and her niece, Taeani Largusa, at Kukui Grove Center.
“I’ve never been there before,” Saiki said. “It hasn’t been something I would like to do.”
Saiki is a senior majoring in business administration at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. She said she’s going to summer school there, beginning Tuesday.
“She goes back tonight,” said her aunt Ginger, a Hawaiian Airlines flight attendant. “She’s going to be a passenger, and I’ll be working that flight.”
Unlike her niece, Ginger has been to the Taste of Hawai‘i.
Once.
“It’s a good experience, but not something I would want to do every year,” the Wailua Houselots resident said.
While some made it a point to avoid the Taste of Hawai‘i, others were pleasantly oblivious.
Honolulu resident Sheryl Sagisi said she didn’t know about the island’s “ultimate Sunday brunch” because she arrived on Kaua‘i Friday.
“I’ve been to Taste of Honolulu,” Sagisi said.
Sagisi is visiting her aunt Rosita Ikehara in Puhi, and leaves today for Honolulu.
Some Kauaians worked so more avid coworkers could go.
During her lunch break from Deja Vu, manager Jennifer Ihara-Takase said she has yet to go to the annual event.
“We have several co-workers who go every year, and for scheduling reasons, I don’t go because I know they enjoy it so much,” she said.
Others were just plain stuck at work.
Ihara-Takase of Lihu‘e said her co-workers look forward to Taste of Hawai‘i every year and plan accordingly.
“Maybe one year, hopefully, I will be able to go,” she said.
And still others stayed away for other extenuating circumstance.
Sharing a lunch break table with her fellow surfwear manager Ihara-Takase, Jolene Farias, a supervisor at nearby Deja Vu Outlet, also had coworkers that went to annual food festival.
Farias, a Wailua Homesteads resident, has never been to Taste of Hawai‘i, though this year she missed for different reasons; she just had a baby.
“Maybe when he gets older I can take him with me,” she said.
• Cynthia Kaneshiro, staff writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 252) or ckaneshiro@kauaipubco.com.
