sorry this took so long Poinsettia! Also @Moon Wolf, I keep forgetting about your picturings - i will make one, I swear, in the meantime I'll do something quick :D idk if you'll see this but if you do, watch the ultimate picturings thread, and if i don't get it out in a few weeks, please @ me, because it's just that i keep forgetting.

First off, Poinsettia, reading through our old conversation, I feel like I might have like, turned you away from boba tea and other “trendy” Asian stuff more than I intended to - the intention was never to make it so you didn’t interact with it, but just to have a bit of thought when you do. Like, ideally, get boba tea from a shop run by an Asian person - also in my experience the shops run by Asian people are way better, and have more traditional flavors and better fruit tea flavors with Asian fruits like honeydew because they’re less targeted to people who have no idea what boba is. (I usually get a fruit tea, even when there are nondairy milk teas, both because once i had one and i think it was cross contaminated or something, and also because “nondairy” is very vague) I also recommend crystal boba/jelly! I recently tried some while we were on a road trip (which i might post about at some point) and it was sooo good. Just make sure to read reviews :D also i often find shops that severly undercook their tapioca, so if it has a harder/stringy part in the center, that just means they undercooked it. I don’t think that people shouldn’t be able to interact with Asian things, it’s just that almost without fail they end up doing it in a way that ends up kind of weird. Idk, that’s just my experience though. Also, Moon Wolf is right that it does get people to know Taiwanese culture more. Though it’s also popular in other countries. Also, it’s not really that trendy - the specific thing was invented in 1983, but from looking it up that was actually just adding the pearls to it, and milk tea came earlier. Also, i believe similar tapioca pearls existed before for different purposes, but i could be wrong on that. oh, but at one of the boba shops, there was a sign for a night specifically for Filipino healthcare workers in (area), and like it actaully sounded really really cool, like i want to go, but it was just funny becuase it's so specific about being for healthcare workers XD that shop was really cool, though. it had the second best tea i've ever had, after the one in Hawaii, and was just cool in general, and very helpful staff, and they had some boba tea earrings in the corner. 

The Kyngdom character is Spiderwort from Big Cadet Academy :D he’s kind of not doing anything at the moment, so if you’d like your charrie to interact with him, that’d be cool, but no pressure.

On the note of representation, I also think that there’s not a lot that’s casual, and there’s not always a lot of little cultural stuff - like there might be bigger things, but there's not always the small things. i also find that it's often the same story over and over again, in a way. granted, i might be more favorable towards it if it was stuff i was more deeply familiar with (Japanese and Hawaiian, and generally older Japanese culture because of that). i also find it sad that the culture or experience always seems to be really important to the books - like it's fine, but it means that there's not as often something where they're in fantasy or sci fi worlds, or that sort of thing, where the plot is about something different but it still comes in. (I always just ignore the logical issues of fantasy worlds and real world cultures XD) also i like fantasy and sci fi much more than realistic fiction anyway.

For the chocolate haupia pie - make sure it says something about Ted’s bakery. Also you want more plain haupia than chocolate :P you can also just make plain haupia, which is much more traditional and equally good (traditional here just meaning old-fashioned). And all sorts of taro things, like kulolo and poi… I’ve tried to describe kulolo and i still don’t know how to do it but it’s so good. Poi is mashed taro root that’s usually soured. Sometimes it’s fresh too. Both ways are really good. It’s basically my favorite food but outsiders tend to hate it XDDD ohhh and malasadas! They’re donuts but they have fillings like guava or taro or haupia/coconut or tons of stuff. I haven’t had one in a long time since gluten and such but i remember them being amazing. 

On which note some Japanese foods - ummm there’s taiyaki, which i also haven’t had in a long time since gluten and such but it’s super good and also fish shaped! It’s some sort of cooked bread-y thing with adzuki bean paste inside. It’s sooo good. People drink a lot of tea, mostly varieties of green tea, but sometimes other kinds (also there are lots of kinds of green tea, sencha being the most common, but genmaicha is also really common). Matcha got popular because it’s supposed to be good for you or something (also i still don’t know why it’s matcha, it actually would usually be translated as maccha, idk) but tea ceremonies can be really... like it takes a lot of thought, if that makes sense. there's a lot of sticky rice (a very specific kind usually) and certain flavors and seasonings and tofu, and now that i think about it meat is usually more of a side than it is with hamburgers and such, unless it's fish. oh and so much seaweed! I love seaweed. Mochi, of course, and daifuku (sweet mochi). There’s a tradition to eat mochi on New Years, I don’t remember why, but it has something to do with luck in the new year. Also there’s ozoni, soup with mochi in it, for New Years.

I think on the top of Haleakala it’s a lot more desert-y. It's not deserty until you get to the top, though, i think. i actually am not sure i've been to the top that often, usually we go to the forest that isn't at the top where there are a lot of birds. when you're driving up you drive through the clouds :D 

Hawaii has a lot of influences from a lot of different Asian cultures and other island cultures and that sort of thing because a lot of people from those places live there and also a lot of people are mixed race. Also, in the case of Japan and probably other places, people came over from Japan and had to work on sugar cane plantations which wasn’t really a good thing. that’s how we got there. So most of my experience here is more Japanese-Hawaiian than anything, you might get different answers if you went to someone who was Korean or Hawaiian or a mix of that and a lot of other things or such. an example is that there's usually a lot of stuff for Lunar New Year, and you can actually go to bon dances (which is a Japanese festival thing). now i miss all the bon dances they're so fun. oh and they have taiko drums! Those are the best! what kind of traditional Mexican music is there? (btw, i still haven’t listened to your music recs XD I intend to though.)

because of how mixed Hawai'i is, i have a a much less seperate view of Asian cultures, like I get that all of them are different places, but I also see a lot of similarities and often like things from different places. which is very different from a lot of other people. 

i'll try to find some Hawaiian plants to look up later - i can only remember very basic ones atm :( that's the sad part of living away from a place, i guess. also i live in the midwest, and it's like. why did we move here. i mean i know why vaguely (something about jobs and retiring from the military) but??? My area has really good music stuff, though, at least.

topping

I REMEMBER WHEN THIS THREAD WAS FIRST MADE

*ahem* anyway...

So, I HAVE A GARDEN YAYYY!! My parents and I are renting it. We grew arugula (is that how you spell it?), beets, and carrots. The ABCs, my mom calls it.  The arugula is thriving, and there are a few carrot sprouts. No beets though... Does anyone know why they might not be growing? Is it because I grew them right next to the arugula, and arugula is dominating...? I need help T-T

will respond to more later - for now, thanks for the tea recs Moon Wolf! i'll have to see if there's any anywhere remotely near us XD

also i was just driving and saw a Kung Fu Tea just opened near us!! i had one once (while we were traveling), it was mediocre, but still, that's cool! I must admit i do not get the name though XD anwyay, i'm just excited because it's a lot closer to us than the other. if anyone else has tried from that brand (it's a chain), is it good? 

okay but lizards, there's milk tea and fruit tea, but what is it called when it's mostly just tea? like green tea, boba, and cut up strawberries but no strawberry syrup? Is there a name for it? "I'm too lazy to make a syrup" tea? XD 

side note, why is one flavor of the 5 minute boba (they lie, it actually takes 10 minutes to cook) so much better than the other in texture? My local Asian store only has quick boba, so i mostly use quick boba. I make it homemade sometimes but it's a lot of work. It's really really good though.