Your Guide to the Perfect Weekend: Oct. 12–17, 2017

A lineup of the weekend’s best events.

By Marisa Heung

While you can’t enjoy the color-changing leaves typical of autumns elsewhere, you can still celebrate the fall harvest every weekend this month at a Kapolei farm that offers pick-your-own fresh produce. Plus: Dress your pup in costume for a Halloween event in Mānoa especially for dogs, experience a live performance of one of the most famous operas (with songs you’ve likely heard) live and fall in love with fresh tofu at an exclusive multicourse dinner.

PHOTO: courtesy of Aloun Farms

Aloun Farms 17th Annual Pumpkin Festival

Weekends, now through Oct. 29, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

If you want to experience a bit of autumn, ditch your townie routine and head to Kapolei. Aloun Farms’ annual pumpkin festival, running every weekend in October, will get you hyped for the season with hayrides and pony rides, games and pumpkins—in every shape and size—that you can buy and take home with you. Want to play farmer for the day? Hitch a hayride through the farm and stop along the way to pick your own produce straight from the stalk. For a few dollars and a little under-the-sun elbow grease, you can bring home ultra-fresh sweet corn or a bag of green beans for your next meal. If the idea of getting down and dirty with plants doesn’t do it for you, there’ll also be a farmers market offering Aloun Farms’ other locally grown produce, as well as ready-to-eat items for on-site snacking. Bring two garbage bags worth of gently used clothing and score free entry—your donation will benefit Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Hawai‘i, United Cerebral Palsy of Hawai‘i and National Kidney Foundation of Hawai‘i.

$3, free for ages 2 and younger. Aloun Farms, 91-1440 Farrington Highway, Kapolei. For more information on this event, go here.

Howl-o-ween Woof-tacular & Doggie Escape Room

Sunday, Oct. 15, 3 to 7 p.m.

Hawai‘i Doggie Bakery teams up again with Keri Nakahashi Photography for another free pup-centric Halloween fundraiser. The bakery and participating vendors will be offering treats and products for dogs and their humans, as well as free games that you and your pet can compete in: a trick competition, a doggie limbo, costume contests and more. Plus, this year you can take part in Hawai‘i Doggie Bakery’s first-ever doggie escape room, a fundraiser for Assistance Dogs of Hawai‘i, which you can sign up for here, with a donation. Here’s the escape room backstory: You come home to find that your beloved Fido has gotten into the Halloween candy. He needs to get to the vet, STAT, but—uh-oh!—you’ve lost your car keys and locked yourself inside the house. (Check out Hawai‘i Doggie Bakery’s hilarious trailer here.) The fastest human-dog team to solve all the clues and find the missing keys wins a prize!

Free for the Howl-o-ween Woof-tacular, suggested $25 donation per family for the doggie escape room. Hawai‘i Doggie Bakery, 2961C East Mānoa Road. For more information on the Howl-o-ween Woof-tacular, go here. For more information and to register for the doggie escape room, go here.

PHOTO: courtesy of Hawai‘i opera theatre

Carmen

Friday, Oct. 13, Sunday, Oct. 15 and Tuesday, Oct. 17

Even if you haven’t seen Georges Bizet’s Carmen, you’ve more than likely heard its songs, which have been featured in everything from commercials to Saturday cartoons to the big screen. Easily one of the most popular operas ever written, Carmen’s eponymous lead character—a Spanish gypsy temptress—seduces Don José, a young soldier who leaves his life to be with her, only to find her falling for another. Starring Kate Aldrich, who has been called “the Carmen of her generation,” and with an orchestra led by one of New York Metropolitan Opera’s resident conductors, maestro Derrick Inouye, Carmen is a piece of performance-art history worth experiencing at least once.

Note: Carmen will be performed in French with English supertitles.

$34–$135, Neal S. Blaisdell Concert Hall, 777 Ward Ave. For more information and to purchase tickets, go here.

Tofu Day Dinner

Thursday, Oct. 12, 6 to 10 p.m.

Tofurky, meatless meatballs, chicken-free chicken? Tofu, don’t listen to the others telling you to be something else. We think you’re perfect just as you are. Gazen Izakaya in Kapahulu agrees, and celebrates the soy ingredient this Thursday evening with a special prix fixe dinner that will convert even the pickiest of meateaters. Known for its fresh made-in-house tofu, Gazen’s dinner will feature artisan tofu paired with uni, pork belly and more. The final course features a rare treat: fresh silken yuba prepared by Aloha Tofu’s Paul Uyehara, who has made the dish only twice before. Bring your own wine (corkage fee is $15) or enjoy the restaurant’s full bar.

$50, Gazen Izakaya, 2840 Kapiʻolani Blvd. For more information and to purchase tickets, go here.

Looking for more things to do? Check out our events calendar.