Kapa'a Nightlife!

Here on Kauai they have lots of monthly or weekly "Art walks" in various towns around the island. From what I can tell the one in nearby Kapa'a is one of the largest, held on the first Saturday of the month. Stores stay open late and there are vendors set up all along the street and on church grounds, in parking lots, etc. 

I've wanted to attend some of these art walks to do research to try to sell some of my own "art" and when I mentioned it to my friends they all wanted to go too! So it got put off for a bit. Last night we finally made it.

We parked at the library on the north end of town and headed south. The street was packed with cars and the vendors were EVERYWHERE! I had no idea this would be so large. One of the first tables we passed was kids selling Hawaiian sweet bread. The table right next to them had some kind of meat, I don't recall exactly what. It was served in a bowl, probably on top of rice, for $5. There were tons of jewelry, wood art, fabric goods (Aloha dresses, sarongs, etc), glass art and wares of all sorts.


As we walked on one of my friends suggested we stop and have a beer. So we found a place that advertised draft beer for $2.50. That's our kind of price! Unfortunately, they had no draft beer, only bottles. So we bought our drinks and sat RIGHT NEXT to the big speaker that the guitar players were pumping their music through. They were very good musicians but it was a little on the overpowering side for me, with my hard of hearing ears... Then a little local lady joined them for a couple songs and did the hula. She looked nothing like a hula dancer, her salt and pepper hair was cut short and she had a cute sundress on. But she was very graceful, she'd obviously been doing the hula for decades.

There were musicians and food vendors everywhere, so the sounds and smells added to the sensory overload!  We perused a few jewelry vendors and one friend found a beautiful hand tied bracelet made with fresh water pearls for $10, it's beautiful!

We came near to the end of the vendors on one side of the street so crossed over and started down the other side. By this time we all needed to use the restroom and so that became a priority but the sounds coming from the Eastside Cafe pulled us close. It sounded like James Brown was singing, I was looking for his jumpin' and jivin'! The band was called The Quake and they were fantastic! Then as we're trying to look in and see the band another friend from the hall spotted us from inside and dragged us in and bought us drinks. Unfortunately we were once again parked right in front of the speakers. It was a lot of fun but personally, I think next time I'd rather enjoy it from the other side of the glass, along with many others doing that very thing last night.

I did get to do some research along with all the fun. Now I just need to find out how to get a spot.