Our Last Day in Paradise!

January 26, 2009

Aloha!

Our last post from Paradise before our departure tomorrow morning!

Up about the usual time – 6-ish, but this morning, as we’ve had SO much food the past two weeks, we decided to eat what was in the condo – fruit, cheese, crackers … and had a leisurely morning. Around 9:30 we headed out and north, past the airport, and followed the coast road toward Waimea. Again, a fairly overcast morning, but very warm and balmy. We stopped at the Waikoloa resort area, where we’ve stayed numerous times – but now the Royal Waikoloan had been turned into a Marriott, and an entire new shopping area – the Queen’s Shops, has been added across the street to the King’s Shops! Again, there were luxury stores – Tiffany, Coach, Louis Vuitton – and there were empty spaces from recently closed stores and restaurants. Walked around, saw some petroglyphs, then continued north. Lovely drive to Waimea, with the exception of some road construction. Literally, we were waiting almost 15 minutes for traffic in the other direction to come through! Amazing mess!

Made it to Merriman’s in Waimea about 12:15 for R’s birthday lunch, treated by Mom. Lovely restaurant, and a very interesting lunch menu. Mom had her favorite, and their specialty, Korean short-ribs with kim-chee (a first for Mom, and she liked it!) and rice. R (the “almost” birthday boy) had their wok-seared (very rare) ahi plate, with rice and salad. I had their cobb salad – all organic and island ingredients, with sweet corn; it was wonderful! For dessert, Mom had a macadamia/chocolate/coconut wafer with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce. R and I split a dish of wonderful vanilla bean ice cream with homemade macadamia nut cookies. Walked around Merriman’s herb garden outside the restaurant – makes us want to grow herbs and tomatoes now!

Decided that in order to avoid the construction zone, we would heat south toward the Saddle Road, and from there took the upper road back to Kona; got back around 3:30; just in time for naps!

Again, have eaten out of the fridge this evening, as nobody really hungry. Instead, organized and packed up in preparation for tomorrow, when we’ll leave the condo by 6:30 a.m. So, Dear Friends and Gentle Readers, that about sums up our wonderful trip to Paradise! Hope to hear from you soon, and we will let you know when next we head out for our next adventure!!
Much love,
m

An Incredibly Lazy Sunday!

Robert caught me glancing in a jewelry store window ...

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January 26, 2009

Aloha, from Kona, Hawaii!!

Not exactly sure what happened to yesterday – Sunday – because I don’t think anything useful and/or interesting was accomplished! Rather, it was a wonderful, restful kind of day!

Woke around 6 to the ever-present (as long as you keep the sliding doors open!) sounds of surf. There seems to be a group of 5 or 6 surfers who call the area in front of our condo complex “home” – and they were out fairly early. They’re fun to watch – sometimes they concentrate on incoming waves and are pretty good at it, and at others they’ll all gather together on their surfboards like they’re having coffee together! (And by the way, for you coffee drinkers … A pound of Kona coffee was selling for $22 at the farmer’s market in Hilo the other day, and R and Mom were absolutely aghast…until yesterday morning, in the grocery store, when they found ½ a pound of Kona coffee – for $22! So! Yes, I know, we should have gotten it in Hilo! Who knew?!) Headed into town to look for food, and remembered Buns In The Sun bakery from our last visit. A very nice place; excellent pastries! I had a wonderful lemon poppyseed muffin with chocolate milk. R and Mom both had blueberry scones and coffee (now I know why the bill was so high!) We walked along the shops – found some interesting breakfast places, but none of us were looking for Bento boxes or “pig” breakfasts…(You know, there is something about ordering and eating a “pig” sandwich that does NOTHING for me, although I LOVE pulled pork! What a difference a name makes!) Went into the grocery store for water, newspaper, and more cheese and crackers (and Cheezits)…

Back to the condo for what R calls our “morning naps” – think we all fell asleep at one point or another, waking up – I kid you not – in time for LUNCH! Headed this time south, to Drysdale’s II in the Keahou Center. While it’s a lovely temperature – in the high 70’s, but very overcast, (uncharacteristic for this part of the Big Island) it’s not so warm that we really want to get into the water and snorkel! So…Mom had a tuna sandwich, I had ham and cheese, and R had a shrimp basket. Again, SUCH a lazy day, that we spent some of the afternoon reading and sleeping off lunch! However, gathered ourselves together around 3 and drove into Kona (about 2 miles distant) for a look around. Have to say that it looks like the economic difficulties that have affected the rest of the U.S. are making themselves felt here as well. Not sure if it’s in the manner of fewer tourists (because this side of the island depends ENTIRELY on tourist dollars with the very minor exception of some coffee growing) or what, but we’ve not seen one parasailing adventure (meaning and R and Mom will have to find another venue to go up again!) and lots and lots of shops and restaurants are closed! The shopping mall that houses Drysdale’s II had a great many vacancies, and many of the shops/restaurants in town are likewise. Very sad! (For anyone interested, the Hard Rock Café on this island has also closed!)

We did walk through town; lovely along the sea wall. The Palace on this island is closed for renovation from the 2006 earthquake, but the lovely church just opposite (oldest in Hawaii – dates from 1820) was open, in good shape, and lovely with its dark woods and stained glass. Also wandered through another farmer’s market, where R was tempted by some fruit – but we decided that as we’re leaving early tomorrow, we didn’t want to buy anything we weren’t sure we’d use!

Back to the condo, where I used one of my LUSH bath bombs (this one spilling out flower petals and silver bells!) for a leisurely soak, and then we all headed out to Jackie Re’s for dinner. (If it seems like all we do is eat and read and sleep, you’re RIGHT! This is the perfect place for it!) Jackie’ Re’s was WONDERFUL! A very colorful restaurant with lots of fairy lights, and excellent service. As we’d been eating so much, Mom decided on a salad – greens, tomatoes, olives, homemade hummus, garlic pita bread, feta cheese and cucumbers. R and I ate off the appetizer menu! They have a puupuu platter for 2, which included grilled marinated shrimp, barbequed short ribs, a crab cake and tempura vegetables. With that we also had an order of wonton wrapped shrimp stuffed with crab meat (the best EVER!) as well as our own order of hummus and garlic pita bread. And, while I say we were STUFFED, that didn’t stop Mom and me from ordering dessert … although in retrospect, I wish it had…Mom had fruit gelato, and I had a chocolate chiffon cake with coconut buttercream frosting … as well as vanilla ice cream with chocolate on it … Obviously not a light dessert, that’s for sure!

And, on that note we headed back to the condo, and I was so sleepy (from what?) and FULL that I headed straight to bed … hence the lateness of this blog!

So, Gentle Readers, that’s it from this lazy and idyllic island for the moment!!
Much love,
m

More views from our balcony!

Kona by the Sea!

A GREAT place to stay!
m

Paradise is for real!

January 24, 2009

Aloha!

Have I mentioned that I could really get used to this Paradise thing?? Whew! Okay, to start with dinner last night (Friday). We decided to head to Café Pesto as 1) we love the food there, and 2) don’t have to get dressed up! (Not that one has to get dressed up for anything on the Hilo side, for sure!) Restaurant was comfortably full but not crowded, and we got a great table by the window. A guitarist was singing away, which made the decibels rather loud, but other than that, no problems! Mom started with a bowl of beef stroganoff soup. It looked great, and she said it was terrific! R and I had salads – wonderful native-grown lettuce and tomatoes, mine with pesto dressing, R’s with a garlic herbed vinaigrette. Mom followed her soup with the Volcano Mist salad – native greens, mozzarella, tomatoes and eggs with a generous helping of very delicately battered onion rings! YUM! R and I both chose their filet steak, (also Island “grown”) with pats of Gorgonzola, garlic mashed potatoes and wokked veggies. GREAT! To finish up the meal, Mom had crème bruleé, R had a Granny Smith apple crumble (with Macadamia nuts), and I had their chocolate flourless torte with raspberry sauce … again, we waddled from the restaurant! Back and in bed by 9; such night owls we are!!

Awoke about 6:30 a.m. to see Holland America’s ship the Rotterdam cruising right past our balcony! How neat! Again went to Ken’s House of Pancakes for breakfast (a very good habit!) Mom had eggs, bacon, toast and milk. R and I had their cheese & bacon burger, R’s with fries and mine with hash browns. Ken’s is apparently one of the few places on the entire island open 24 hours, and they serve anything any time!

Back to the hotel to get assembled and check out. Into the car and going by 9. Took a very, very leisurely path back up past Volcano National Park and towards Kona, our final destination. Stopped at an amazing black sand beach at Punalu’u; truly BLACK, and very coarse. Then took the 12 mile South Point road to the southern-most point in the entire United States! Really windy; a bit scary, but there were folks jumping off the cliffs and into the water! It was really clear in the water … we were tempted, but managed to resist…being scared of heights, I’m not sure I would have survived the drop!!

From there we headed around the south end of the island, stopping at Manago Hotel for lunch. For anyone who hasn’t been there, it’s quite a place! A family-owned and run hotel for the past 70 years or so – very basic; TV in the lobby, none in the rooms; no telephone – but a really good, basic restaurant that serves basic style food. One menu, posted on the wall – R had their fresh ahi, grilled in garlic butter; I had their specialty, pork chops; Mom had shrimp stir fry. They always serve three side dishes, which change daily. Today we had incredible macaroni salad (and I’m not normally a macaroni-salad gal!), stir fried vegetables and sugared, stir-fried bean sprouts. Everything was great, but the portions are HUGE – and truly quite a bargain, as the bill for the 3 of us was something like $39! (A REAL surprise in Hawaii!)

From the Manago it wasn’t too far to our hotel, the “Kona by the Sea” – and it is absolutely STUNNING!! We are in apartment 206, second floor, directly facing the ocean which comes crashing in at regular intervals! We’ve got 2 bedrooms and 2 full bathrooms, a lovely and fully equipped kitchen, dining room, living room, and balcony; also flat-screen cable TV and internet access; who could ask for me?! (Have taken lots of pictures, so you can see!) I could definitely get used to this! Got settled in, and, as there is a washer and dryer in the unit (and yes, I continue to have laundry issues…) I started washing. Mom and R settled down for naps; a lovely and relaxing afternoon! Eventually, though, it occurred to us that what we were really lacking was wine! So, headed over to Costco. for gas and wine. … and ended by picking up a roasted chicken and wonderful spinach/bacon salad for dinner at the apartment! Oh yes! Wine, too!!

Had a lovely dinner on the balcony watching the sun set; just a beautiful setting, and great food too! (As R said, we were really needing a break from restaurant meals!)
And so ends another wonderful day in Paradise!

More tomorrow, where it looks like we may hit the water after all!
Much love,
m

And last for today...

Katy -
What's the plant??
m

More falling and tumbling water!

These are all pictures as we headed along the coast!
m

Waterfalls galore!!!

January 23, 2009 – Friday – Real Time!

Aloha!

Have now actually caught up with what we’ve been doing until today, Friday, our last day in Hilo! Will be keeping on top of things from here on – I should have known better than to try NOT to blog, as even as we were traveling, I was blogging in my brain! (Which may tell everyone a little bit about my brain, in which case, I’d be frightened!)

Got up about 6:30-ish this morning, to a pouring rain! (Editor’s note: The weather forecast for Hilo had called for three solid days of showers, and this is the first time they’ve actually arrived during the day; so much for forecasts!) Got ourselves together and headed back to Ken’s House of Pancakes for breakfast. Mom had cottage cheese on peaches (and I’ll omit the part about Robert asking her to eat it at the next table…) R had a HUGE BLT with hash browns, and I had sausage and hash browns and chocolate milk. Mom decided that she wanted to just hang out at the hotel today, so R and I took off alone to explore the coast north of Hilo…in the rain! (Fortunately, we’d purchased new travel umbrellas at the ABC store at the Hilton Hawaiian Village, so we were prepared!)

I found a really good guidebook, Hawaii, The Big Island Revealed, at Borders on Wednesday night, and the drive up to Honoka’a was amazing! We dallied on back roads as much as possible, and saw lots of waterfalls and beautiful beaches. Akaka Falls was especially beautiful! This side of the island has been devastated twice since 1947 with tsunami’s, which wiped out entire communities and lots of people. Stopped at a memorial site; so hard to imagine the size of the waves that were able to take out roads and bridges and buildings! And, just like in California, people then rebuild in many of these same places! Duh!!!

Arrived in Honoka’a right about lunchtime, but this was one time that we really chose poorly! Opted for Café Il Mondo – UGH! R had a very odd veggie calzone – unlike any calzone we’d ever seen! And my pork sandwich with onions and spinach really truly needed a HUGE jolt of bbq sauce! From there, we headed into Waimea, past the observatory office (and no, we didn’t stop…) and on to the Saddle Road. Now, for anyone who has been to the Big Island, it is noted on most car rental contracts that coverage does NOT extend to the Saddle Road! So, please don’t anybody tell Thrifty on us! It is a really good highway now, though, but because many tourists believe that it’s a terrible road to drive on, there is very little traffic; made a good way to get back to Hilo in a much shorter time! We did enjoy some blue skies and sunshine while on the Saddle Road – which quickly turned back to rain and clouds the closer we got to Hilo!

Have now decided to go back to Café Pesto for dinner tonight. Hopefully not too much of a crowd, and we’ll be able to see what’s happening in Hilo on a Friday night! Tomorrow morning we’ll pack up and move towards Kona and the Kona by the Sea condo, where our last three nights will be!

More later!
m

Lava Tree State Park and beaches in Puna

Hopefully this blog will be a little better spelled!
m

Moving on to Volcano National Park!

Various views of the craters -- lots of activity!
m