A time of celebration

Noah going down the Spiderman Slip-N-Slide

Last Thursday marked 100 days of school for Noah so all of the kindergarten classes at his school decided to do what they do best - party! They celebrated with food, games and fun. They had two Slip-N-Slides, a sprinkler, and a big tub filled with water that the kids could dip glasses into and throw on each other. In Idaho it would have been a sledding and snowball-throwing party.

Noah didn't have school the next day so I took him to the zoo in Honolulu. The zoo is located right across the street from the beach on the edge of Waikiki. It is a very busy area with people walking all around, carrying surfboards, body boards, coolers, etc., but once you get inside the zoo all the noise seems to disappear.


Miami Vice anyone?

The elephants were playing when we saw them.

It was a treat to get the rhino and
zebra in action together.

It is easy to forget that you are in the middle of a big city. There are so many trees and shrubs that it's not until you look up and see a huge apartment building that you realize where you really are.



As anyone who has been to a zoo knows, there is no guarantee that an animal will be somewhere you will be able to see it. This was the second time we visited the Honolulu zoo and we still did not seen the lions. As a matter of fact, I'm not convinced that they truly have lions. How do we know it's not a big marketing ploy to get people to visit? Noah was a little disappointed that once again he was snubbed by the big cats, but at least the chimps made up for it.

The chimpanzees were in spirited form, to say the least (take a look at the picture below). One male, who made it very obvious he was a "he", was enjoying some down time in a bed of hay. At one point he put a long stick in his mouth and inspected his left foot, but for the most part he just lay there with one hand behind his head. It was a hilarious site to see. I tried to get a good picture of him, but it's hard to take one through pexiglass.

Our uninhibited chimp.
Quite the life, eh?

We took a break from the animals so Noah could play on the playground equipment. I noticed a tv camera crew across the walkway at the tiger exhibit. I couldn't figure out what they were filming since the tigers were just laying in their cage. Nothing too exciting about that. A very pregnant lady with a microphone interviewed a zoo visitor, and then the tv crew filmed and spoke to a man who looked like he was probably the zoo director. At one point the cameraman turned around and filmed kids playing in the park.

When we got home I recorded the news and we watched it the next day. Come to find out, the story was about how the male tiger had escaped from his cage very briefly. Apparently, a zoo worker went into the cage and forgot to close the gate. The tiger walked out of his cage and into a holding area where the walls are only four feet high. The worker realized what happened and notified all staff immediately. Thankfully this all happened before the zoo opened and I'm sure most visitors knew nothing about it.

At then end of the news segment the camera panned over to the park. And would you believe it? Noah was on tv again. He was at the top of a slide and they filmed him going all the way down. We've been here 7 months and that kid has been on tv twice. I think I need to get him an agent.

Huge movie screen on the beach
across from the zoo. They really
do show movies on this, but I don't
know when or how often.
Pretty cool, huh?

A view of Waikiki in the distance
and the famous Royal Hawaiian
Hotel (the pink one)

Just When You Think You've Heard of Everything

Last week I was reading the paper and an article caught my attention. It was about a Kailua man who died in a freak accident while at work. He was doing maintenance on his roll-off truck when two rails came down and crushed him.

It was a tragic accident and the paper had a sizable write-up of the whole event. It had quotes from family about how he was a hard worker and about his character. Then they had a quote from a lady that met him through, and I'm not making this up, pigeon racing. I had to read that paragraph again because I wasn't sure if that was a typo. But then again, what letter could they have omitted or added to come up with the word pigeon anyway?

This brought out the curiosity in me. Pigeon racing? Is there really such a thing? Maybe I've led too much of a sheltered life. There isn't a huge pigeon population in Boise like there is here on Oahu so maybe it's just that I never had the opportunity for pigeon racing. So, I did what most curious people do these days...I Googled "pigeon racing".

I was surprised to get 197,000 hits. The first item that popped up was from the website pigeon.org. Wow, pigeons even have their own website. And here all along I thought they were referred to many as rats with wings. If the darn things only knew that they have their own website, they'd really start taking over the world. Gee, do other, say, more lovable birds like penguins have their own website? I'll leave that search for another day.

There were all kinds of websites devoted to the topic of pigeon racing: pigeonracing.homestead.com, speedpigeon.com, racingpigeondigest.com and my favorite... racing-pigeon-fancier. Like, fancier than horse racing?

After devoting just fifteen minutes of my time I found out more about pigeons than I have to say I cared to know. One website was loaded (too much actually) with "buttons" of topics that you could click on to get more information. There were "buttons" for message boards, a place for people to show off pictures of their prized pigeons, and one called pigeon milk. I kid you not. Apparently pigeons produce crop milk while the parents are brooding the eggs. And as if that information wasn't enough, they broke down the milk to discover it is 70% water and the other 30% is fat and protein. The website goes on to say what vitamins and minerals are in this wonderful protein. Hey, it even has more vitamin A than cod liver oil folks!

If I was really desperate for a new hobby I could join the American Racing Pigeon Union and subscribe to Racing Pigeon Digest, The Thinking Person's Journal of Racing Pigeons. Uh, I think I'd rather be known as a non-thinking person in this case.

Potholes

I remember several years ago, probably more since I have been in a time warp for the last fifteen years, the state of Idaho was thinking of changing the license plate slogan from "Famous Potatoes" to something else. People had a chance to submit their ideas in writing. One person suggested that the license plates say "Famous Potholes". At the time that slogan would have been a perfect picture of Idaho, or at least the Boise valley. It seemed like the roads were much worse years ago than they are now.

After living in Hawaii for almost 7 months now, I can let it be known via this wonderful blog, that the Idaho does not have the worst streets in the nation. I read in the paper that according to some experts (maybe it was AAA), Hawaii holds that claim. And having driven all over the island, my van can attest to this claim as well. The article in the paper also said one man had to have tires replaced on his car four different times. Ouch, that hurts -- for the car and the pocketbook.

We may not have grooves so deep in the interstate you'd think someone had tried transporting a Boeing jet from Boise to Caldwell, but there are holes, layers of pavement missing (where did it mysteriously go?), and big metal plates in scrupulous locations. It will be a miracle if we don't have to replace a tire on one of our cars, or maybe other parts that might fly off when we hit a hole going 60+.

The sorry shape of the roads around here is a joke to everyone, just as it was in Idaho back in the 80s (or maybe it was the 90s). I remember when I was in college it seemed like they were doing major road construction every where you tried to go. I guess some things don't change, eh? One of my buddies and I used to joke that they weren't really redoing the road, they were merely moving some pipes around.

One thing I am thankful for that Hawaii doesn't do yet Idaho seems to love doing is tar and feathering the road. Or, maybe that's not it. Oh, yeah...it's called chip and sealing the road. I guess calling it what it really is -- tar and laying rocks-that-will-inevitably-land-on-your-windshield, was too much of a risk for ACHD and the transportation department.

Running on Empty

Eating out in Hawaii, especially in Kailua, has it's challenges. One thing we have noticed is that there are a ton of fast food restaurants, but they tend to be the same ones over and over and over. The most prevalent fast foodies are McD's, KFC, Subway, and Taco Bell. You won't see Carl's Jr. at all, and only a few Arby's, Burger Kings and Wendy's on the entire island. And like the rest of the world, a Starbucks is on almost every corner in downtown Honolulu. You'll find a plethora of Korean BBQ places, Chinese, Hawaiian, sushi, etc. restaurants. But, you won't see very many recognizable (franchise) sit-down restaurants either. There are two Outbacks, Chili's and Denny's, but you won't find any of these in Kailua. And I also must mention since we are talking about what you won't find in our town...no hotels. I'll save that topic for another time.

It's strange how some of the fast food restaurants operate around here. We found very quickly after moving here (since we have a 5-year-old...meaning "person with small bladder") that many of these don't have public restrooms. We went to the KFC in Kailua shortly after arriving and not long after we dug into our meal, Noah announced he had to go to the bathroom. Oops, they don't have one. Needless to say, we ate the rest of our meal very fast and headed for the closest bathroom we could find.

One day we pulled into the Taco Bell parking lot and drove to the back to get into the drive-thru. Hmm...where's the drive-thru? We couldn't believe that a Taco Bell didn't have a drive-up window. By this time we were starting to get a very clear impression that things are done quite differently in Hawaii.

Not only that, the quality of what is produced is quite different here, too. Case in point...I went to KFC after work the other day because I had only 20 minutes to scarf down something before my hair appointment. I chose KFC partly because I knew there'd be no line in the drive-up (yes, they do have a drive-thru window!) and partly because I really like their Tenderroast sandwich. So, that's what I ordered along with a drink. I parked under a tree in the parking lot where my hair salon is. I was looking forward to my savory sandwich since I don't eat out as much as I used to. It was going to be a real treat. I pulled the wrapper off and took my first bite. Let's say I attempted to take my first bite. I don't know what decade that bun came from, but it wasn't this one. I couldn't even sink my teeth through it. The bread was so tough I got confused at first and thought it was the meat that was causing the problem. I ended up tossing the top bun into the sack. Have you ever tried to eat a sandwich in your car with a sloppy mess of tomato, lettuce and sauce as the top? It's not easy. After a couple of bites, I was so repulsed I threw the whole thing away. There went $5.80 down the drain.

After my hair appointment I didn't have enough time to go home before picking up Noah from school, so I thought I'd make amends for my terrible lunch by having a McFlurry at McD's. After waiting 15 minutes in the drive thru (see Taco Bell...it's not really a novelty), I finally got to the order window. I ordered an Oreo McFlurry and the lady said, "I'm sorry, we are all out of ice cream". ARGH!!! This was turning out to not be my day for eating out. Since there was no way to escape the drive-thru, I ordered chocolate chip cookies. I figured I'd waited so long I deserved to have something.

By now you're probably thinking, "okay, so you had a bad day with fast food, no big deal". Well, this is not that unusual. We have had numerous experiences eating out where they've run out of something or the food was absolutely atrocious.

Running out of food is a problem in Hawaii. I've gone to the grocery store for milk only to find them completely out of stock, except for the lactaid free kind where they charge like $6 for a half gallon. This has happened more than once.

When I was getting my haircut, my hair stylist and I had a discussion about this topic of food shortages. She said, "what would we do if there was a terrorist attack that affected the shipping of food to us?" I can't tell you how relieved I was to hear this. No, I'm not that sick. I was relieved because I thought I was the only one that had these warped thoughts. Usually it's when I'm at the grocery store and they are out of milk. But, seriously. If terrorists were to hit the main harbors in California, where most of the goods to Hawaii come from, we would be in a world of hurt. Farm land in Hawaii is drying up as developers look for more areas in which to expand. The last dairy on Oahu is closing down. I don't know how it survived as long as it did because the milk prices on their products were outrageous in comparison to those that were shipped in. Go figure.

So, the next time you mainlanders go grocery shopping with your ample supply of food on the shelves, think of us. The next time you go to Taco Bell, be glad you can go through the drive up window. And, if you have little kids, think of us the next time you are in a restaurant and they say in that high-pitched voice, "Mom, I gotta go potty". Especially if they are no longer in diapers and you don't have a change of clothes in the car.