Like I wrote yesterday, I would post a new message with some pictures of a botanical garden and such… so here it is

The Saturday after my birthday, Michelle and I went to the Aloha Swap Meet, some sort of flea market near the Aloha Stadium. This is a market, which is held every weekend around the whole football stadium, with some pretty good deals. Think, for example about 8 t-shirts for only $20. Here are a few pictures of that market:

It wasn’t that busy anymore when we were there, mostly because it was already 1 PM when we arrived, and most people go earlier. Well, I can’t blame them, the want to have get it over with before the hottest part of the day, plus there’s a lot of booths that close at around 2 PM.

Here’s a picture of the stadium:

After we walked around the stadium, and felt pretty warm, we went towards the Dole Plantation, where they, besides pineapples, also have a botanical garden, and the world’s biggest maze.

It took us about 30 minutes to get through the maze (you need to find a few locations in the maze), not really too slow (you receive a small map, mostly because of the size, so you can make some speed), but the record is currently 8 minutes (this has to be someone who knew the way out of his head and ran quite fast haha). It took us a bit longer in 2007, mostly because we didn’t use the map the whole time back then haha. The total size of the maze is 3.15 acres (about 12,7 km2) and the total path length is 2.46 mile (almost 4 kilometers). Here are some photo’s, taken in the maze:

Like I also commented in the last of the above pictures (just click on them, so you can see it, haha) is that there is an open spot in the middle of the maze, which looks like a pineapple from the sky (you can also look here, to view this from the sky).

They have some signs outside the maze, and that’s especially fun to see because Hawaii has the most remote islands in the world. The Netherlands was not named, but when we have to take London, Munich and Paris into consideration, then it should be about 7,500 miles (about 12,000 kilometers).. quite some distance…

But ok, we also went to the Plantation Garden, like said, where you can find a lot of native plants, which also grow out in the open (some even grow in our garden haha), but now all of them together, so that’s makes it easier to find them Here’s some photo’s:

You can also find some creatures there, just look at the following photo’s (and look especially close to the last two, as it might be a bit hard to find because of the colors):

Fun, isn’t it? I know my mom would say something like ‘ew’ haha, oh well, not everyone is fond of them, but they’re harmless and look quite cute on these pictures.

And here another three, last, pictures of the Dole Plantation. The first is of the many pineapples they have, the second one is the view when you drive away from the Plantation, and the third is the main building of the Dole Plantation, which has a store and a foodcourt inside, where you can eat almost everything with pineapple:

We went further towards the North Shore after we left, so we could eat some Garlic Shrimp again at Giovanni’s Shrimp Shack. I tried, while Michelle was driving, to make some more photo’s, but it didn’t exactly work out to do it from a travelling car, at too little light. Two of them are nice to show, though:

It is the 4th of July this Saturday, or Independence Day, and it kind of depends what we will do, but if there’s fireworks, then I might try to take some photos, it’s supposed to be really beautiful.

And when you liked these photo’s, I might have some more nice photo’s for you soon as I want to go to Waimea Bay Park, where they have a waterfall and quite some nature. It kind of depends when we will go haha, but we will go for sure, promised

Here’s a new message from us, it has been a while so I figured we could write something again

I think I will start with Michelle and the baby as everything goes very well with them, we finally figured out a name for the baby, also thanks to my daughter Larissa, who was asked to make the final decision between a couple of names. Michelle can feel the baby kick quite a lot of times lately, but of course you’ll see that I am out of luck when I want to feel it, as the baby instantly stops when I put my hand on her belly.. Oh well, I’d like to think she doesn’t wants to hurt her daddy

We went out during last friday and saturday, mostly because of my birthday. Yep, I start to become an old ba***rd haha. Nah, it’s not that bad haha. Next to all the presents that I received from the Netherlands, I received a new digital slr camera from Michelle, including 2 zoomlenses, filters and some more stuff. It’s really a nice camera, which had to be tested, of course

Well, I can tell you that I have to learn a lot as it is no longer point-and-shoot, no, I can adjust all settings myself now, such as the whitebalance, lighting, arpeture, etc. etc. Of course you can adjust some settings on a normal digital camera, but not many people do this, but it is much more fun to do it with this camera haha.

Anyways, we went to the southcoast last friday, where some people were surfing. We went here mostly so I could see if I could zoom in some more with this camera (surfing usually happens on quite some distance from the coast). And I have to say it works pretty nice, here some pictures:

The first picture has been made smaller, mostly because it was shot in a big size. The second picture is the same as the first, but cropped and on, almost, normal size .

Above pictures are just to show how far you can zoom with this thing, the surfer in the picture was quite far from the coast. Below some more pictures, shot on the same spot:

Some photos are sadly a bit darker than I wanted them to be (also because of the clouds during the day), but oh well, we only just have this camera, we still have a lot to learn

Before we went to Waikiki for a dinner, we went to town when it started to become evening. I shot some more pictures there, mostly because I wanted to make a panorama picture and wanted to shoot some photos during the sunset. Here are a few of those pictures:

I know these are almost the same photos, but I wanted to show that the sky of Hawaï knows many colors, especially during sunset. There is only a few minutes during the above photos.Here are a few more photos:

And then we were sent away by the security.. we were there quite some time and they thought it was pretty suspicious that there were some people, shooting photos, from the roof of the parking garage. It was too bad, but oh we, we decided to go towards Waikiki for our dinner.

As for the panorama photo, here’s one (I made it smaller in size, the original was about 20 megabyte big):

It’s quite easy to make such a panorama photo, you just have to make sure that the camera is on a tripod, that you make enough photos to overlap everything (I believe there’s 34 photo’s in the above panorama), and that you use the right software. I use a free program, and I have to say it works like a charm. The program does everything for me, place the photo’s, align them, adjust the shades etc etc.

Right, we went to Waikiki after all this and we decided to drive through town afterwards, so we could find a certain building (I will place the photo of this building below). Just when we found this building, the police pulled me over (or I should say, I drove into a parkinglot and he then came on from behind). It turned out that I didn’t stop for a stopsign. He checked our papers and checked if I didn’t drank any alcohol (probably because we said that we had a dinner just before, and I have to say that it is not like the Netherlands where they use a breath analyzer, no, I had to follow a pen with my eyes while he aimed a flashlight on my eyes… I don’t know but I doubt this is a correct way to do it.. oh well, I didn’t drink anything so I didn’t had to worry). After a short lecture, he let me go without a ticket. I was pretty lucky with that. I have no idea why, but I think it might have been because of my birthday, that he had seen the birthdate on the driver license. According to Michelle it might also have been that it was because I didn’t cause any problems and just stayed nice, or because I was honest about my mistake… whatever it was, I like to stick with my birthday as for explanation

But oh well, the building we were looking for is the following:

Looks good, doesn’t it? (Yes, I know, I used a lens which made stars of the lights, I shouldn’t have done this but oh well haha.. it’s all in a learning process).

Can you believe this is just a mural, and not something like 3D?

This piece of art has been painted in 18 months (10 to 14 hours a day) by an artist named ‘John Pugh’. They wrote the following about it in the local paper:

“Pugh said the epic wave behind surfing pioneer Duke Kahanamoku is Queen Lili’uokalani herself, whose enduring legacy lives on through the children’s center named for her and in other ways. To get the wave just right, he hired a glass artist to make a model of a wave he could study throughout.

He said the children shown in the mural offer gifts that pay tribute to the queen. In a window to the right side is Prince Kuhio, who served in Congress and created the Hawaiian homes act to return more Hawaiians to the land.”

So, yeah, to prove that it is just a mural, here’s a photo from up close:

That this painting can really fool people shows from a part in the same article in the local paper, where they wrote about a crew of firemen who thought that the children in the mural were stuck and couldn’t come down any more. When they wanted to save them, they found out about their mistake haha.

Ok, tomorrow, or the day after, I will post a new message about last Saturday. We also went out on that day, and I made some photo’s in a botanical garden. But ok, that kind of depends on how busy I am (I am quite busy lately for some reason). And now to bed, it’s getting late..

And here are the next two video’s. In the first one we drive over the Pali from the westside (leeward) towards the eastside (windward), and in the other one, I drive exactly the other way around, so from windward back to the leeward side of the island.

It was sunny the whole morning, even when we drove towards the Pali from the consulate, but the weather wasn’t on our side for some reason (which can happen easily when you are at the Pali, there’s more rain in that area than in others as the clouds remain close to the mountains). So you will see some rain falling down in the first video.

I made these video’s actually a bit because of some people who recently asked me about how it was to drive on the Pali, this because of my earlier post about the Pali. It was those questions that made me think about making a video of the Pali, when we would drive over it again.. and so here it is

I hope you liked the videos a bit (even though they might be a bit monotone, but yeah, that is my own feeling, it is after all not the first time I drove over that road haha). I will post some more videos soon. Michelle and I want to get out more often, so we should film a bit more also

I wrote a little bit about it yesterday, next to my passport renewal, we also did a few other things. One of those things was feeding the fish in the harbor of Honolulu.

Today I worked a bit on the video’s that we made yesterday. The video’s of the Pali Highway will be coming a bit later tonight, they’re currently converting to a better format for Youtube, so you need to wait a bit on that (that is, if everything will be ok… if not, then you will have to wait a bit longer haha), but for now I can give you the video of us feeding the fish in the harbor of Honolulu. It is a short video, but I think it is still nice to see, you don’t see fish like this in every harbor

I wrote about the new rules of the Dutch passport a while ago, that it wouldn’t be so easy to renew the passport because the honorair consulate in Hawaii is not longer allowed to renew passports somewhere this year because of the new fingerprint rules and such, and that I will have to fly to the mainland US, or get my passport renewed in the Netherlands when I would be there.

It is something very nice again from the Dutch government, even more because I have heard that people also need to pick their passports up again at the location where they renewed their passports (they normally send them), this because they need to check on the fingerprints inside the passports, if they’re made correctly or not. That’s going to be fun, so we either have to return to the mainland after a certain amount of time, or we have to be lucky and receive it in the Netherlands before you leave the country again. The result: double costs. Like I said in my post back then, it will cost us thousands of dollars (or Euro’s, whatever you want) for real if we need to do this within the US. (And another ‘nice’ fact: Foreign Affairs is saying that the machines for the fingerprints are too expensive, or something similar, and that they cannot install them everywhere for this reason… but what seems to be really happening: the ministry of internal affairs is paying for them and not the ministry of Foreign Affairs.. so what about that? Foreign Affairs doesn’t even have those costs as they said in the beginning.. it is really outragious.   hoe vind je die? Die extra kosten zijn er dus helemaal niet.. I think it is becoming a more and more scandalous story.

But oh well, I thought to myself, about a week ago, that it would be wise to renew my passport already as I would still be able to do this within Honolulu (until somewhere in September, normally it would be until the end of June but they are delayed in the process). My passport is then valid for another five years (why isn’t it valid for ten years, like in most countries?), and when they give us troubles in The Hague when we request a passport for our daughter later on, then we do not have to go to the mainland within a few months because I would have to get a new passport myself. We would still have some years time until we need to renew my passport and then we can also request the new passport for our daughter. She will get an American passport right away so a Dutch passport isn’t needed right away.

And so I did. I called the Dutch Honoraire Consulate in Honolulu last week to schedule an appointment for today. They’re located in a big officebuilding, near the Aloha Tower (there where the boat parade was and where I made a video of the Queen Mary 2).

We (Michelle joined me, and even though it was not really needed, it does make it more fun) had to be there at 11 this morning, and we could’ve been there at 10.45 AM, but unfortunately we walked pass the building. This happened because the building showed number 1000 while we had to be at number 745. We knew the office was located on the 7th floor, so everything which was lower, was automatically not something we looked at, and so we passed those smaller buildings quite easily. When we checked the numbers, we saw the number 900 something, and we thought it could take a while until we would be at our number, until we suddenly were in the 1000’s again… yeaahhh, wait a second… that’s not right, it was going up…. Right, our conclusion was that we had to walk back and probably missed something. It turned out that the lower buildings, which we initially passed, were in the 800’s and that we did need to get the first building. And what do you think? It turns out that this was indeed number 745 but this number was hiding a bit, especially because the number 1000 was quite big and catchy. Hahaha, yeah that went smooth. We went inside and up to the 7th floor in a really fast elevator (you really notice that your bloodpressure changes, you will really be dizzy for a bit after the elevator stops).

Once we got in, I pushed the little bell on the front desk and an employee of the consulate came to the front, it turned out that this person would also be the one who handled the passport renewal for me. She took me to a seperate room, a bit like a meetingroom (they’re really in between other offices, in a big officebuidling, where they have some space, it really looks like some kind of company when you see it like that, it really does not look like something which you think of when you think of a consulate.. then again, it is a honoraire consulate, of course, so they’re already smaller). Here I gave her my papers, the passport and the passport (which were 55 dollar for 9 pieces, by the way (I just needed two of them but they gave me 9 haha), they’re so expensive because the Dutch format is different than the American passport photo format and so people have to go to a special photographer, and when you only have one official recognized photographer on the island, then you can expect that they can ask you what they want, of course).

Anyways, I talked a bit more with the consulate employee, mostly about the upcoming birth and how things would go when we wanted to apply for a passport for her, and of course about the whole deal of the passports what the Netherlands is doing right now. She said that she has hope that they will have more machines available later on, and that they would renew passports again for the Dutch citizens because, like she also said, there are more Dutch citizens in Hawaii then you would expect (she gave an example of the one time that they needed a person on the Big Island who would be able to speak both Dutch and Indonesian, and it aparantly had a lot of replies from people who were interested, and this was pretty specific because of the Indonesian part. And it seems to be like this on all the islands, there’s really a great deal of Dutchies here… it makes it pretty messed up that the Netherlands is leaving all these people alone with their passports, there’s enough people who are not able to fly to the mainland or the Netherlands but still need their passports). She also said that, even though there are other HC’s being closed, that she does not expect that Honolulu will be closed so easily, because, for example, what if someone loses his or her passport, then they would not be able to leave these islands as they cannot take a plane to the mainland.

And we talked about some more things next to this. Michelle told me later that I am pretty talkative at some moments haha. Poor child, she couldn’t do anything else but wait until I was done talking.

I have to say that the people on the Honoraire Consulate were very friendly. I will receive my passport again within two to six weeks (normally it would take about two weeks but because of the whole thing of the change to the new way of renewing passports, it might take a bit longer so they take it a bit wider), and oh well, I don’t need my passport right away so that’s ok.

And that was the story of my passport renewal, for now at least haha.

We also fed some fishes at the Aloha Tower today and we made a short video about the Pali Highway, when I brought Michelle to her work later today, but I will write more about this later on.. probably somehwere tomorrow or the day after that, it depends because I still need to convert and upload the video’s to Youtube. So, some patience please

Well, that’s something we hoped to find out today. We had two appointments, first at the clinic for the follow up meeting of the first trimester screening, and in the afternoon we had an appointment at the obstetrician.

We had to wait a bit at the clinic this time as someone else apparently entered quite late earlier that morning, which made that all other appointments had to shift a bit, it wasn’t so bad though, it was fun in the waitingroom hehe. When it was our turn, they asked me if we wanted to find out today if it would become a boy or a girl (Michelle was not in the vicinity as she first had to empty her blatter), so I told the lady that we indeed wanted to find out, if possible. She said that she would try her best and that she couldn’t guarantee it because of the baby has be in the right position, which seems logical to me

When Michelle arrived, she started with the ultrasound to see if everything was there. We could clearly see the fingers and toes, we’ve seen the stomach, the brains and the heart were perfectly ok, the baby also has normal lips, which is also important, and everything else was also ok. The length of the baby in the ultrasound was about 13 centimeters (about 5.1 inches), but since the legs were kind of folded up, the total length would be around 18 centimeters (about 7 inches) according to them, which is a normal size for a baby of 17 weeks old.

After that she tried to find out if she could find the gender but she didn’t seem to have much luck in the beginning, the baby was laying in a bit of a odd way which made it quite hard to find the gender at once. I think the baby turned a bit later as she could tell us that it would become .. well, look for yourself on the picture if you can see it:

Yeah right, it’s written on the picture.. haha, the woman who did the echo wrote that down. Oh well, it doesn’t matter, but yeah, it will most likely become a girl.

Most likely?

Yepz, they can’t be completely sure, with a girl there is always a (small) chance that the gender is a bit hidden behind a leg or the umbillical cord or something.. the chance is pretty small but it is there. The doctor, who also looked (they did some sort of double check) told us that. He also came to the conclusion that it has to be a girl but that you can only be sure “the moment you can look into the diaper”, as he said it in his words.

I think he is right about that but I think I just assume that it will become a girl

Some people asked me today if I was ok with a girl and if I didn’t rather had a boy (mostly because I am ‘the last’ of our family) and, actually, I don’t care if it is a boy or a girl, as long as it is healthy, I am just as happy with a girl as I would have been with a boy!

Of course I would like to get a boy some day who can take over this ‘heavy job’ (haha, I am exaggerating, of course) of being the last of the family.. well, not really the last of our family, but the last one with the male gender who carrys the name Joosten in our branch of the Joosten tree (which started in 1854), none of my dad’s brothers, or sisters, has male grandchildren with the name Joosten and, as far as I know, my greatgrandfather only brought one boy to this world (I have been working for a bit on my family’s genealogy lately, I’ll tell you about that later in a different post).

But oh well, like I said before, I don’t really care what it will be in the end, as long as it is healthy, that is the most important thing to me!

The people at the clinic gave us another CD-rom with some pictures and some short movies on it, I have made a short compilation of it, you can see it here:

After this appointment, we had another appointment at the obstetrician, we didn’t get an ultrasound there, probably because we did it earlier today. The obstetrician listened to the heart, they took some urine from Michelle, she told us about the results of the blood tests which they took last time (everything was perfectly ok, there was no problem at all) and they asked a few short questions, and that basically everything.

If I have to believe what the obstetrician told us, then it will be like this for now. Michelle has another appointment in 4 weeks but they will only take some urine to check, take Michelle’s weight, bloodpressure ask some questions and that’s about it.

I can tell you that it is a bit disappointing to know that we wont get any extra ultrasounds for now… we probably wont be able to wait until the baby is born and most likely go out and get a few ultrasounds ourselves, we would have a hard time without our little one (yeah, I can hardly say peanut now as she doesn’t exactly look like one anymore)

I really have to get something of my chest.. The Netherlands has to be the first again with something, like always, and of course, the civilians will be the ones who will have to pay for it. Nobody has these things, the United States don’t even have those things in their passports as we as Dutchies already have (such as a chip), and now this… so typical for the Netherlands again…

It is about the following piece that I read a few days on the website of the Dutch Consulate General in Los Angeles (originally written in Dutch):

Introduction fingerprints and passport application

Starting mid 2009, passport applications will need to be accompanied with fingerprints of the applicant. This will have consequences for the Dutch living and working abroad (non-resident Dutch).

Where to apply for passports?

As non-resident Dutch you can apply for your passport at every embassy, every Consulate General and each Honorary Consulate (HC). In the future, when fingerprints need to be taken and it will no longer be possible to obtain a passport at the HC’s. To improve the service to you at the highest possible level, the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs decided to equip fifty HC’s with equipment with which fingerprints can be taken. This will mean the necessary investments in security and communications. In anticipation of the introduction of fingerprints in passports and because of the renewal of the equipment, in the United States of America, starting from June 28, 2009, it will only be possible to apply for a passport at the Embassy in Washington, the Consulates-General in New York , Miami, Chicago or Los Angeles and the HC’s in San Francisco, Houston, Orlando, Atlanta and Boston.

source: http://www.netherlands-embassy.org/files/pdf/PaspoortaanvragenOpmaak.pdf

So, in other words, it looks like I wont be able to renew my passport in Honolulu later on but that I will need to fly at least 5.5 hours towards the US mainland for an application.

You can renew your passport right now then? You might say, and you’re right, but Michelle and I will get a baby soon and that kid needs to get a passport also (after all, we want the kid to get a double nationality so it can choose for him/herself which nationality it wants to have at adulthood).

If you think about it, it is pretty crazy that we will need to fly 5.5 hours, and we’re not alone as there are more Dutch on these islands. Why does the Honoraire Consulate in San Francisco this equipment while it is fairly close to Los Angeles and why do we need to fly 5.5 hours to the closest location?

Just look at this will cost us to renew a passport.. A ticket to the mainland is about 500 dollar, a kid below the age of two is for free but he/she will not remain a baby forever, so when it is time, we can actually count on some 1000 dollar. Then we might have the cost for a hotelstay since not all airlines fly back and forth multiple times a day, plus are you sure you are done on time at the consulate? Then you will have possible costs for a taxi or rental car and there will be enough additional small costs. Come, let’s renew our passport.

And then they dare to say, in the last line of that document that these measures “are in the interest of both the government and yourself”. Well, it surely is not in my interest. The only interest that it gives me is that I can write something in my blog again, but yeah, some interest that is.

The messed up thing next to this all is that I wonder how expensive this equipment will be.. The Americans have these devices everywhere, the border, homeland security buildings, consulates, embassies, everywhere and then it is impossible for the Netherlands to add a few more of these devices? I would almost tell them to send the bill to me as I am almost sure that it will be cheaper for me to pay for those devices than to travel up and down to the mainland.

Oh well, maybe there will be some sunshine after all as you can also request a new passport in the Netherlands, if you are visiting there that is (we’re currently planning to go to the Netherlands around the holidays). But, of course, it has some conditions attached:

As you are not living in the Netherlands any more (or maybe never lived in the Netherlands), the city of The Hague typically does not know if you still have the Dutch nationality. Your old passport or identitycard are no conclusive proof of your Dutch nationality. It only shows that you still had the Dutch nationality at the time the previous travel document was issued.

Source: http://www.denhaag.nl/smartsite.html?id=21603

In other words, they will need to find out if you still have the Dutch nationality and this is something that you will need to prove with all kinds of documents such as a birthcertificate and proof of deregistration in the Netherlands.

And I get different worries about a certain part of the same website of the city of The Hague:

You usually will go to the Dutch representation in the country which you reside for a new passport or identitycard. It is important that you are known for a (later) determination of your nationality.

So does this mean that I will have to renew passport in the United States at least once, just in case if I want to get a double nationality later on? And there are so much more questions which arise with all this, such as the timeframe in The Hague. It takes about two weeks in the United States to renew my passport but how about the Netherlands? The site of The Hague states the following:

10 working days, unless further investigation to identity, nationality and/or fraud is needed; then up to 8 weeks.

And there is a way to make this faster, in this case it will take three working days, but that will cost extra again. And what about the last part? The further investigation? Do they mean the above, the documents that you need to show and such? I can’t wait for 8 weeks in the Netherlands for a new passport? By the way, one of the documents that they want to see is a ‘recent statement which proves my Dutch nationality’, this is something the Dutch representation in the country where the applicant lives will have to provide, so in my case the United States… does this mean I will have to get this in Los Angeles or is this also possible to get in Honolulu? If it is LA then I might as well just renew my passport over there.

No, I am not really happy with this new arrangement. I also emailed the ‘Netherlands Front Office’ with the question if Hawaii gets no equipment indeed, they wrote the following:

Indeed, you will need to travel to a embassy or consulate general to apply for a new passport. There are also a few Honoraire Consulates where you can do this. Hawaii is unfortunately not one of the possibilities.

So I am really not happy about this. It does not even matter much for myself as it takes a bit until I have to renew my passport (later next year), and I could do it right now so I could wait for another five year but I am also wondering about the baby which will be born later on, how will that go? I think I should ask that question at the Dutch consulate in Los Angeles, and possibly also at the city of The Hague.

Nice going again, Netherlands

Hawaii has many folklore and myths, especially when it is about the Pali.

The Pali, or actually Nu’uanu Pali, is a part of the east cliffs (Pali in Hawaiian) of the Ko’olau mountain, which can be found on top of the Nu’uanu valley (our marriage, for example, took place in the Nu’uanu botanical gardens, which can be found a bit at the beginning of the valley).

The Pali Highway is one of the three ways to get directly from our side (leeward, or the westside) to the other side of the island (ok, there is another way but then you will have to drive around the coast and that can take a while). Basically you are going over and through the mountain.

I will give you a few pictures (only the first two pictures are made by myself (in 2007), I found the rest through images.google.com, a couple of them say “Picture by Jai” when hovering them, these are found on this forum and made by Jai), so you can get a bit of an idea of how the Pali looks like.

First our side, the westside:

This is a little spectactulair sight as you can see. This is mostly because it goes up very gradually over a distance of about 5.5-6 miles.. besides this, you find yourself here in a valley until you are at the top, so there are no cliffs or something but mountain walls with lots of green from the rainforests (especially on the top, below you can still find some houses).

The other side, the Windward side or eastside, looks like this:

A bit more nice, I think

The Pali has a rich history, there has been one of the bloodiest battles of Hawaii: King Kamehameha I wanted to unite the islands of Hawaii into one kingdom and went, with his army of 10,000 warriors, after conquering Maui and Moloka’i, towards O’ahu. On this island, the decisive battle took place in Nu’uanu Valley and the defenders of O’ahu, led by Kalanikūpule, were then driven up to the cliffs where they were more than 400 warriors were driven over the cliff and fell about 1000 feet lower towards their death.

The Pali highway, or actually the first road over Nu’uanu Pali, was build in 1845 to connect the eastside with the westside. In 1898 they constructed this road into the (old) Pali highway and during the construction, they found about 800 skulls which they believe are remains of the warriors who fell of the cliffs during the battle. This road has been replaced later on by the current Pali highway and it’s tunnels (see the pictures above).

You can see the old Pali highway on the next photo’s:

You can see the old Pali highway in the left on the first picture, and a bit to the right, just below, is the new Pali highway. At the other two pictures you can see that it this road has become pretty green with grass and other stuff.. They closed the road for traffic but you can still walk there as a pedestrian, as far as I know.

Right, back to the folklore and myths, because that’s why I am writing this post…

As you can understand, there are a couple of myths who came out of the happenings back in 1795. But there are also a couple of new and more recent myths. They all happen on or around the Pali, and it is, according to the stories, especially at night, something one should watch out for.

There are the ‘Night Marchers’, which are spirits of old warriors which you can find on all the islands, and especially on places where there were big battlefields, like Nu’uanu Pali.. There are multiple legends about them and one of them is that when you see a Night Marcher right into the eyes, that they’ll force you to walk along with them into eternity, but if there is a relative who is already walking with them, then you will be spared. The Hawaiians tell that when you come in the vicinity of the Night Marchers, you need to lay down on your belly and hold your face to the ground to avoid any eye contact. You need to be quiet, breathe silently and especially not move. Some also say that they sometimes nudge you to provoke a reaction and to take you with them after all. Nice story.. brrr…

And here are many stories like this here in Hawaii.. there are, for example, two stones to be found in the back of Nu’uanu valley, Hapu’u and Ka-lae-hau-ola, from which is said that these represent a pair of goddesses who were guardians of the passage down the pali. Travellers would leave offerings of flowers or bark cloth to ensure a safe trip, and parents buried the umbilical cords of newborns under the stones as a protection against evil. It is also said that there is a “mo’o wahine” (a lizard woman) lingering around the pass. A mo’o wahine is a mythical creature who can take the shape of a beautiful woman and lure male travellers over the cliff to their dead. A bit like the story of the Lorelei at the river Rhine.

But ok, I can keep telling stories, and there are many other stories also, but I want to go back to the title of this post: Pork and the Pali Highway.

One of the myths, or folklore, which goes around, and is also strict believed by many people here, is that one should never take pork over the Pali, and especially not at night. The exact stories are a bit different from each other but the legend is that when people try to take pork, in whatever form, over Nu’uanu Pali by car, that their car will stall and will not start until the pork has been removed out of their car. According to some stories, the pork needs to be raw, in some others it should be cooked (like in Michelle’s version where it should be there as a dish). Some versions tell that this only happens when it is dark and in other versions they say that a white dog will appear and that you need to give the meat to the dog before you can continue to drive.

This legend comes from an ancient Hawaiian mythology. According to the legend, the Hawaiian volcano goddess Pele and the demigod Kamapua’a (a half-man-half-hog), had a turbulent relationship and the two of them agreed to never visit each other. So when someone tries to take pork over the Pali, then the legend tells that symbolic bring a part of Kamapua’a from one side to the other, and Pele will make sure this will not happen.

There are more stories about food and the Pali. Apparently there have been attacks by hungry spirits who attacked travellers for their food. Truckers tie, for example, a fresh green Ti leaf, the leaf of a banana or a piece of bamboo to their containers with food to divert the evil spirits.

Right.. why are writing all this, you might ask yourself.. well, actually because I recently thought to myself that we (that is Michelle and me) brought pork, at night, over the Pali ourselves somewhere last week…

Why we did it? Well, we didn’t even think about it at the moment itself, neither Michelle or myself thought about the fact that we had pork in our car. We ate in a restaurant and Michelle had some porkchops, she couldn’t eat it all and so we took it with us as a doggiebag (even though it was a box haha). Michelle had a meeting that night, at around 9.45 PM (she could go on an earlier time but Michelle wanted to go the one at this time, this just to explain the ‘odd’ time of the meeting), and since dinner took a bit longer than expected, I told her that I would tag along so she didn’t had to drop me off first (I would just wait in the car for a bit, it only would take for about an hour).

Michelle has her job in Kaneohe, on the eastside of the island, so on the other side of the mountain range. We placed the leftover food in the back of the car, in a closed compartment (this so the car wouldn’t smell) and we went on our way to the other side of the mountains. We went over the H3 on our way there.. this is the quickest way for us, but it is also the most unpleasant way for me as it is pretty high for a longer period and at the other side of the mountain, you are on a really high bridge for a while, and yeah, people who know me a bit, also know that I am terribly afraid of heights haha. We decided that Michelle would drive there over the H3 and I would drive back over the Pali since I am less scared on that road (the Pali Highway goes up pretty quick on the eastside and the westside is really not scary at all to drive on, so you are quickly without any fear).

We did as we said… and now you want to know if something happened on our journey to the other side and back, over the Pali? Well, no.. not that I know of.. I haven’t seen anything out of the ordinary that night and the car didn’t stop either, thankfully.

Why nothing happened with us? Well, you could say it is just a myth, and that it doesn’t hold any truth.. but yeah, how do you explain all those other people to whom it did happen? Or, for example, the people got bad luck after they took pieces of volcanic stone with them from one of the islands? It is the same goddess after all (and I think about a travelshow back in the Netherlands in which the tv host once went to Hawaii and placed a piece of volcanic stone in his pants.. as soon as he did that, his hat blew away). Various TV hosts also took several tests, one of the tests can be read here: Pork and Pali are Recipes for Disasters (pretty nice story).

Other reasons which you could think of could be that our car was too new.. well, I doubt that was a reason.. in the end they’re all the same of course. Maybe it was because we never thought about us bringing pork over the Pali or maybe it was because our car has been dressed up with bamboo wood on some parts inside the car. Or maybe it had to be raw meat after all and not ready-to-eat meat, like a platelunch, like Michelle said.. or it is possible that these things only occured on the old Pali Highway like some stories say (and this road knows more creepy stories, the thick forest is a very good background for ghoststories in the dark).

No, I think it had to do with any of these things. I think Pele saw that we took the meat from her side on to the other side and brought it back, and so we basically brought it back where it belonged. I also think it might have something to do with compassion because of our upcoming child and possibly also because of me being afraid of heights.. I wouldn’t have to think about our car stalling while being on the eastside of the mountainrange (on whatever of the three roads), I wouldn’t know what to do.

Anyways, I went at least three times back onto the Pali last week. One time to surprise Michelle and to pick her up from her job, something else happened on this journey when I was driving on the Pali alone and all of the sudden I found a car next to me.. it has nothing to do with folklore, of course, but I really did not notice him until he was really right next to me (on the right side, I drove in the middle of a 3 lane road, and he stayed on my right side until we went over into a two lane road, just before the tunnels.. nothing scary, just weird). And I also went back over the Pali the day after (now with chicken and beef, remains of a different lunch haha) to bring Michelle back to her job, this was during the day and fortunately I didn’t notice anything on this trip either.

Right, fortunately nothing happened. You can say something about it being folklore or myths but the fact that people here really believe into this all has something special.. I think I would never take pork with me over the Pali with my full consciousness, not even now nothing happened this time… you never know.

Today we had our new appointment at around 2 PM, just like I told in a previous post.. we were there right on time, at around 1:55 PM.

Michelle was called around 2:45 PM (yep, after 45 minutes) to pee a bit in a cup (we have no idea why but oh well). Then Michelle came back to sit with me and wait a bit more… when it was 3.10 PM we were called and could take place in the consulting room.

Once in that room, we jokingly said to each other that they just moved us just because nobody was available but since they read my last blogpost, they were afraid that we might just walk away haha.

Yeah, it sure is something… anyways, after a new wait of about 5 minutes, the obstetrician came to talk to us and said “sorry but we have nobody available”…

Haha nah, that is a joke hahaha!!

Everything was true except for her announcement haha.. nah, what she basically did was listening to the heart of our baby through a doppler machine (the ultrasound will be done by the other company so we have to wait until May 19, which is a bit sad as we were hoping to see some of our kid today) and she asked mostly things to Michelle and myself about our physical wellbeing, if we had certain diseases and that kind of stuff. I think we have been inside for like 10 minutes, after that they took some blood from Michelle (the poor kid was really pale after the 4 tubes that they took from her… nah, just kidding she didn’t notice much of it she told me) and we received a package with some magazines and some information about the hospital.

Our next appointment will be on May 19 with this, and the other company. In the morning we go to the other company for a few things, one will be the ultrasound and in the afternoon we will go to the obstetrician where we will be doing I don’t know what

One of the things we found in the information package of the hospital is the possibility to get the first picture of your baby on a website, you will be able to see this first picture on the baby’s first website by entering the birthdate and a password… this is something we most likely will do.

We had an appointment at 11.30 AM with the obstetrician.. or so we thought…

Michelle went ahead because we had a hard time finding a parkingspot. When I finally found a spot to park our car, Michelle was there already, telling me that our meeting has been rescheduled to the upcoming Tuesday…

Right… I can tell you that this was something I was not exactly happy with.. it is like there is always something over there.

When we went there for the first time, we were waiting for about 45 minutes, only to find out that the obstetrician did not had any time for us.. I agree, that happens. The meeting after this was cancelled by phone, just before we would go there, nice. After this we got an appointment which actually did happen, but I did feel like ‘if they cancel it again, we really don’t come back again and we will go somewhere else’..

But ok, today we had a new appointment, and we have some things we need to ask, but this appointment was also cancelled.. the reason of today was that the obstetrician, which Michelle needs, couldn’t help us because this obstetrician isn’t covered by our insurance.. yeah, now I ask you.. couldn’t they tell us last time? They knew before what insurance Michelle has.

Right.. so we have a new appointment, with a different obstetrician (at the same company, though) which is allowed to help us under our insurance

The score at the moment is: 4 appointments from which only 1 continued..

I think it is a little bit ridiculous. Anyways, this is the last time.. if they don’t want to take our money (or actually the money from the insurance company), then it is their problem and we will go to a different place.. this only costs us time and effort for nothing.

ps. no, our insurance is perfectly ok.. I tend to think that if she isn’t allowed to help us, that this says more about her than about our insurance