Christmas at the Kamaka Ukulele Factory

I toured the Kamaka factory last December, and it was a terrific experience.  Kamaka is the forefather of the Hawaiian ukulele, and it was priceless to get a tour there.  I highly recommend it if you are ever in Honolulu.  As you can see, the Hawaii Visitors Bureau has marked Kamaka Ukulele as a historic Hawaiian site.

This is me, standing outside the shop, and posing like a dork.

While I was there, I saw that they had a lot of cute Christmas decorations up. I thought it would be fun to share a photo of how they decorated the Hawaiian Christmas palm trees...the ornaments are the koa wood circles from cutting out the soundholes in the ukulele. I can't think of a better, more Hawaiian way to decorate a Christmas tree...with koa. 

A Jake Shimabukuro special edition ukulele close up, in progress...

This is Fred Kamaka, our tour guide, with his dad's creation, Kamaka Pineapple #1.

Fred Kamaka shows us Kamaka ukulele necks in progress.

Pretty koa Kamakas all ready for their new owners...

A Kamaka pineapple ukulele gets its serial number.

My Kamaka tenor, Pele, poses with me, my Mom and Fred Kamaka at the end of our tour.