Chocolate Candy!

I was surprised this year to get a Groupon for my birthday from our son, Keola.  The groupon was for a chocolate candy making lesson at Ricard Chocolat in Waikiki for two people.  Keola laughingly said it would give me something to blog about.

When I called to make the reservation, I learned that Ricard Chocolat is at the Queen Kapiolani hotel in Waikiki. I worked for a Japanese Travel Agency there during the summer while I was going to the University of Hawaii.  I hadn't been back since.  That old photo is one a tourist asked me to take with him.

Our travel agency used to have a table set up right there by the escalator.  I sat there answering questions as best as I could.


Here's just a little something about Queen Kapiolani of Hawaii.

Kapiʻolani was born December 31, 1834 in Hilo on Hawai'i Island to High Chief Kuhio Kalanianaʻole of Hilo and High Chiefess Kinoiki Kekaulike of Kaua'i, the daughter of King Kaumuali'i, last King of an independent Kauaʻi before its amicable cession to Kamehameha the Great. She was named Kapiʻolani, after her great-aunt High Chiefess Kapi'olani, who defied the goddess, Pele in the name of Christianity. Her name, Kapiʻolani, means "Rainbow or Arch of Heaven."

Ricard Chocolat is a small shop selling high end chocolates.  I was wondering how they could hold a chocolate cooking class in such a small space.

There was a Wisconsin family who was also part of our class.  They bought their lesson from Living Social.

We were shown what a cocoa pod looked like and tasted the beans.  It was crunchy and a little bitter.  I was surprised that I couldn't taste a stronger chocolate flavor.  It needed sugar.

Ricard Chocolat uses chocolate grown in Hawaii.  I didn't even know we had cocoa trees on Oahu.





We were able to choose the chocolate mold that we wanted for our chocolate pieces.






These plastic sheets were dyed with cocoa butter which would melt on to the bottom of our candy pieces.

The chocolate had already been melted and was poured onto the cool counter. We were then encouraged to moved it about to help cool it down.

I thought there would be some sort of thermometer to see if the temperature of the chocolate was at around 80 degrees F from the 115 degrees F it had been.  Nope.  We had to apply a bit of the chocolate to just below our bottom lip to test it.

Art then poured some of the chocolate into the mold and I scraped off the excess.

We then added marshmallows, nuts, bits of fruit and Oreos to decorate the tops of the chocolate pieces.  The chocolates were put in the refrigerator to cool further.  Meanwhile we got to taste a piece of chocolate from the candy counter.

Once cooled, they tapped the chocolate out of the mold and had us pack the morsels into plastic packages with a little ribbon to tie it.

 This was certainly a new, sweet experience for me and definitely bloggable!

Thank you, Keola! 

Do You Recline?

The news has been reporting some pretty terrible instances of airplane rage.  Aside from jet lag, the worst thing about travel these days (unless you are rich and can travel First Class) is the airplane ride.  Airlines are making more money in so many more uncomfortable ways.  They're charging extra for luggage, don't provide meals, charging for blankets?, etc. The absolute worst thing they're doing is putting more seats into cabins and giving you far LESS leg room.  It's sometimes a challenge to just get into your seat.

If someone in front of you reclines all the way, you have to recline a little too or you won't have room to move.  On long flights, I have to recline a bit if I'm to have any chance of dozing.  Now I hear that they've come up with devices being sold to attach to the seat back tray that would prevent the person in front from reclining at all. 

Apparently there was a woman who was so angered at this device being attached by the person in back that she threw water on him.

Ummm...now that's rather extreme.

I've not encountered that kind of rage by anyone yet on a flight, but maybe it will happen more now that airlines are packing people in like sardines for 5-10 hours.

OK... now I AM feeling a bit of a rage, but it's at the airline carriers who are only interested in how much more money they can squeeze out of people... literally.

Feeling More Secure

I'm departing a little from posting about our summer of family happenings just because other things have popped up in my brain.

I've been preoccupied with making an almost 100 page photobook for our granddaughter of their five week stay with us as well as our trip to Hokkaido, Japan for Mom.  It's consumed so much (if not all) of my computer time. 

I did want to share something I've learned and done to the Settings of my Blogspot (Blogger?) blog though.

A certain family member let me know that even though I purposely do not put our last name or pinpoint location to our home on my blog, when his name was googled, photos from my blog popped up... including baby photos I'd posted.  That was rather startling.

Blogger is Google.  Google has very strong web crawlers that search the web for information.  It's good in many ways, but if it's privacy you want... well...

So I searched my settings and went to Search preferences.  Then I disabled the robots.  There is a warning that doing this would cause search engines to ignore me.

Sure enough.  It's done that.  When my techie son-in-law, Ed was here, he was surprised that I actually managed to do this on my own.

Blogger friends can still find me on their side bars.  However, if someone in cyberspace were looking for a topic I may have written about... say melons... my blog won't pop up anymore.  And that's OK with me because it's connections with actual friends or potential friends I care more about.

Web crawler is also leaving my baby pictures alone.

The side benefit to all this for me is that I'm not getting spammed.  It's the strangest thing.  Spammers are also not able to find me.... for now. 

Yes, I'm rather sorry that people can no longer see what I may have written about a topic they're interested in, but privacy for those I write about are more important and that's the main thing.

I don't advocate everybody doing this.  I'm just saying it's something I've discovered and for now, it's working for me.

POSTSCRIPT:  Doggone!  Wouldn't you know it?  As soon as I wrote this post I did get a couple more spam messages anyway.  Still... it's only two... so far, in several months which amazes me.

KC's Wounded Knees

We did have a calamity when my granddaughter, KC and her parents were here last month.  KC was outside blowing soap bubbles with her dad and fell on her knees.  Art and I were not there at the time and came home to find a shaken father.  Ed just can't bear to see his little girl hurt.  Tiffany, however has been through all kinds of bumps and scrapes with her little brother when they were growing up.

KC's knees did look terrible!  Her left was a scratch that scabbed and eventually healed well.  This photo was taken almost a couple of weeks after the injury.

Her right was scary.  It seemed like the top epidermal layer had been completely scraped off.

I was ready to take her to the emergency room since Hawaii does have cases of flesh eating disease.

My daughter, Tiffany was calmer. 

She washed and put Neosporin on it.

Art and I have both been to the dermatologists to have some suspicious lumps removed on our faces and chest.  The Physician's Assistant (P.A.) and nurse said we should not put Neosporin on the healing skin.  They told us to put Vaseline on it instead and to not let it dry out too quickly. 

My son-in-law looked on line.  We all tried to figure out the best way to deal with this.  Neosporin or Vaseline?  Bandage or air dry?

We finally decided to put Vaseline on the injury and cover it for the first couple of days.  Then we periodically air dried it (with a dab of Vaseline) when we knew she would be in a cleaner environment. 

Each night, KC asked me to hold her while Tiffany cleaned her knees with soap and water.

Eventually the left scrape healed pretty well.  After more than a month we're not sure what the scarring will be on the right knee.

I asked Tif to send me a photo of what her knee looks like now.

Did we do the right thing?  I sure hope so.

But... what's that other band aid for?!?

It seems she scraped it on a loose screw.

Sigh....

Sugar Kissed

I'm going to take a little break from writing about our family happenings to tell you about this melon I've discovered.

I learn so much from the friends I spend time with in Zumba class.  I'd mentioned how we had Yubari melon in Hokkaido and how super sweet it was.  It was also super expensive.  Just buying one slice to share cost almost $4.00.

I told them that much as I love cantaloupes and honeydew melons, I  had a hard time judging if they would be sweet.  My Zumba friend, Chris said I should try Sugar Kiss melons.  "Trust me," she said.  "Once you try it, you'll never go back to the other melons."

Chris explained that I should press the navel side of the melon, not the stem.  If it feels a little soft, it's ready to eat.

Art and I saw it at the market and decided to give it a try.  Oh my gosh!  Chris is right!  It is the SWEETEST melon I've ever had in the U.S.

When mom ate the melon for dessert tonight, her face broke out in a surprised smile.  "This is just as sweet as the Yubari,"  she said.  "It's amazing!

OK, Chris also mentioned the Envy apple.  I looked for that too, but didn't see it.  I'll be keeping a look out.

POSTSCRIPT:  We did try the Envy apple.  They were very good, but we're not sure we're willing to pay so much more for the Envy when a good Fuji will do.  The Envy apple is crispier, but I'm not sure it's much sweeter.  We also tried the Honey Kiss and Summer Kiss melons, but they were not quite as good as the Sugar Kiss.

Keola and Sarah's Last Day

This was Keola and Sarah's last day with us.  We were grateful that Tiffany and her family were able to stay for a few more weeks.  We wished Keola and Sarah could have stayed longer than two weeks, but a life of responsibilities was waiting for them back in Washington, D.C.

We'd always meant to open this bottle of port on Art's birthday and had totally forgotten.  We went to Portugal in 2003 on our own and had a fabulous time.  A wine expert there told us that port should be held for 15 years before opening and then consumed quickly.

Tucked away in our basement in Chicago and a closet in Hawaii, the port was now 20 years old.  We were finally able to open it and I must tell you that it was very good!  Hmmm... We should have bought two bottles.

It's rather funny to think that we didn't see our son for over two years and then suddenly we've seen him twice in one year, first in Bangladesh and now in Hawaii.

But now it was time to part again.

It was not easy.

Return to the Big Island - Day #3

This would be our last day on the Big Island and perhaps the most important.  Art wanted to bring the whole family to see where he was born and raised.

It's a long drive from Kona to Honokaa so we needed another early start.







The long drive took us through dry, volcanic wasteland.  It always amazes me to think that Ironmen (and women) athletes bike through this merciless terrain.






We then stopped at Spencer Beach Park in Kawaihae where Art often came with his family to picnic and swim.

We had a short stop in Waimea where we could see the observatories at the top of Mauna Kea.  It had been too cloudy and rainy on our first Big Island day to see much of anything.










The Parker Ranch Shopping Center had these fun stop signs.

It was wonderful to be back in Honokaa.  I could just imagine Art walking along the streets as a young boy.

We stopped at Tex Drive-In like we always do.  It used to be a pretty worn out drive-in until the Japanese movie, Honokaa Boy came out.

The drive-in was now renovated and crowded with mostly Japanese tourists.

I had their teriyaki beef sandwich and it was delicious!  I never got to try their square malasadas.  We'll try it on our next trip.

We stopped at the local market to pick up bundles of flowers for our next important stop.

We presented flowers at the temple columbarium where Art's parents' ashes are kept and gave our prayers of homecoming and gratitude.

Someday, KC will understand the sacrifices and hard work that her great grandparents suffered so that our lives would be better.


We also stopped at the outdoor cemetery where many other relatives are buried.

Heading back into Honokaa, we stopped by what used to be Art's parents' restaurant and soda fountain, the Sweet Shoppe.  It was now a grocery store.

Across the street was The People's Theatre.  It was once owned by close family friends.  Art's dad was the projectionist and later manager for decades.  He died less than a year after retiring from his restaurant and theatre jobs.

We were amazed at how beautiful the theatre now looked.  It had a fresh coat of paint and looked new again.  Like the town, the theatre appeared to be rejuvenated.

We were happy to see the theatre open so we could go in and show KC where her grandpa used to spend a lot of time.

I saw this Madagascar lizard skittering on the walls.  I thought it was a rubber lizard until I saw it move.  I've never seen anything like it in Hawaii before.

Art showed KC some movie slides that even had his dad's handwriting on it.

I recall my father-in-law had excellent penmanship.

Keola bought Art and himself matching People's Theatre t-shirts and some coffee to bring to Art's cousin's house in Hilo.

We mentioned to the cashier how Art's dad used to work there so they called Phaethon, the owner's daughter.

"Are you Jiro's son?" she asked.  Art was stunned that she would know his dad's name.

Phaethon brought us upstairs where I know memories of the past must have overwhelmed Art.

We loved talking to Phaethon and her dad, Tawn who we learned later is a doctor.  They have brought the theatre back to its former glory.

Later, Phaethon gave us more t-shirts so we could all wear one, as well as some Hamakua coffee to bring home to Oahu.

Meeting such beautiful, generous people and knowing how Tawn and Phaethon were preserving the past and building a future where the theatre would once again become the heart of the town filled us with joy.

Arriving in Hilo, we stopped at the Two Ladies Kitchen to buy strawberry mochi.













Big Island Candies was next so Tif could bring cookies home as gifts to Chicago.  The cookies are expensive but so good.

Art's cousins had prepared a huge picnic dinner for us and laden us with more food to bring home with us to Oahu.

It was dark by the time we returned home.




We'd always laughingly joked that we should have a family t-shirt.  Now we had the People's Theatre shirts. (Well... mom's is actually from Japan, but that's OK.  It's the same color.)

We took this last photo before Keola and Sarah left to return to Washington, D.C.

This was our first time together after five years.  We hoped it wouldn't be another five before we all came together again.

Whatever the case, we would always hold very precious memories of this special time.

Return to the Big Island - Day #2

Our second day on the Big Island was met with sunshine and dewdrops.

We all went out to take photos of the beauty we found around our cabin.

We went back to the Crater Rim Cafe for breakfast.  I really wished we could stay there another day as we saw nene geese waddling around the camp looking for food.

We drove to Kilauea crater to see steam billowing from the crater.

Our next stop was Punalu'u Black Sand Beach Park.

The black sand is actually pulverized lava.

We were surprised to see this turtle sunning himself on the beach seemingly unfazed by people staring at him.

Then we saw on the other side of the park... 9 turtles basking on the rocks!

I was captivated by the pond with water lilies and water hyacinths.

Seven year old KC loved watching the ducks who seemed to want to play with her.

Our drive to Kona gave us a chance to revisit the City of Refuge, Pu'uhonua O Honaunau.


I got this from the National Park Service website:

"Imagine you had just broken the sacred laws, the kapu, and the only punishment was death.  Your only chance of survival is to elude your pursuers and reach the Pu'uhonua, a place of refuge.  The Pu'uhonua protected the kapu breaker, defeated warriors, as well as civilians during the time of battle.  No harm could come to those who reached the boundaries of the place of refuge."

The blazing sun was brutal for KC, but she loved playing with the Hawaiian checkers like game.  I did share my solar umbrella with her.

Unlike the day before, our 2nd day on the Big Island had quite a bit of sun.  Everybody decided a stop at this fruit stand to buy smoothies was a must.

Kealakekua Bay was once settled by the Hawaiian people.  This is where Captain Cook was supposed to have stopped for several weeks and then after a skirmish was killed.

I was able to take a photo of the Captain Cook monument across the bay with my long lens.

We had a lot of coffee drinkers in our group so a stop at Greenwell Coffee Farm seemed like a fun idea.

We got to see coffee plants laden with coffee cherries.  Because the cherries don't ripen at the same time, it is very labor intensive to pick them.

Wayne told us that many coffee growers bring their coffee cherries to be stripped and roasted at Greenwell Farm. Kona coffee, grown in a 30 mile Kona belt supplies the whole world with this precious brew.  

The beans are separated from the pulp with this pulper machine.  I think Wayne said the pulp is then eaten by pigs.
























The beans are then slow roasted.

The best part of the coffee tour for Sarah, Ed, and Keola was the coffee tasting.

I found it very interesting too.  The different roasts had distinctive tastes and all were wonderful.









 Yup.  Art bought a t-shirt.

Tiffany and KC enjoyed buying a book and meeting the author who autographed it for her.

It was a long, eventful, fun-filled day and we were ready for dinner and rest!

On the following day, we would be going to Art's hometown of Honokaa and then returning to Hilo to catch our flight back to Oahu.

Return to the Big Island - Day #1

One special thing Art wanted to do for his birthday was to bring his children and grandchild back to his birth island.

And so it was that we got up extremely early and headed out from the Honolulu International Airport for Hilo International Airport on the Big Island.

There we rented a van so we could all go in one car.  Mom was happy to stay home instead of doing more traveling.  She was worried about the swelling in her legs after returning from Hokkaiko.

We grabbed a quick breakfast at Cafe 100 in Hilo.

Yes, yes, I know it's not healthy, but we don't count calories very religiously when we travel.

Our next stop was Rainbow Falls in Hilo.  The waterfall was brown and strong due to heavy rainfall which would plague us intermittently throughout the day.

We drove on Saddle Road.

Route 200, known locally as Saddle Road, traverses the width of the Island of Hawai'i, from downtown Hilo to its junction with Hawaii Route 190 near Waimea. The road was considered one of the most dangerous paved roads in the state, with many one-lane bridges and areas of marginally maintained pavement. Most of the road has now been repaved, and major parts have new re-alignments to modern standards. The highway reaches a maximum elevation of 6,632 feet (2,021 m) and is subject to fog and low visibility.
                 -- Wikipedia

Art says he thinks it's called Saddle Road because it sits like a saddle between Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea.

We arrived at the Onizuka Center for International Astronomy.  Ellison Onizuka is the Big Island astronaut who perished in the Space Shuttle Challenger tragedy.

Art, Tif, Ed, Keola and Sarah were planning to go up to the top of Mauna Kea to see the observatories there.  There's often snow at the top.  Mauna Kea means White Mountain in Hawaiian.  I stayed at the Onizuka Center with KC because it is advised not to take children up to such a high elevation.

Art said it was so overcast at the top that they couldn't see a single thing.

KC and I had a great time as she explored the gift shop for all the things she would beg her parents to get her once they returned.

OK... I confess.  I bought this mug. Someday, I'll have to bequeath it to KC.

Rain started falling but we needed to visit the Thurston Lava Tube.

A lava tube is a natural conduit formed by flowing lava which moves beneath the hardened surface of a lava flow. Tubes can be actively draining lava from a volcano during an eruption, or can be extinct, meaning the lava flow has ceased and the rock has cooled and left a long, cave-like channel.
                       -- Wikipedia

There were lots and lots of puddles that we had to jump over.

Devastation Trail was the next stop.  We let the younger crew walk the trail in the rain while we took KC in the van to meet them at the end.

Art had made reservations to stay at the Kilauea Military Camp.  For a very reasonable price, we were able to rent this 3 bedroom cabin for the night.  It was absolutely fabulous!  I would love to have stayed there for the rest of the trip.  I wish we'd known about this place when our kids were little.

After drying out, KC wrote postcards to her friends and we grabbed a buffet dinner at the Crater Rim Cafe.  All in all, it was a wonderful day!