What Do We Do When We Don't Have Visitors?

Well for starters, we love having visitors because we really miss everyone and, to be honest, we don't have too much of a social life here! But, we aren't just sitting around when no one is around either. Friday night was our 2 month anniversary and also Black and White Night in Hilo. We decided to celebrate at Pesto Cafe, one of our favorite restaurants in Hilo. The food was delicious! We had the coconut crusted calamari to start with. Adam had the Mahi Mahi special and I had the seafood risotto. We skipped dessert, but they all looked really good. They had a guitar player and a singer in the cafe which was really nice too.

Here we are! Cheers!

After dinner, we walked around town a little bit to see what Black and White Night is all about. It's basically a festival to stimulate all the businesses in Hilo. Everyone wears black and white and all the stores stay open late and have lots of specials. We just did some window shopping and then met up with some friends (yes friends!) from work for some drinks.

Here we are with Julianne, an OT that works with Adam, Laura another OT who works with Adam, and Laura's husband, Prabu who is pharmacy school here on the big island:

A while back we decided to check out this natural lava pool that our guide book says is a natural hot tub. Supposedly the lava below heats the water and you can jump in and hang out in it. I don't know about you... but do you see those waves??

We were not about to jump into that.... I think we both would have perished! Sounded like a good idea in the book. To get here, we had to hike about a mile off the side of a road through this really thick and buggy forest. Needless to say this was a let down!

I know we posted about the volcano before when Kim was here, but we actually went back after she left to hike the 4 mile trail that goes right through the crater. It was a really interesting hike that went through rain forest that changed into barren volcanic land. It, of course, rained the entire time!

Good thing we both have ponchos!

Another weekend we went to Kona all by ourselves! We did some snorkeling back at a place that we had been to with Kim, but hadn't had the chance to snorkel at. We don't have our own underwater camera yet so we couldn't take any pictures of all the fish we saw. But, we did some turtles sunning themselves on the beach and snapped a picture:

Every Wednesday and Saturday there is a huge farmers market in downtown Hilo. There are tons of vendors there with every type of exotic fruit and vegetable you can imagine. Plus there are all kinds of cheese, breads, all sorts of jewelry, arts, crafts, and even sushi. We went one weekend and bought some tomatoes and avocados. Apparently, you have to be really careful with the avocados here. Since there are so many varieties, they can be very unpredictable. Some are too watery, some too mealy, and some just funny tasting. We didn't really like the ones we bought.... I think if we had taken some more time with our selection, we could have picked some good ones... oh well!

Here is what the market looks like from the street - it's much more impressive once you're inside:

What do we spend most of our time doing on the weekends? We pretty much hang out at the beach! We found this great beach called Richardson's that we've become regulars at. This beach is absolutely gorgeous!

This picture doesn't even look real!

The beach is black sand and you can see the volcano in the background. It's a little rocky but there is a path of sand you can walk out into the water.

We've become pretty good snorkelers too!
This day was particularly clear and you could really see the volcano:

This picture is taken from the same spot but in a different direction:

Now, there are lot of interesting people that hang out at this beach. There are signs clearly stating that no dogs are allowed but yet, there is usually more than one dog on the beach. Also, last time I checked marijuana was an illegal drug.... yet there are people enjoying it openly here on this beach! Today, there was one guy playing his guitar.... he was really good! Then there was another guy playing the flute. Last weekend though, we had some real eye candy! The men here, the older ones that is, tend to wear very little on the beach.... lots of speedos. But this guy was special.

Meet our new friend: BH. That is the nick name we gave him and we'll give you a prize if you guess what it stands for!

PS - he's not really our friend!

Well, that all for now. Sues and Chris are coming this week and we can't wait!