Crouching Lion

I always had a hard time envisioning the lion (Peebles/SFGate)

My father liked to load the kids in the family car and "drive around the island" on weekends. We would head to the North Shore and return via the single-lane highway on the Windward (eastern) side.

The 2-3 hour trip seemed interminable to this Island kid, and the Crouching Lion rock formation signalled that we were 30 minutes from Kaneohe, which was 30 minutes from central Honolulu.

60 years later I no longer rush through the route, choosing to stop and savor the moment:

Because we don't know when we will die,
we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well.
Yet everything happens only
a certain number of times,
and a very small number really.
How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood,
some afternoon that's so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive
of your life without it.
Perhaps four or five times more, perhaps not even that.
How many more times will you watch the full moon rise?
Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless.
--Paul Bowles, The Sheltering Sky

(Krause/SFGate photo)

Now there's another reason to go to the Windward side. The Crouching Lion Restaurant has re-opened.

Perched above the ocean, the restaurant remains one of the few dining establishments available in the windward neighborhood. It has changed hands throughout the years because of financial challenges. Eventually, it closed down. It was a daunting prospect for potential investors because of its remote location. It also required a significant amount of investment to restore.

But it was a challenge that new owner Eddie Kim was willing to take on, and he purchased the property in 2022 for $3.7 million. “I wanted to try something new,” he says. “After years of being an educator, it was time for a new adventure.” The restaurant officially reopened this past May. While Kim is new to the restaurant business, his goals are simple: “I wanted to create a restaurant where I would want to eat at and bring family and friends.”

For decades I've noticed the cars parked outside but never stopped. It's time I did.