As you know, there's always something happening at Aloha Tower Marketplace, so promotion is non-stop. We've been simultaneously planning & promoting First Fashion Friday while planning & promoting our third annual Ukulele Contest (happening this Sunday).

We've made the rounds to the TV stations and wrapped up with a morning at KITV, located at 801 South King Street. Since last year's winner, Rylan Tokioka, would be playing music all morning, he had to be at the studio by 4:30 a.m. for a sound check. We had him play through three segments and two teasers, and I stood in to talk about the event itself.

By the way, our event is this Sunday at Aloha Tower Marketplace, starting at 10 a.m. It's FREE to attend, and since it's part of Aloha Festivals, there will be an appearance by the Royal Court. This year, we've also got celebrity judges: Melveen Leed, Sean Na’auao, Nate Mata, Jan Luna, Tracy Terada, and Japanese ukulele star Kazuhiro Sekiguchi. Come by to see the best amateur ukulele players in town for a day of FREE entertainment!

After a whole morning of talking up the contest and hamming it up with KITV's morning anchors, we stopped in at Karen's Kitchen on the way to work.

At this point, it was just 7 a.m. when we rolled in to Aloha Tower Marketplace. If you were following me on Twitter last night or watched the KGMB news, you might have seen a report about the fabulous Maltese Falcon.

The ship has fifteen square sails (five per mast), stored inside the mast; they can fully unfurl into tracks along the yards in six minutes. The three carbon fiber masts are free-standing and able to rotate. (You can read more about it here.) We marveled at it for a while, then went around back to look at the bar. Pretty spiffy, eh?

Phew! I can't even go into all the things we did from then until 9 a.m., but we were all exhausted. Good thing Vanessa's husband brought us Chun Wah Kam manapua to keep our strength up.

I hope I can relax a bit while listening to the wonderful ukulele players on Sunday. Come down and visit!

Aloha Tower's Third Annual Ukulele Contest
Sunday, September 14 ~ 10 a.m. to about 2 p.m.
Admission: FREE
Call 566-2337 for information

OMG...OMG...OMG!! I am so behind in my blogs! I know a lot of my guy readers get bored with the fashion stuff, but I have to recap last First Fashion Friday because it was so much fun! I need to thank Jason Soeda, who took a bazillion photos for us that night. I could only choose a few, which I will share with you now.

Our theme this month was "Transitions," in which we showed examples of how to wear one outfit several ways, or update an existing (conservative) outfit to make it trendy, or the traditional day-to-night transformations. Here are some of the items:

Let's say you're lounging at the beach or pool and that cute guy you've been eyeing finally calls for a date...in 30 minutes! How are you going to look fabulous with barely enough time to shower? Here's a solution from Precious and Nicky Shoes.

This outfit was a total surprise to me. Honolua has this very conservative dress, which I would never have picked but looked absolutely cute on our model. The left is a day look, maybe for work or church; she just threw on a belt and some party shoes from Nicky Shoes and she can go out with friends afterward!

This is a trendy "Pussycat Dolls" take on the same outfit. If you're hitting the clubs tonight, this dress and boots from Millennium gives off a sassy-sweet vibe. The hat, which is big for fall, pulls the outfit together. The look on the right is just a more casual take on layering, which has been a trend all year. This look is great for movies or going to a party with the girls.

This dress from precious could go from day to night easily without all the extras. However, if you throw on a sassy Nanette Lepore kimono jacket, it helps to make you look more sophisticated.

The models show off the latest from Millennium. I swear, just because it's goth doesn't mean it's all dark! These are wearable and trendy!

We even have men at our events. Daniel was one of the guys who got up and entered our catwalk contest. He was good! We also had a husband in the audience who was asking questions of our panelists on behalf of his wife. I wish I had gotten a photo, because his wife looked like she wanted him to just sit and be quiet!

Once again, bloggers helping bloggers! Cathy Lee of RSVP Style, who also has a blog on this site, came to support. Want to know more about her and HER style? Come to First Fashion Friday on October 3!

Big thanks to Jennifer for a job well done! BTW, that's HER transition dress from Precious! Here she is with the fantastic crew from KQMQ....Annie Toledo, you so on it!

Again, apologies for having to play catch up--especially to Jason, who kept saying he could hardly wait for the First Fashion Friday blog. It's so late, and short! If you want to know more about our events as they happen, just follow me on Twitter.

Next: Our ukulele contest this Sunday!

Did you know that we offer free historical tours at Aloha Tower Marketplace? Since this area has so much historical significance in Hawaii's history, we offer free tours to groups of four or more (with at least two weeks' notice).

My cousin Kristi Atalig returned to the Marketplace recently, with a group of kids from Beijing on an exchange program. We did the tour in English, but they did have a translator on hand in case we used words that were too difficult. Art Visaya, one of our senior Ambassadors of Aloha, told them about the tower's history since being built in 1926. He walked them through Irwin Park, and showed them the remains of the Russian fort for which Fort Street is named. The history of Boat Days in Honolulu Harbor came to life as he showed them the murals in Piers 10 and 11, in which every person depicted played a significant role in the building or the area's colorful lore.

Afterward, we took the kids to the Pier 8 area, which is near the Falls of Clyde.  There, we have gumball machines filled with fish food. The water in the Harbor is so clear, you can see all the fish that come to feed! Sometimes, if you're lucky, you might see an octopus or even a shark.

Kristi and her group claimed that our feeding area is better than Hanauma Bay! Is it true you can no longer feed the fish there?  If so...well, come on down! I've tried feeding the fish on weekends, and it's quite therapeutic.

It's always best to do these tours on nice days, since you can go to the top of the tower (FREE, open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.) and get panoramic views of Downtown Honolulu and our harbor. The only drawback to that, of course, is that it gets hot, so Kristi came up with a good solution.

A couple days later, the Pacific Century Fellows came by to do a historical tour, as well. This time, Alex customized the tour since these were all local working professionals. That's the neat thing about these tours--we've had preschool kids all the way up to senior citizens on vacation, and we try to make it as interesting as possible for every group.

Best of all, it's FREE! What can you get for free nowadays, in this economy? If you're interested, shoot us an email at info@alohatower.com.  Hope to see you soon!

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Just a shout out to all my mainland relatives in town this weekend, especially Uncle Ron (who reads my blog religiously). My Uncle Eddie turns 100, so everyone is in town to celebrate with him. Oh, and Happy Birthday, Uncle Eddie!

My running buddy Val Ogi wanted to go to the Smashmouth concert at the Waterfront at the Tower venue on Saturday. Can you believe we had to go back and forth on whether to go, because I felt like such an old fart and wanted to go to sleep early? Here are some shots from Saturday night; if you were following me on Twitter, you already know how the night went.

OK now comes the best part:  Toward the end, Smashmouth's lead singer Steve Harwell said, "I'm gonna go out into the audience and meet the fans!" So as the band played, he ran out and shook hands with people at the bar and said hi to others, then came right by us! I think people were too scared to approach him during the song, like Val here, but I shoved her into the photo anyway.  Buya!

It was another long day for the crew at Aloha Tower Marketplace.  Jennifer and I went to KHNL News 8 to do a segment with Kristine Uyeno....and had to be there by 5 a.m! Good thing we got there a little early; Kristine needed some wardrobe tape and Crystal Pancipanci, ever the good stylist, had some with her.  (Flack tip to newbies: Make sure you know exactly where KHNL's news studio is and how to get there in the dark.)

Chris Hughes from KQMQ (a.k.a. 93.1 The Zone) showed up and was telling me all about his work out at the Hawaii Athletic Club earlier that day. He could barely raise his arms above shoulder height!

Then Christa, our sales guru from KQMQ, came by and asked Chris how his day was.  I couldn't pass up an opportunity to post this photo from Angela Elbern.

Many of you were yelling at me offline about getting some photos up.  I gotta be honest, I was working backstage so I didn't really get a chance to take many good photos!  A lot of you were following me on Twitter, though, so you know what went on, blow by blow as it happened.  Here are some highlights, courtesy of Christa Wittmier:

Overall, it was a nice event and we had a lot of really nice people! I even saw my classmates, Melba Balicanta and Junedale Nakachi (sorry ladies, I don't know your married names) who happened to come by to check it out and shop.  Big thanks to Cindy Chang of CMC Medi-Spa for bringing the aromatherapy samples--I needed that!

See you all at the next First Fashion Friday!

p.s. Big Mahalo to Jennifer Lieu (at right) who put the event together! Welcome to the wacky world of divas!

p.p.s. Are any of you on Twitter?  Follow me! I'm @Melissa808