We see and hear every night a lot of fireworks ever since Thanksgiving and the closer we get at the end of the year, the more it basically is. Officially this isn’t allowed, of course, and is it only allowed to light the fireworks between 9pm and 1am on New Years Eve (there are more days on which it is allowed, though, such as Independence Day and during Chinese New Year). Whenever men lights fireworks outside of these hours, they have the risk to receive a fine of 2,000 and 20,000 dollar or even receive jail time.

The fireworks that we hear and so see much are mostly rockets and other aerials. Unfortunately it is not legal to have this fireworks and is it not allowed to be lighted by the normal consumers.. there are more rules that are different than in the Netherlands by the way and while I can understand some of them, I do not feel all of these rules as some are just contradictionary…

As said, it is illegal to light aerials. They made it illegal because of the densely populated areas and of the fires that may come because of these fireworks. I can imagine this rule being enforces, everything can be really dry and if it is not the buildings, then it is at least the nature that can be destroyed. I really do not like this rule but I do understand where they come from.

Something else which I find quite strange is that you need a permit for certain fireworks. I can imagine the concept of a permit or license to light fireworks but the way they enforce it here, it is just to get money from the residents.

You need, for example, a permit for every 5000 firecrackers, also for some other fireworks by the way but this is an easier example. A small box of firecrackers already exists of that amount and the costs of these are about 5 to 10 bucks, depending where you buy it. I assume this price is about the same in the Netherlands. However, you need 1 permit for this which costs an additional 25 dollar.. that makes the whole thing a lot more expensive all the sudden! And what to think about a bit more fair amount such as abox of 20,000 firecrackers? You will need four permits.. that is 100 dollars. Last year I had a string of 50,000 firecrackers.. you can calculate what it would ave cost me in permits alone if I was to buy that here.

What do you say? A maximum number of permits? No.. there isn’t any, everyone can buy as much permits as he or she likes as long as the buyers are 18 years or older. I recently read that someone had 64 permits for fireworks.. ummm.. 64 times 25 dollar is still 1,600 dollar.. ka-ching!

And speaking of the cash register, they sure know how to fill the one of the state, last year they sold about 290,000 dollar in permits alone. What they used the money for? I have no clue.

By the way, these permits really make illegality happen. I received a pricelist, through people who Michelle knows, of ‘illegal’ fireworks. That means, fireworks which can be sold through the stores but without a permit. 3 strings with 20,000 firecrackers would cost 165 dollar… hmm that is 55 dollar per 20,000 firecrackers and 13.75 dollar per 5,000 firecrackers.. if you would do it legal, it would be 25 dollar per 5,000 firecrackers and 300 dollar in permits alone for the whole amount. No wonder people are finding their stuff elsewhere.

Michelle and I only bought fireworks which doesn’t need any permits and we bought in the stores, by the way. We bought some paperless crackers (I doubt it’ll be any good but they are legal) and some fountains. I really believe you need fireworks when it is New Year but I think it will be better not to spend hundreds of dollars for a minimum of fun, no thanks.

One last remark, by the way.. in the Netherlands we are used to name the fireworks on a list, you give it to a store associate who then will retrieve the fireworks for you from a concrete bunker or something similar. Here, in Hawaii, it is completely different. Lots of fireworks, and I mean really a lot of pounds, of fireworks are just in the middle of the stores. You just go there with your cart and put whatever you want inside your cart… it is, of course, much easier, but is it also safer? I don’t think they ever experienced what we have experienced in Enschede (Google on ‘Enschede Firework Disaster‘). I think it is quite unbelievable that they have such hard rules while, at the same time, they have such insecure storage locations for the fireworks (but oh well, I know some more examples of those things haha).

Anyways, if you are to be lighting fireworks this year, do it safely.. We wish you a happy New Year!

We were lucky yesterday, we received a package from my mother, just before Christmas, which contained some yummy Dutch things and a few gifts for us. At first I didn’t expect to be able to put some presents under the tree (we have no tree but that’s ok) but it turned out to be quite different.

Michelle received some nice perfumes and I received a book named ‘Het Mozes Mysterie’ (translated as: ‘The Moses Mystery’), which is written by my uncle/godfather. I really liked that! I started to read today also as I was very curious about ‘the Moses Mystery’, it only just got out..

It is a bit special when I am reading a book as I usually tell people that I am more someone who will watch the movie of the book, I like things to be visual and such.. so, yeah, I haven’t read that many books but today, even with the short time on my hand (as it was Christmas), I still started in it and read up to 4 chapters right away, I am quite proud of myself for doing that haha. It really has to be something special for me when I open a book and start to read and that is a book like ‘The Moses Mystery’ of course.

I already heard some small things about the book through my mother, who speaks to him frequently, but also directly from my uncle himself during the times that I spoke with him. I knew that this book might be able to bring quite some stir in this world, just like the daVinci Code did at the time it came out. There are some things that are taken directly out of the Bible that might create a stir. The beauty of this book is also that ‘The Moses Mystery’ takes place within scenes as described by open sources such as the Bible and various other sources. Many cases might have actually taken place. By the way, I do not wish to give the impression that this book is a scientific work, ‘The Moses Mystery’ is and remains a novel.

If I am right, then this book will also be translated to an English version, I think it will, and I am unsure if the name will still be the same of the book (I know there is another book also which is called ‘The Moses Mysterie’) but still, here is a summary of the book (it’s written in Dutch on the back of the book, my apologies if I made some mistakes in the translation):

The Moses Mystery
Did the exodus from Egypt actually occur?

When the British journalist Richard Winter leaves for Egypt for a series of articles about the Egyptian energy policies, he encounters a collection of ancient clay tablets in the desert.Curious as he is, he takes them with him. When he asks the beautiful student Jennifer O’Hara if she knows someone who can help him to decipher the texts, she brings him to the briljant Howard van Cleef. Pretty soon he discovers that these tablets contain some explosive material which might bring dramatic changes to the politic situation in the Middle-East.
A race to the truth, in which lives do not seem to count, starts.

I am, like said, working on the book and only read four chapters so far but I am very curious in how the story will evolve from where I am, I think it is a very interesting book and want to advice everyone to buy (that is, if you can read Dutch.. if not, then you unfortunately have to wait for a translation of the book) and read ‘The Moses Mystery’ (and yes, I am making a bit of advertisement for my uncle right now but does that really matters? It is, as far as I can see, a very interesting book which contains all the excitement that one needs). Who knows it gets his own film one day, just like the daVinci Code (which would be really great if you ask me).

I am curious what this book will bring forth. If you read ‘The Moses Mystery’ (the Dutch one from Harry Tenholter, of course, not the English one that’s not his lol), let me know what you think of it, I think it would be nice hear some thoughts about it.. If you haven’t got it, you can buy it at several online bookstores in the Netherlands

I already said it in my previous message, that I would post some more pictures of some decorated houses but from a different part of the island, and here they are:

These are, again, not all pictures but, yeah, it might really become too much and it has to stay fun to watch it all

We also drove through town again to record some of the decorations with our new video camera, I still have to compile, edit, cut, paste and such so we haven’t got those video’s online yet but Michelle took some pictures, here are a few of them:

I hope that the pictures will not become too boring as I will have at least two more series of pictures for you, one of a normal parade and one of a boat parade.. I won’t post these now so don’t worry, they will come next time

Or like they say in Hawaiian: Mele Kalikimaka me ka Hau’oli Makahiki Hou!

It is almost Christmas Eve and tomorrow it will be Christmas. It feels a bit weird to have Christmas on Hawaii. We went out a lot during the last few days (that’s one of the reasons why I did not write so much lately) and even though I see Christmas lights and other decorations, hear Christmas music and know that it is Christmas, it still doesn’t give me the feeling that it is actually Christmas.

I think that I am not really used to it yet that it is almost always summer here (with the exception of the stormy weather like I told about earlier). Everyone still wears short sleeves, it is a bit cooler (still around 77-81 degrees Fahrenheit) than in the summer but yah, it doesn’t give a real Christmas feeling haha.

I do like to drive around at night, there are so many houses lighted and there are a couple who make it a whole spectacle, really enjoyable to watch that all. We also saw a few parades, I will write about them a bit later (we are about to have our Christmas dinner (barbeque!! hahaha, I love it but again it is something that you can only do in a nice tropical temperature). Here are, however, a few pictures of some very nice houses that we’ve seen here:

This is from two times that we went out, and I’ve only put the nicest, funniest, most lighted ones online. We made so many photo’s and I do not want to place them all online as it would cost a lot of time and it would be boring for you too if you want to see them all.

Also, you can see the same building on more than one picture, like the 3rd, 4th and 5th picture.. but what to think about photo 7 on to 11? That is just one place… quite big, I know.. we made a short video of that place so you can see it with your own eyes: Click here for the video.

We also went to another part of the island on a different day where they also had a lot of nice decorations and lights but this will be posted later (it is almost time for dinner!! haha).

I was also thinking about going to the other part of the island butttt… I think I won’t. The president-elect Barack Obama is on the island right now and he is one of the villages on that side and, well, I am not looking forward in an extended check or to end up in a street that might be blocked.. so we wait with that until he is gone again (should be in about a week I think, he would only stay for about 10 days).

Right, first food, later more

I said yesterday that we saw snow in town and I promised to write a bit more about it, so here goes.

Yesterday we went towards Ala Moana Center (a big mall) in the afternoon to get some food and to do some shopping (I got myself a new Aloha shirt and pants, unfortunately we didn’t find anything for Michelle). And a bit after 5 PM we went to the center of Ala Moana Center (lol) where, at 6 PM, would start a musical called ‘The Christmas Gift of Aloha’.

I was unsure what to expect of it, at first I didn’t even know it was a musical haha, but oh well, it didn’t matter, I enjoyed it a lot, it was really nicely done. The duration of the show was about 30 minutes.

The story is about a newly trained Christmas elf named ‘Merry’, who fell out of Santa’s sleigh above Hawaii and fell right into a ‘Menehune’ village (Menehune are the mythological Hawaiian elves). He was dismayed since he did not find any snow, reindeers or something else which reminded him even a bit about Christmas.

But with the help of Mele Menehune he founds out that Christmas really lives on Hawaii and he discovers the miracles of a Christmas on Hawaii.

He is introduced with the workshop of the Menehune, who have a workshop just like Santa has one on the North Pole. This means good luck for him because he lost all the presents for the kids when he fell out of the sleigh and the Menehune tell him that he can use the Menehune presents so that all kids get a present after all. Merry also learns that the presents are in the Candy Cane Train and as soon as he sees this train, he wants to drive it.. he is told to be careful but unfortunately, he didn’t listen and the train crashes and demolishes all presents.

The Menehune children give him their own toys and this is one of the reason how he learns that Christmas is so much more than just receiving toys.

Santa also arrives on Hawaii a bit later and then a few miracles happen.. Toys come to life and it even starts to snow on Hawaii.

Now you might think ‘yeah but that aint real snow’.. well, I don’t know.. I noticed that it was a lot cooler when the snow fell down…

When the snow fell, I had to pink a tear away.. The spirit of Aloha was probably there for real and there were probably some real wonders. Or was it because I missed the Netherlands for a bit? Who knows, it might have been both.

Here are some more pictures of the ending:

We went for a drive through town after this show, so we could take some pictures of lighted houses, I will make a post about that on a later time.

Also, if you are interested in what kind of music they played in this show, please click here.

We had some ‘nice’ weather the last few days.. paradise didn’t look like paradise any more.. They are even speaking about the possibility that there was a tornado on one of the islands of Hawaii (on Kauai, north west of ‘our’ island Oahu).

I haven’t really got the impression that there was a tornado pounding.. it was a bit the weather like we sometimes see in the Netherlands, long lasting rain.. difference is, I think, that the islands here are not made for rain like that… there are many mountains/hills and valleys, the land is really dry and the water cannot go anywhere.. and, well, that might cause some problems, especially if the land isn’t used to rain like this.

By the way, there is hardly any damage in the area where we live, I was viewing the images of the mudstreams, falling rocks and that kind of stormy weather things with my mouth open. Also, there are aproximately 190 homes damaged according to the Red Cross. I really did not expect that it would be this bad.

Anyways, we are safe and have these things, such as a possible tornado, only seen through the news, we didn’t felt much to visit the hitted areas and look at other’s misery and so we do not have our own pictures for you. I can, however, give you some links to some picture galleries so you can get an impression of how bad it was in some areas:

- Rains, winds batter Oahu
- Waipio Acres muddy streets
- Rains bring problems
- Haleiwa drenched
- Flood waters in Waialua
- Storm aftermath
- Rains cover Farrington Highway

All the links above will bring you to their respective picture galleries of the Honolulu Advertiser, one of the local newspapers here.

We still have some showers sometimes, it isn’t the rainseason for nothing, but it is nothing compared to what we have seen the last few days… oh by the way, we saw snow today in Honolulu.. I will tell more about it tomorrow, it is around midnight and I have to get up on time tomorrow so I do not want to make it too late

I had a complete medical check for my visa earlier this year but I recently found out that they did not do the complete tuberculosis test. The X-ray pictures they took used to be ok but apparently they now want people to have been checked through the TB skin test (Mantoux-test).

The TB (Mantoux) skin test is nothing serious, they inject you with a little bit of tuberculine (a purified protein which comes from the germ itself) and this stuff works as antigen (allergen) and should give a reaction when antibodies are in the patient’s skin and/or blood. When there is a reaction with a bump of 10 millimeter or larger, then there is a TB infection.. if it is smaller than 5 millimeter then the test is found negative and you are not infected with TB germs.

I went to a clinic last Friday where they tested me on TB as it is important for my visa. They injected some fluids into my skin and the result was read back today: 0 mm, or in other words: no TB infection (would be weird if I had since there is hardly TB in the Netherlands).

Michelle’s mother also liked me to take this test, not so much because she worries about her own or her daughter’s health but mainly because she runs a carehome downstairs and it is mandatory for all residents and household members to be tested once a year (and in the end that is just a good case).

Also, if the TB (Mantoux) skin test is found to be positive (meaning TB infection), then you still don’t have to worry much as TB can be cured (you’ll have to take medication for 9 months long to get rid of every last germ) and an infection is still not the disease. The disease is a step further.. someone can have a TB infection for his whole life but does not have to get sick and that person will not infect anybody else (unless they get sick, which happens to 1 out of 10 people).

TB is something that you can find at about 1 on every 3 people in the world, about 2 billion people are infected with the TB germs, so that’s quite often. I didn’t expect it to be this much and I kind of read the statistics with my mouth open.

So I am TB negative.. it is something that I didn’t expect to be any kind different but oh well, I think it is nice to know that I am healthy

The Honolulu City Lights takes place from December 6, 2008 until January 1st, 2009, and this basically means that the area in the city centre (in the area of Honolulu Hale, the city hall) will be lighted with all kinds of Christmas lights. You can also find a variety of status and images and yesterday there was also a parade.

We went yesterday and took a few pictures, let’s start at the beginning. I will try not to give too much comments, there are lot’s of pictures and the description can also be found when you hover your mouse over the images (and it is also written below the pictures when you click on them).

Ok, the first pictures we took while it was still daylight:

We kind of expected that it would be busy for the parade, and it actually became really busy (apologies for the vague picture, I moved a little bit when I took it):

It became a bit more dark now and after some songs by the mayor (yep, he sang two Christmas songs and it was quite ok also) and some words of welcome, the lights of the Christmas tree went on in front of the city hall:

And Honolulu City Lights started with that.. You will be able to find something to do almost every day around city hall until Christmas, there will be, for example, a toy collection with the help of an actual batalion of stormtroopers (we’ll also go that hehe) and yesterday there was also a parade during the opening.

The picturs that follow next are a bit vague sometimes, this is mainly because these are all pictures of moving things and they were all taken by night and as soon as there is movement during night, you will find that back on the photo’s unfortunately. We also skip some photo’s as it will be too much to put everything online (the total parade took about an hour so you know what it can be haha):

I also made a video of the parade (and that’s something I kind of regret, I have a sore arm and got muscle pain all over my body haha) but I have to edit that video first because it is, like said, over an hour of material and that kind of is a bit too much to put online just raw. So that one will follow later.

So after the parade we could either just go straight home, get some food first and watch a bit of the concert, or go inside city hall where the city workers made all kinds of things. We chose to do the opposite (hahaha) and went into city hall first where we found many things such as rare wreaths, gingerbread houses and all kinds of other things (again: I won’t post all the images as it will be too much):

And then we came outside where we took some more photo’s of the lights and after some food we went back towards home. Here are the last pictures:

And that was all for now I hope it was not too much photo’s or that you got a bit bored by it.. We will post more photo’s later on as we are also planning to drive around and look at all the decorated houses.

I recently wrote in a message that I was eating a ‘bitterbal’ (Dutch for bitterball, some kind of fried meatballs) and, you might think, is that something typical Dutch? And then I have to admit that this is indeed the case and, no, they do not sell them here, I had to make them myself.

We cannot import any meat here, mostly because of things like the mad cows disease and that kind of diseases so in order to eat some typical Dutch things, I sometimes need to help myself and make it myself.

So, like said, I was eating that bitterbal while I was writing a new blogpost. I made these together with a couple of ‘kroketten’ (another Dutch snack). Unfortunately they did not taste as good as they taste in the Netherlands but, never the less, it still was very nice and Michelle and her mom agreed on that. I also made some pictures of these bitterballs and kroketten:

The first picture is of the krokettten, ready to get fried. The second one is of the bitterballs and on the last picture you can see the fried kroketten (in a bit vague photo but oh well, you can get an impression ).

Something else that I made some time ago was ’stijve rijst met suiker’ (stiff rice with sugar). This wasn’t so easy as in the Netherlands as we can buy ‘broken rice’ over there and over here we mostly only get the standard sticky rice (but in different flavors lol) but oh well, if you let the rice cook long enough, you will be able to break the rice and then you will be able to make stiff rice with sugar, which we did a while ago. Michelle and her mom also liked this food.. it is a bit too bad that Michelle is lactose intolerant, which basically means that she has a hard time with certain milk products and, unfortunately for her, the stiff rice with sugar contains a lot of milk. So, yep, she had to go to the bathroom a few times.

And what to think about ‘tompoezen’ (I am unsure if there is a translation for it, it is a sweet Dutch pastry with pudding and a glaced topping)? I have made these a while ago also haha. Ok I did not completely make them myself, my mom sent me some things which I could use to make the tompoezen but still, they were delicious and, indeed, Michelle and her mom also liked these a lot.

I hope to make ‘oliebollen’ soon for new years eve (oliebollen are another Dutch pastry, the main part is like what you find in doughnuts but sometimes there are raisins added to it (and, lol, doughnuts are actually brought to the US by Dutch settlers and made into that from oliebollen). I am curious what they will find of those

As you can see, I haven’t been in the Netherlands for a bit now but I can’t really say goodbye to the Dutch food.. I expect to make much more Dutch dishes later on also.. whenever I made a few more, I’ll probably blog about it

Like I said in my previous message, Stain received a hip surgery last monday because, like I also said before, her hip was dislocated because of an accident.

We picked her up yesterday and at first we just wanted that her hip would be placed back as that would be the cheapest. There would be a 50% chance that her hip would get out of the socket again after that but a full operation would have cost a minimum of 1500-2000 dollars and at some vets it would have cost an amount of 2500-3000 dollar.. That is not exactly cheap, and especially not for a cat if you ask me. To place her hip back in the socket they asked 300 dollar (at a different doctor by the way, not those expensive ones).

But ok, they wanted to put the hip back the day before yesterday (under anesthesia of course) but at the moment they put it back in, it turned out that our fears would become reality as the hip would fall right out of the socket again. The doctor then advised us to remove the joint from the hip as this could be done for a fair price. After a month, maybe two months, a ‘false joint’ should be created and then she will be able to walk without any problems. And even now she should be rid of pain as the joint isn’t going against the rest of her skeleton anymore. The costs for this surgery would be 500 dollar and he told us that it would normally be 700 bucks but that he took some money from that amout for us.

So we picked her up yesterday and she doesn’t look so well.. it isn’t much fun to see but oh well, it is for the best at the moment. She has been shaven on her belly because of that surgery a couple of weeks ago (the neutering), and now her right hip is also bald. And on top of that all, she is now wearing something that makes her look like a lamp but that’s done so she cannot pull her stitches out:

The rest of the wounds that you can see in the second picture are also wounds that she got during that accident.

I am saying accident the whole time but apparently it isn’t really an accident. One doctor says that it has been but this doctor thinks it might have been a middelsized to big dog with whom she might have had a fight and who possibly held her leg in his mouth while she tried to get away, hence the dislocated hip. He thinks this because a car accident should have killed her, which often happens.

I think this doctor might be right as our neighbors have a middle sized to big sized dog and that dog lives outside. And it could also be that if she had a car accident that she would have been killed as you can often see some dead cats on the road because they got hit by a car.

Right, we don’t know what it was but I hope she will heal well and that she can walk around in a couple of months again without problem.

The stitches have to be taken out in two weeks and she is allowed to walk around at the moment (which she also does, fortunately. She is doing much better than before although she doesn’t walk long on it, but yah, that shouldn’t be done either as she might overload it. I think we did a good thing by doing this).

All we have to do now is to wait and see how she will be doing in the upcoming days