More than 1,200 mourners filed into Nu'uanu Memorial Park & Mortuary tonight to pay their respects to Asa Yamashita, the popular Wai'anae High School teacher who was stabbed to death Feb. 27 in an apparently unprovoked attack at an 'Ewa shopping center.

Two-and-a-half hours before the service began, hundreds of people stretched outside the Nu'uanu Avenue chapel.

"It's a testament to the kind of person Asa was ... just a warm, loving person," said Kat Muranaka, who works in the Wai'anae High School office and is one of Yamashita's best friends. "She made friends with everyone. What makes Asa so special ... is her sense of humor and love for life and compassion and dedication for what she did."

Music played and images of Yamashita's life flashed on large screens inside and outside the chapel. A room was set up for overflow mourners with video feeds.

Yamashita's official title was "reading strategies coach" at Wai'anae High but students knew her as "The Book Lady" who inspired them to read for the sheer pleasure of it.

Even though she stood only 4 feet 9 and wore girl-size shoes and clothing, Yamashita loved beer and could drink grown men under the table, according to her closest friends at Wai'anae High.

She leaves behind her husband of 16 years, Bryan, a social studies teacher at Nanakuli High School, and the two girls they adopted from China, Katie, 7, and Tori, who turned 5 on Monday.

On March 3, four days after the killing, an estimated 1,000 people crowded in and around the Wai'anae High cafeteria for a candlelight vigil for Yamashita.