 Good to see you back for our, what happens to be our 176th episode of Think Take Hawaii's Human-Humane Architecture, Broadcasting live once more from the opposite ends of the world. Me, you host Martin Despeng here from chillingly cold tempered Germany. And you, DeSoto, back in tropically exotic Honolulu, hi DeSoto. How do you do? And it's very nice and warm here and the windows are open and the sun is out and there are birds and trade winds and it's just the way it's supposed to be for Christmas. That's good. And thanks to your question, as we see in our daily reading here of the online New York Times, I'm doing better than most anywhere in the United States, which is sad to report that it's leading, not dealing very well with the COVID crisis we're still in. You back in Honolulu doing fairly well with, I think you said from 2% up to three, which is not a good development, but it's all relative. So it's still relatively good. But the picture of the New York Times was having their headline pictures here, looks like a doomsday Gotham City ride, but where's that? Well, that, you said that, is that not Munich? It is downtown Munich, and it's devoid of people and you also said all of the stores, all the non-essential stores have been closed, which is a terrible thing to happen right before Christmas for people who are retailers. Here in Honolulu, we do not have that lockdown, fortunately, but we're very, very good about wearing our masks. So you do see a lot of people, for example, I've been to Alamoana twice, quite a few shoppers, not as much as usual, but everybody's covered up with a mask. And so we're taking it seriously and fortunately keeping our numbers low. And the vaccination has now been introduced and it's just getting started. So hopefully we will be seeing things getting much better in the coming months to look forward to for the new year of 2021. Absolutely, because this is our final concluding show this year. And once again, Angela, our president, Bundeskanzler, had to put us from a lockdown light, which we were in to a lockdown tight, again, which we used to have at the beginning of the year, but now it's back to try to get things under control because we're disadvantaged because we have to be endorsed by that time of the year because it's cold and that's where the virus spreads. So once again, these are all measurements. But again, as you said, this is tragic because this is the most busy time of the year. As far as capitalism having hijacked basically that Christian holiday of Christmas, Weihnachten as we call it, and there are two times of the years that you guys, American like to travel to Germany and Munich in particular is this time of the year to be on the Weihnachtsmark, the Christmas markets enjoying the mulled wine steaming in their hands while being bundled up. And it's not happening. So the other option is to be indoors, which we have to be, it's not an option, sorry, it's what we have to be. And then we might dream of the opposite of tropical islands, right? Right. So let's get our spirits back to that one next slide. So back to the regions of banana trees and tiki sculptures. And next slide, we're back in Hawaii, right? No, we're not. No, we're not. You pointed out that this maybe if you look sort of with your eyes half closed, it might be someplace like Manoa because you see a hill in the background. But if you look more closely beyond the architecture, which doesn't look very Hawaiian, although you pointed out again, there are places in Hawaii that don't have tropical architecture. But we can see that on growing on the hill, there are crops that are growing being grown in lines. And you pointed out those are vines. Those are grape vines because this is a wine-growing region that you are in right now, correct? Yeah. And featuring at the top, we owe this location to our exotic escapism expert, Susanna, who takes us there, and that gets us to the next slide, which is the city we introduced in the last show already. The city that had been basically bombed during the Second World War and has been rebuilt. This is a picture from a couple of days ago where the letters love have been placed in the vineyards and sending that message in these challenging times. And so let's go and stroll through the city a little bit. Let's go to the next slide. This is sort of remembering the year. This was between the current lockdown and the first lockdown. Things were loosening again and people were able to go to these, we always have your weekly German lessons. So here we're looking at a Weinstube. What did you learn? What is a Weinstube? It's a wine living room, meaning not literally a living room, but in this case, allegorically referring to the living room that you would have in your private home. And in this case, you gather together to drink wine. And that's written in the Gothic writing, so it's not even easy to read even if you can read German, which I can't. Yeah, that's my grandparents' writing, exactly. So next slide is strolling through town once again, which we said had to be rebuilt after the war. And this is, again, you're wondering, talking cases, Witzburg was actually one of the worst hit cities. And then people, as it doesn't quite look like here, because the only woman who doesn't even wear the mask but has the mask sort of pulled down is at the very bottom left, but everyone else is not. But different than the picture indicates, people were behaving and gotten things under control. Right now, it's actually one of the least affected regions in Germany. And you also can see some of that wine stuff here growing up on some of these buildings that have this old pattern of that people live above their ground floor businesses, which gets us to the next slide. And look at one of the stores here in the main pedestrian areas a little bit more in particular, this solo. This is yet another one of the things that amazes me that here's a story in Germany and it's called Palms of Paradise and has a tropical theme. And again, it always surprises me when I encounter people in Germany thinking about Hawaiian islands and not just the Hawaiian islands, but other tropical locations. And there's a lot of people tend to sort of amalgamate the Caribbean and maybe Africa and maybe Asia along with the Pacific and just put them all together in sort of a tropical theme. So this is a women's clothing store and it's as you pointed out to me, it's on the main shopping street in this town and it has light summer clothing. But if you look at the interior detailing, for example, the clothes racks are suspended from the ceiling by ropes and they've got baskets that are covering up the light fixtures. They're adding to this entire tropical theme for this show, but if you look in the distance down the street, you're going to see a very different type of architecture, which is traditionally German and has nothing to do with palms or paradise. No, but maybe there is this combination because this is a less sort of heavy literal. It's a more loose, as you pointed out, alluding to the tropics, more in a way of tarizani with the ropes and maybe like a shipwreck kind of island that you have to make things some scratch, some more an essentialized way. And so building in the distance at the vista that you point out, which is going to the next slide, is that main church in town that is a gothic church. And last show we've been showing both the Baroque and then the gothic and we said they're kind of in dialogue, but you might say they're like arguing, right? To say the very least. And the gothic pretty much as Ron likes to call what Ebb Killingsworth and him have been doing structural expressionism. That's pretty much what the gothic mentality was, to just do the essentials and don't do a thing and let the structure be the ornament versus the Baroque that was throwing the stuff on it and basically putting makeup on it, right? Yes, exactly. To the next slide, which shows us another again at the opposite end of the world with different climates, but we find interesting similarities as in both cases here on the left, Ritzburg, where you basically see the Baroque church at the end of that street, but you can also see the wine bluffs, the vegetated ones being pretty apparent and basically being the focus of the vista of the street canyons. And on the right, this is one of the similar scenarios in Honolulu. This is one of the situations in downtown where I'm always amazed that when the weather is clear and there is no clouds over the mountains, they look very, very close as you can almost grab them, right? So that's interesting. As you said, the jungle seems to, the heavy vegetation seems to just sort of trickle down and run down into the city itself. If you've got big trees growing along the street, you look at the distance and heavy tropical vegetation is in the far distance and it seems to be around you, even in an urban area. And next slide, if we look into that city from the other direction, we had to have to more fully introduce, and we will in one of the following shows our new sort of mid-long range p.i.ing mobile, this Audi A2, which is exotic to you because that never made it to the U.S., so we will talk about that. But until then, we want to point out that building there that basically pops out because it's heavily overgrown with nature. So we want to look at that closer. Next slide. And that's also what you see behind me. And you said it almost looks like the jungle is like eating me alive. That's right. That's right. And this is this is a plant that comes from North America and it's called Virginia Creeper. And so it's been introduced to Germany and other temperate zones. It's also it's also grown and it has this very lush, thick growth of leaves. But we're going to see that they're not there all year. And it also, in this case, alludes to what we're going to see inside this building. We're looking at the facade of this building, but we're about to see what's inside. And we're going to see some other similar touches, even though it's not literally the same plant, but we haven't gotten there yet. Yeah, but we will. So next slide gets us closer. This shows us again, the facade and the the windows have been left open. So they're cutting it and trimming it to keep the view and the daylight. And then there is this light fixture that's pointing to what we if we go to the next slide pointing to a certain feature of the facade. And that was sort of puzzling you, right? Exactly, because it's a Madonna and baby Jesus. And so I wonder why she happens to be on the front of a secular building, which is not obviously not a church, but it's appropriate since we're talking about Christmas and we're just a short distance in time from Christmas. But you look more closely at the bottom of this picture. There's a sign and that's for the business that is located here. And it's called Ohana. And if you look more closely, the O of the Ohana, which of course is Hawaiian word meaning family, is got these two sort of vertical things stuck into it. And those are chopsticks because this is a Hawaiian themed restaurant, which makes reference to Poké and of course the Asian elements, which we have in our local culture today. And however inside is not 100 percent Hawaiian as we're about to see. Let's go inside and dive in and zoom in. So there is a there is a tiki sculpture there, right? Well, no, no, no, no, no, no, there are tiki sculptures in the upper right corner and that's B with a big fake one that was installed at Fish and Museum for a party, but also two original carvings, two original images that are authentic Hawaiian, which we used in the exhibit, which we had recently at Fish and Museum to honor the donation of a similar very valuable carving, which was donated to us. But here in the Ohana restaurant, there's a different type of carving. That is a grapevine. Those are clusters of grapes on a grapevine. So perhaps this building used to house a wine living room before it became the Ohana restaurant. We don't know. No, that's the case. You got that right. And to the next slide, we see more what that is because it's talking structural expressionism. This is a finely carved column that's actually holding up a beam up there. So this is not just ornamental, as we like to criticize when you do things just for the look. This actually has a function to hold up the building. But at the same time, it's demonstrating exactly what you were guessing that that used to be a wine stove. And now it's been converted by this gentleman. His name is Ruben Mada, and I'm sort of holding up his business card here, which he gave me when we were walking by and we see Suzanne here and started to engage him. And he's a fairly young man who started this business. And we, you know, expose ourselves. And I was pulling out my business card. Myel, that there is someone inspecting almost and knowledgeable in the region that he's alluding to. And we started to have an interesting discussion that you can see in the background. This was pretty much during the first lockdown. And so, but luckily, he had something that we see indicated in the background here of him. You see a floor to ceiling glazed in a door window. Then we go to the next slide that basically gets to a what we had dedicated nine shows to, which is something that could be very helpful during the COVID times, especially in climates that you have year round that you can be outside and dine outdoors. And this is a courtyard here, a patio that you had, but wasn't able to utilize at that point. But next slide, luckily, very soon after when Wordsbrook was doing better and they basically were opening up more, we were able to basically have one of these very delicious poke bowls there, you know, and feeling good, being probably approximately, you know, sufficiently distanced from the people next there, which is probably the two meters like the six feet you're required to do. But let's go to the next slide and see his main guest room, which he was not able to use at that point of the first lockdown. And then even, you know, when things got opened up again, obviously people prefer to use the outdoor spaces. And so here's Suzanne and him engaging in a discussion of that it's interesting that he isn't so much pulling what mid-century was the case when almost any American city had a Polynesian pop themed picky restaurant. And even in Germany and in Munich, which is the big capital of that state of the barrier we were talking once before, that is one of the most authentic, if there is such a thing of Polynesian pop restaurants is the Trader Vicks in downtown Munich in the basement of the most upscale hotel. While that one is very literally pre-contact Tiki themed, this one here seems to be rather more loosely alluding to what you said a more a blend of tropical influences. And you know, but when we look at Waikiki today, for example, there are various hotels which have been refurbished that were mid-century buildings which have now been turned into more hip smaller hotels. And they use this same type of kind of quasi just tropical amalgamated tropical motifs too with the same color palette of green and pink. So what he's done there really looks like some of the things that are happening really here in real life as well in current trends. That's right. So to that agree, it is a more authentic interpretation of what's currently going on. And also talking performatively in COVID next slide as what we said, you know, many restaurants should have done that even before COVID and they should for sure do it more now and they should do it post COVID is more embraced the outdoors. So there should be more outdoor eating. And so not only does he have that sort of, you know back patio, but he also has a front yard outdoor dining area where he was able to convince the city to give to him probably rent out a couple of the parking stalls that he could put outdoor benches there instead. And we caught him here nicely tidy the cleaning up before he opened the restaurant in the later morning and gets us to the next slide because there's also the menu displayed. And this is your extended German, a German lesson but in this case you didn't have to do too much German, right? Weren't you lucky? No. There's very little German on this menu, which again amazes me how prevalent the use of English is in Germany, the menu, which all of the names of all of the dishes are in English and they use Hawaiian words. I mean, he's using things like Ohana. And the descriptions of what are in each dish are printed in German, but everything else is in English. So I can read what's on this menu. I can't read everything that's in the dishes, but I can read the menu. And again, this is just for German people. Everyone's expected to be able to read and understand English. And I find that amazing. For you, it's not a big deal, but for me it amazes me. Yeah. And also if we're thinking about the original poke bowl, which we said original means that's also not indigenous. Correct. This is an invention and as you said, a blend of many other cultures. And he here was adjusting that to the European taste, which is unlike the Japanese, not that used to eating the fish like our favorite in my hood that basically on Kapa Hulu, Ono Seafood, which is basically just the marinated fish and rice. And that's pretty much it. But the European taste likes it more blended with more vegetables and other things. So he's catering to that. So he's once again interpreting that. And next slide, unlike as we've been discussing in previous shows, where in the past of mid-century, it was more literally alluding to Tiki and pre-content and contact content. Next slide, just like this reminded me of other people who have also been doing this in a more interpretive way, right? Yes, and I'm trying to see now, what am I looking at here? You're looking at Clara and Joey's enterprise. Oh, that's right. That's right, because that was the Shave Ice Wagon. That was the rainbow-colored Shave Ice Wagon. And your son and his wife did. And that again is not a Hawaiian invention. Certainly we didn't have ice, we didn't shave it. But when that got started in the 20th century, it became a local specialty of flavor of ice with flavored syrup poured over it. And so that's something that we think of as being Hawaiian, even though it obviously didn't originate here 100%. Yeah, but now it's part of local culture as it's perfectly called it. And now the younger generations as Ruben and Clara and Joey are interpreting that in their playful and joyful way. Not using, not getting caught up with chevrons and all these kind of more kitchen-wide symbols and ornaments, but basically being creatively interpreting that and giving it more meaningfulness. Again, as we pointed out, and one of your favorite shows of mine is the evolution of the tradition of innovation on the island. So it's in that tradition to keep things evolving and interpreting them, always keeping them fresh and fun versus basically mummified, you know? Right, right, and static. Exactly, so more dynamic. And next slide is proving that again, once he has a couple of signs they're more or less sort of more touristy alluding to, you know, to Hawaii, but otherwise he has letters where he said from the second row there was an eye falling off, but otherwise it's again, Guten Appetit means enjoy your dinner early lunch and it's saying that in my language and it's saying it in your language. And other than that, on the left side he has these two maps front there. They're basically juxtaposing and comparing our two locations. If you want a little, we can point out directly to where exactly we are at the place where I used to be and you are at the foot of diamond head or up in the diamond head now as you are and us in Wurzburg. And this is interesting to do this in a very sort of a, you know, non-mystical, cryptical, but very kind of true and honest way. Right. And if you think about things that we both like as popey bowls, but also, you know, things that are significantly different. As for example, it makes culture is climate and that gets us to the next slide because unlike at your place where basically, you know, it stays summer all the time, here it used to be still during the summer. And there was already discussions which is that little headline we threw in there at the very top where they were debating about what they were afraid of which then became problematic is how they're gonna continue to stay in business when it gets cold. And they were thinking about positioning these electric heaters on the streets, you know giving off their radiation by burning gas, you know from gas bottles. And this was a discussion that was, you know, all the same in all the temperate climates in the world. Talking about a New York city. And also here, your last part of keeping bugging you with your German lessons, what does it say on that sign in front of his restaurant? It says something like, and you explained this to me and I may say it wrong. Even today, you can have your portion of vacation. Is that right? Yeah, so meaning that come into my restaurant and it can pretend you're on vacation in a warm tropical place. Exactly. And it sort of says, you know, take out your piece and then that taking out became more actual and factual next slide when these leaves were turning yellow first and temperature got colder. You see the cars got their parking stall back because it was too cold for people. And he decided not to have that, you know global climate problematic, you know, heating the outdoors. And you see the graves we're talking about which are kind of that miniature version of the real vineyard graves. Right, right. And the slide is from a few days ago when we get to the next slide, we see all the leaves pretty much gone. The Madonna becomes more apparent there. And also we see and we wish Ruben all the best that he stays afloat with his business. We certainly support him and continue to buy his delicious bowls as takeouts. And he has this little scooter there and a bicycle and that box in the back that basically the delivery guys, you know bring it to you guys out there or you can go and order online and basically pick it up. So we basically, you know wish you all the best Ruben to survive these tough times. For us it's a reminder again how blessed we are to be able to have vegetation on the facades shading us all year round as I think it was almost exactly a year ago we did the show at the very top right or a mess store as part of the Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center that remodeling that we liked. And again- We're gonna be doing a show in a short time next month in January in which we're gonna be seeing this same Virginia creeper vine used not for decoration and not just to make the facade look pretty but for an architectural functional purpose for another building that you encountered in Germany which I found very intriguing. So that's something we will be discussing that has great application for us here in Hawaii as well in which we are not currently making use of it as much as we should be. That's absolutely true looking forward to that. And until then second to last slide that's you wishing me Frohe Weihnachten as we call happy holidays. And how do you do that? Well, we say melikulikimako which is Merry Christmas but that is the Brown family Christmas tree or town and bomb which is being purchased and having the bottom cut off with President Barack Obama's childhood home in the background famous building that he grew up in and that's my Christmas. And then we can go to see your Christmas where you are. Second to last night and that's me returning to Christmas greetings and as the talking exotic the town and bomb originating in German culture as the name indicates is exotic to you because it doesn't grow on your island. So you have a craving for it and get it. And here we are again this is our exotic escapism expert Suzanne bundled up also masked up thanks Suzanne. And that was some few weeks ago when we have the only snow so far on the ground and you see that central plaza in town you see that Gothic church on the right and you see the large lit up Christmas tree. Again, that was even before getting us locked down tight in the lockdown light. And you see that even there, you know there are very few people out there and that's probably one of the indications why Woodsburg after they were doing not so good had many cases that were doing better because people were really behaving. So obviously that's our biggest Christmas wish for the world stay happy and healthy and hopefully the next year we're gonna be able to get that pandemic under control globally. So with that, the Soto for Weihnachten und ein frohes neues Jahr which means happy new year because we also banned fireworks for new years. Also because of again the environmental impact which is the other big crisis we have going on it's keeping people from gathering and then the virus. So once again with all that again, happy holidays. Yes, Soto and to everyone else. And as you already announced the Soto we have an exciting new show lined up already to kick off and I think that's gonna be on January 6th. So looking forward to that. Happy holidays. Bye everybody. Aloha and Meli Kalikimaka.