Hawaii

I love Hawaii!  The Big Island is so different than Kauai and Ouahu. It's much more barren and desert like.  The whole island is covered in lava flows so even the beaches are rugged (at least where we were).  Mom and I stayed at the King Kamehameha resort in Kona.  It was an interesting little place.  We didn't have a car, and it's hard to see a lot on the big island without a car because everything is spread out due to the lava flows.  So, we didn't do a lot of sight-seeing, but that was fine by both of us.  We spent most of our time reading and relaxing and enjoying the quaintness of the area.  For Hawaii, Kona is a pretty busy little place.  I mean little too.  I am sure there is more to the city than we saw, but the part by the ocean is packed full of shops and people.  It's really hard to describe.  It was such a different feel than the other parts of Hawaii that I have been to.  Apparently a lot of people love Kona and come back year after year.  I personally prefer the more rural, slow paced areas like Kauai.  But it was especially fun to see the people who lived there in Kona.  Their lifestyles are so much simpler than ours. Not that that makes life easy, they have to work hard to maintain anything cause the cost of living is so high, but...life just seems simpler there.

A few things I love about Hawaii: first, the fruit.  Oh my goodness.  I love fruit and they have tons and tons of delicious fruit there.

This is the one fresh coconut I got while I was there.  It is tragic, but in the continental United States I have never tasted really delicious fresh coconut.  This one is a young coconut.  Oh so delicious.  The man selling it at the farmers market made a hole in it and put a straw in so I could drink the coconut juice and then we took it back to him and he cracked it open so I could eat the fruit.  Heaven.  It's so tender and juicy and sweet.  Ah- I just crave it.  So sad I can't get it here!!  The man was nice enough to make me a "spoon" to scoop the coconut out of the shell by hacking (yes hacking) off the outside of another coconut so I could use the smooth side as a scoop.  Awesome.

I also love this little fruit call rambutan.  It's a crazy looking little fruit, yes?

To eat this deliciousness you peel off the outside, the red prickly looking part is a skin, and you eat the inside.  It's a good mouthful and has a big seed in the middle.  The fruit is a very light white color and it is about the consistency of a grape.  Oh so delicious.  It's sweet with a mild flavor almost like coconut, but not quite.

Another delicious one we had that I don't have a picture of is longan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longan) which is similar to the rambutan.  It doesn't have any pokeys- it just looks like a dark nutshell.  You peel the outer skin and eat the inside which has a smaller seed in the middle.  It's less sweet than the rambutan, but has a similar mild, juicy taste.  

Finally, one of my favorite things to enjoy on Hawaii is the Hawaiian shave ice. Ah-Maze-Ing!  I had at least one every day that I was there.  SOoooooo good!  My favorite flavor thus far is raspberry.  While we were in Kona, I tried them from a few different places and let me inform you that all hawaiian shave ice shacks are not created equal.  Hawaiian shave ice (for those who don't know) is like a snow cone (but ten times better!) except that the ice is shaved to a much finer consistency and generally speaking the syrup that they flavor it with is better.  The best part- you can get vanilla ice cream either in the middle or at the bottom of it.  Let me recommend that if you ever go to Hawaii, you partake of this delicious goodness.  In Kona I stopped at a shack that was really good up by the grocery store and drug store, but closer to us there was a place called Scandinavian Shave Ice (no idea why) and they also had excellent options.  Mom and I went there more than once. 

Mom's- Raspberry, lychee, and i think pineapple

pure raspberry for me!

Soooo good!

Mom's come to visit multiple times in the last year and I never get pictures of her, so I told her this time she had to be in some of my pictures!

Pictures from Kona:

These are the grounds for the palace below.

This is King Kamehameha's palace.  It's interesting to me the difference between a palace here than so many other places in the world.

This was the first Christian church built in the Hawaiian islands

And this is a very small cemetery that goes with the church.  The people here are mostly missionaries who came to the islands.

The trees on this island grow huge root systems above ground because of the lava.  It's awesome to see.

Just an ocean side restaurant that gets a lot of business at night!

The hotel was right by a long pier so a lot of ships would come and go.  People would also swim in the bay area in the morning (as in laps, not just fun) and there were a lot of people that would kayak or canoe.  This is the little shack that rented out the canoes and kayaks and who knows what else.

Saturday, Dad flew in for his business trip and mom and I took a (very expensive) taxi up to Waikoloa which is on the northwest end of the main island. We stayed in the Marriott resort there cause that's where Dad's convention was.  When we got to our room and saw the view I said to her "I think it's a crime that there are places this beautiful in the world and I am living in DC".  Yes, that was my general feeling on the trip.  Certainly I was glad to return to my home, but the winter here has been so dreary and miserable.  The area is so urban and busy and high strung.  It has been an awesome experience to be here, I wouldn't give it up for the world and I might end up staying after graduation, but when I stepped off the plane in Honolulu, I entered a whole new world for the next six days.  It really was paradise.  It was refreshing to see natural beauty and life after gray, cold, snow and ice storms.  So here are some pictures I took at the Marriott, most of the are from our lanai (a patio sort of thing).  I'll share more about Waikoloa later, but this is enough for one post, don't you think?