Higashi Hongwanji Mission of Hawaii

Unilocal 100 Challenge #60/​100
This review is for the Bön Dance. I honestly have never been to this Bön Dance before so I was excited to check it out. Went there on Saturday around 6:00 pm. Parking was getting full at the school and I was lucky to find some street parking a little down the ways.
After we parked the fam headed to the bon dance. Once there I saw a bunch of chairs and pews to sit on. We brought our chairs just in case too. Then I headed to the Shimazu shave ice stand. They had I believe all or most of their flavors that is usually at the store. It was $ 4.00 for a bowl and an add on like condensed milk, haupia, li hing, mochi, or azuki was $.75. Come to think of it I ordered mine with azuki beans and didn’t get it with my order. Oh well. But the shave was great and refreshing and we got one later after we were taking a break from dancing. The line moved quickly and there was hardly a wait.
Then there was andagi which was good as they had something called poto-​gi andagi which was a portuguese sausage wrapped in the andagi batter for $ 1.00. It was a small sized sausage and tasted pretty good. Almost like a small version of a KC waffle dog. I did like the andagi which was very hot and fresh. It was $ 1.50 for either 3 original or cinnamon and sugar. I tried the cinnamon/​sugar and it tasted good. I would get that again in the future.
They had a system to order food. It was in rec sized area which was pretty big and there were seats and tables in there too. I walked up to look at the menu and someone was there to take my order. This is pretty organized. I had the beef curry rice and spam musubi. I then got an order slip and paid inside. Two ladies rang me up and pointed to an area to pickup my food and gave me an order number. I then got my order about 1 minute later. Did I say this was very organized. The beef curry was okay, but I didn’t try the musubi so I can’t comment on that. The Mrs. tried the nishime and said that the vegetables weren’t washed good or something and it tasted nasty. I was bummed for her as I read someone had the nishime and liked it.
The Bön Dance was great as it wasn’t that crowded and I loved the live performances. They had a troupe of older obachan’s singing and then a little girl with musical Japanese instruments in the background. Then midway in the Bön Dance the Okinawan drum troupe showed up and they were great as well with tons of energy as always.
Overall this Bön Dance was great and I loved it. I will definitely be coming back to this one. Great job to the HIgashi Hongwanji Mission! See you again and Aloha!

It’s bon dance time and parking seems to be an issue at most bon dances. At Higashi Hongwanji street parking is available but it seems that the school is available. However even that seems to be on a limited basis. Your best bet — get there early.

They ran out of food at the bon dance friday night even before the dancing started. The nishime plate was delicious. I didn’t care for the dango jiru… the soup was cold and i didn’t like the texture of the dango… it was the first time I had that. The andagi portuguese sausage for $ 1 was very good. They had cinnamon coated andagi but we had the regular andagi which was good too. They even had delicious sugarless syrup shaved ice.
Parking was convenient across the street in the Lanikila school grounds.

I went here for a Bön dance. It was a smaller Bön dance as far as Bön dances go but they had fun games and crafts for kids which was nice. The temple also appeared very nice from what I saw.