Yesterday was the last day of May, Memorial Day. This day is similar to the Dutch “dodenherdenking” (remembrance day). People remember their loved ones on this day, those who fell during active duty in the armed forces, but also their other loved ones.

Like I said in my previous blogpost, we were thinking about going to the beach and to get a lantern which we could lit later in the evening, during the ceremony, with on the lantern a written memory (think about a small piece of text, with the names of the loved ones), and place it on the water to let it float into the wide ocean. The candles in the lanterns are meant as a guidance for the spirits to their next life, and to bring their loved ones on earth some peace.

They would start to give lanterns out to people at 1pm, and since there would only be a limited amount available, we were waiting in the queue at 1.30pm. Well, ok, Michelle was waiting in the line, I couldn’t find a parking spot (it was very crowded) and so I dropped her off first so she could claim a spot in the line. To give an impression:

The first picture was made by Michelle with her telephone while she was waiting. You can see the tent in the distance. By the way, try to find Michelle on the second picture.

After we had a lantern and floating device in our possession, we found that we had about four hours left to do something else before the ceremony would start. We decided to visit her dad’s grave, to lay some flowers at his grave, like she does every year. It was pretty busy at the graveyard, like you can also see on the next picture.

The graves here do not have standing tombstones, but tombstones that are put flat in the ground, everything that you can see in the picture are flowers and such that are put there by their survivors. There were also people having a bbq at some of the graves, something you don’t see so quickly in the Netherlands but which is a tradition for many over here (this comes mostly because of the Asian influences in Hawaii).

We drove back into town after this, parked the car and went towards the beach, where it became more and more crowded. Just before the ceremony we heard in the welcoming speech that they had more visitors than last year, which was 40,000 at that time, so there were more this year.

While we were waiting for the start of the ceremony, we played a bit with Isabella who thought the sand on her feet was amazing. She was making all kinds of cute sounds and was really busy, she really enjoyed herself.

You can see on the last picture that it became more crowded. The ceremony also started by then, with a speech from the spiritual head of the Shinnyo-en Buddhism order, as you can also see on the screens. She was there on a stage but that was pretty far away, that’s why there were screens (plus it was nice they had these as she spoke Japanese and they showed an English translation). They also had hula dancers and a few artists who sang some fitting songs.

After this it was time to walk towards the water and lit the lanterns, but before we would let them float on the water, there first were some canoes that transported even more lanterns with messages from people all over the world (you can send your wish or thoughts to them over the internet or by mail, and volunteers will place these on the lanterns) and that placed the lanterns on the water as they passed by.

And then it was time to let the lanterns float on the water and to send wishes of happiness over the world.

We walked a bit into the water, the water was nicely warm, placed the lantern on the water, and then something dismal happened. A little boy, who was there with his parents, came from nothing and took the lantern with him for a couple of feet while he was swimming. We were quite stunned that this happened as we wanted to do it slowly, to take some pictures of the lantern and then push the lantern into the wide ocean when we would be ready for it, but that was not possible because of this boy. In my hurry and shock I tried to make a picture but I apparently moved a bit too much and it blurred a bit. You can still see that the kid pushed the lantern:

I thought this was a shame, and I am actually a bit angry about it. I understand it is just a kid, but if it was my kid who did this, he would have received a spanking (so Larissa and Isabella, you know what not to do). I don’t think this is acceptable and I don’t understand why his parents didn’t tell him he couldn’t do that. They said something like “hey, that is far enough”, but nothing like “hey, don’t do that”. You have to understand that some people write some deep wishes, thoughts and memories on these lanterns, things that make them think about their loved ones. For many people this was an emotional experience, and that was the same for me. And then a brat like him comes along who pushes the lantern away. I was terrified that he would push too hard and that it would turn over or that it would make water in the front.

Yeah, I think I should’ve said something myself at that time, but I was so shocked by this, that I really didn’t know what to do. Next time I will do some things different from the start (like walking further into the deep, where there are no small kids). I thought it was a shame. The whole thing was pretty spiritual and it gave me a good feeling, and then something like this happens.. not that much fun, but oh well, fortunately it didn’t take away all of the spirituality.

Right, before I stop with this post with some pictures that I made after we had the lantern in the water, I want to add that this is a really beautiful experience, and something we want to do again next year. If you want to go on vacation to Hawaii, and you don’t know when, you should consider to have Memorial Day in your itinerary so you can enjoy this also, it is really special.

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..

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.