Happy Valentine's Day! Traveling around and meeting many of our alum, we learned that there are many alumni couples that met each other here at the Center. We asked our Alumni ʻOhana to submit their love stories. This love story was submitted by Andrew De Castro and Sayaka De Castro (Asia Pacific Leadership Program, 2008).

It’s the first day of EWC orientation. The sun was already out, painting the walls of Burns Hall yellow. The sunlight caught my eye as it reflected on a smiling petite Asian student talking to a group of people. It was as if time stopped for a few seconds. I couldn’t breathe and perhaps passed out because the next thing I knew, the tour was already heading down Dole St. and she was nowhere in sight. A figment of my jetlagged mind, I thought. 

It was at the Hawaiian Studies Center, while Alapaki Luke was showing the new students how to harvest kalo where we finally met. “I’m Sayaka from Japan”, she introduced herself. I looked at her ID.  It said “APLP”, the same program I was in. I thanked the heavens! During a break, she invited me to sit beside her (she remembers differently), and we kept talking until it was my turn to have my School ID photo taken. If you look at my UH ID, you will see that I had a very big smile that captures the moment quite well.

My dorm was at the 6^th floor of Hale Mānoa and hers was on the same floor’s all-female section. Undeterred, I pretended I was lost as an excuse to be there. After getting “lost” a dozen times, she eventually got the hint and invited me to join her for dinner. She prepared what would be the first of many meals we would have together, a broccoli dish which I ate voraciously. Actually, I didn’t  really eat vegetables then, especially not broccoli but it was the best meal I ever had.

On the eve of the total lunar eclipse, our cohort decided to climb Kalaepōhaku Ridge beside Hale Mānoa in order to get a better view of the blood moon. As we looked up at the Hawaiian sky, somehow our hands met and without words, we decided to be a couple. 

Unsure how our professors would think of a relationship between classmates, we kept it a secret. After class, we would surreptitiously meet in the Japanese Garden at the Imin Center where we would talk until sunrise. Little did we know that our friends from the Hale Kuahine dorm had a prefect view and soon it was not a secret anymore!

Before we knew it, it was December, and our program was ending. Sayaka had already booked her flight back to Japan. Under the guise of one last hurrah before saying goodbye, I invited her to Maui. We stayed in a nice cottage in Kula, but I woke her up in the middle of the night to take her to the summit of Haleakalā to catch the Christmas Day sunrise. There, on first light I proposed to her in my broken Japanese. She said “Hai!”, I said “Hello!”. 

After figuring out what she meant, we got married a year later (in Japan and in the Philippines!) surrounded by our friends from Hawaii.

Andrew and Sayaka now have three children. Their first child was named Nainoa after Nainoa Thompson, who was a speaker during their time in APLP and inspiration for the APLP Nainoa Thompson Scholarship Fund.

Happy Valentine's Day! Traveling around and meeting many of our alum, we learned that there are many alumni couples that met each other here at the Center. We asked our Alumni ʻOhana to submit their love stories. This love story was submitted by Andrew De Castro and Sayaka De Castro (Asia Pacific Leadership Program, 2008).

It’s the first day of EWC orientation. The sun was already out, painting the walls of Burns Hall yellow. The sunlight caught my eye as it reflected on a smiling petite Asian student talking to a group of people. It was as if time stopped for a few seconds. I couldn’t breathe and perhaps passed out because the next thing I knew, the tour was already heading down Dole St. and she was nowhere in sight. A figment of my jetlagged mind, I thought. 

It was at the Hawaiian Studies Center, while Alapaki Luke was showing the new students how to harvest kalo where we finally met. “I’m Sayaka from Japan”, she introduced herself. I looked at her ID.  It said “APLP”, the same program I was in. I thanked the heavens! During a break, she invited me to sit beside her (she remembers differently), and we kept talking until it was my turn to have my School ID photo taken. If you look at my UH ID, you will see that I had a very big smile that captures the moment quite well.

My dorm was at the 6^th floor of Hale Mānoa and hers was on the same floor’s all-female section. Undeterred, I pretended I was lost as an excuse to be there. After getting “lost” a dozen times, she eventually got the hint and invited me to join her for dinner. She prepared what would be the first of many meals we would have together, a broccoli dish which I ate voraciously. Actually, I didn’t  really eat vegetables then, especially not broccoli but it was the best meal I ever had.

On the eve of the total lunar eclipse, our cohort decided to climb Kalaepōhaku Ridge beside Hale Mānoa in order to get a better view of the blood moon. As we looked up at the Hawaiian sky, somehow our hands met and without words, we decided to be a couple. 

Unsure how our professors would think of a relationship between classmates, we kept it a secret. After class, we would surreptitiously meet in the Japanese Garden at the Imin Center where we would talk until sunrise. Little did we know that our friends from the Hale Kuahine dorm had a prefect view and soon it was not a secret anymore!

Before we knew it, it was December, and our program was ending. Sayaka had already booked her flight back to Japan. Under the guise of one last hurrah before saying goodbye, I invited her to Maui. We stayed in a nice cottage in Kula, but I woke her up in the middle of the night to take her to the summit of Haleakalā to catch the Christmas Day sunrise. There, on first light I proposed to her in my broken Japanese. She said “Hai!”, I said “Hello!”. 

After figuring out what she meant, we got married a year later (in Japan and in the Philippines!) surrounded by our friends from Hawaii.

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Andrew and Sayaka now have three children. Their first child was named Nainoa after Nainoa Thompson, who was a speaker during their time in APLP and inspiration for the APLP Nainoa Thompson Scholarship Fund.