A tornado on Hawaii, do you expect that on a tropical island? I don’t think so but apparently it is possible… and not just one tornado, but three at the same time…

The weather was a bit weird I think, it was nice but around lunchtime it started to become very dark and it started to rain.. not the normal small rain as you mostly have here, but pretty big drups and there was also a lot of thunder with some heavy bangs. I instantly was like ‘bleh, another rainy weekend’ but it turned out to be different.. the bad weather left as quickly as it came.

I asked Michelle if she had some rain also and she said that there most likely did fall some rain but from what I understood from her words, there was no thunder and aparently not such a heavy rainfall either. It was apparently nothing special on that side of the island where she works nowadays as it rains almost every day for a bit on that side, it is the rainside of the island and with it also the greenest side of the island.

I didn’t think about it anymore until it became night… I was reading the news and I read that there was a tornado on Hawaii earlier that day, in Kapolei (at the westside of the island). And just now I found out that it wasn’t just one tornado but three even. The tornados weren’t that heavy (or just tornado as the other ones were a lot smaller and cannot really be called tornado I think) but still it was still a tornado, even though it was only a F0. He did, however, pick up a golf car and threw that away again (it came down on a golf terrain).

I didn’t know but they aparently have more sightings of tornados on that side of the island.. some people actually say they seem to become bigger (and from what I saw on the pictures and videos, it did look like a nice one, even though it was ‘only’ a F0).

Anyways, I will stop talking now.. here are some links to some pages where you can find some videos of it all since I expect you want to see them:

- Tornado video - 1
- Tornado video - 2

And here are, finally, the last Christmas pictures.. well, for now haha, I got some more but yeah, it doesn’t stay Christmas And next to that I also left some other pictures out of this collection since they were a bit blurry, probably because Michelle moved a bit hehe.. (it wasn’t me, I was filming lol). Anyways, here they are:

And that were the Christmas pictures for now… probably not when it is about New Yerar since it will be soon Chinese New Year and we will most likely go to a parade with a 150 feet long dragon, kungfu practicers and more of that kind of things.. I am looking forward to it

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

This morning we went towards the west, towards Kapolei, where I had to apply for a social security number (in Dutch you would say personsnumber or ’sofi’-number) at the SSA, the Social Security Administration.

I need this number basically to get a drivers license (I got a Dutch drivers license but this is only valid in the state of Hawaii for one year after entry into the US, plus a drivers license is a valid ID over here), to be able to open a bankaccount, to start certain insurances, pay taxes (oh joy :P) and there are so many more things which makes it necessary for me to get a social security number.

Requesting the social security number was pretty simple, I had the form with me to apply for the social security number, I had my ID with and some other papers which, eventually, I didn’t need to have as the form to request for the social security number and the passport were sufficient. It was my turn after about 20 minutes of waiting and after a short while I got to hear that my social security card would be sent to me within two weeks.

After this we drove towards Chinatown in Honolulu to see if we can find a white Hula shirt for me; I want one for our wedding next monday and on our way towards town we always pass by Pearl Harbor where lately you can find some large white ball on pillars in the water, it is some sort of a large radar installation. We took a picture of it from the freeway:

It might look a bit small on the picture but it is really big.

Anyways, we went towards Chinatown and found indeed a white Aloha shirt. It is unbelievable but we were looking for one since I arrived here in Hawaii, for some reason they’re all sold out at all the stores.

Since we were in Chinatown anyways, we went towards some restaurant where we ate at a ‘real’ Chinese. It may sound weird to say ‘real’ Chinese but we like to call it like that as they serve the real Chinese dishes and not the standard watered down Chinese for western people (I admit, it isn’t less yummy but still, I like the ‘real’ Chinese food also).

After this we went back home and on our way home we found out that on the receipt of the social security number request was a wrong zipcode. I called the social security administration and they asked me to go back to the office to get it fixed. After I dropped Michelle of at home (her mom had to leave so she had to watch the clients), I drove back to Kapolei.

Instead of the twenty minutes of waiting time earlier today, I was outside after being inside for less than a minute as there was nobody else (the people in front of me just left). I explained my story and it was no problem at all, they would fix it and I could go home again. I took some pictures on my way home of the area I was driving in (while I drove so some pictures may be a bit blurry):

The first two pictures are taken of the mountains, or the beginning of the mountains, at the west side of Oahu.. I see these mountains every morning when I wake up (a bit more of the side tho so they are a bit bigger and larger), the third picture is of the road which I took back to Waipahu and in the distance you can see the mountains at the east side of Oahu. Here are some more pictures::

On the first picture you can see, if you look careful, Honolulu at the far right side and you should be able to see that radar thing on the right side. In the second picture you can find Pearl City and the mountains in the distance again from the east side of Oahu and the last picture is where you enter Waipahu on the southwest side, a bit the busy side of Waipahu where we do not live (we’re at the east side). You can also see that it is about time for the rainseason to start as the grass can use some water (and from the looks of it, it already seems like the rainseason started a bit as it rained a lot of times the last couple of days (just as you think to get rid of all the rain by leaving the Netherlands haha).

So, now we just have to wait for about two weeks and I can try to get my drivers license, I can ask for a change of status and all those other things. But first: our marriage next monday