Sues and Chris on the Big Island

For this post, I'm going to refer you to Susie's blog. We are having an awesome time with them! We were in Kona last weekend and plan to head over to Honolulu this weekend. It's the rainiest we've ever seen it here in Hilo this week.... poor Sues and Chris! So, Sues and Chris are heading over to Kona tomorrow to get out of the wet and they're leaving us behind! Check back on the Big Island Travel Blog for more stories to come! Mahalo!

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!

Not THE Big Island, but A big island: Our Honeymoon in Aruba

By the time we left for our honeymoon, we were exhausted! We had soooo much fun with all of our friends and family but we were pretty much non-stop for at least the two weeks prior to leaving for Aruba. When we planned our trip to Aruba, we didn't know we'd be going to Hawaii so soon after our return. With travel PT everything is pretty last minute.... so were still in the negotiating phase with the people here in Hawaii when we left for Aruba.

Anyway, we finally made it, and it was a welcome sigh of relief from all of our recent excitement. For the first 5 nights we stayed at the Renaissance Hotel down town in Oranjestad. This hotel definitely has a more city feel to it with lots of shopping, places to eat, and an all night casino. Here we are, right off the plane, jumping right into relaxation mode:

At the outdoor hotel bar: Blue

This hotel had a pool that was raised above the street. You can see the Caribbean across the street in background:

From the first floor of the Renaissance, you could hop on a boat to their private island. It was about a 10 min boat ride and worth every minute!

Here we are on the boat:

The beach on the island was amazing. Beautiful white sand, swaying palm trees, hammocks sprinkled all over the place, a tropical bar... who could ask for more? There are two different beaches on the island. One is for anyone. We though the sand on this beach was a little less rocky and we enjoyed it's proximity to the bar. The other beach was adults only. We were going to stay away from this beach, but we heard it had some flamingos....so we decided to check it out.... for the "flamingos".

Here's one of the hammocks we mentioned.... can't you just picture my Dad here?!?!

Besides "flamingos" the private island had lots of other wildlife to offer us. Here is one of the many iguanas roaming around the island... they were everywhere.
One early morning we were the first people to the island and had it all to ourselves. We spent quite a while watching crabs dig themselves out from under the sand. This one kept trying to get out of the sand but would see the two of us and then rebury himself. I guess we're easily amused!
Since we weren't sure what the final numbers would be for our wedding until the last minute, we weren't sure how much money we'd have left over for our honeymoon. To ensure that we could enjoy ourselves we decided to register for some of the things we wanted to make sure we had time to do. We were lucky enough that ALL of our gifts from our honeymoon registry were given to us! The first activity that we registered for was the Mi Dushi Sunset Lovers Cruise given to us by our good friends Lesa and Matt. This was an AWESOME cruise! We met some really nice people and basically just relaxed for a few hours on the open sea. They had an open bar and the crew was super nice. Here we are on the hammock at the front of the boat:

They also had a rope swing that you could swing right into the water with! I was a little nervous about this but decided I had to give it a shot:

(I know - a really attractive shot of me!)

Here's Adam showing off with a back flip!

Since we had so much fun with one of the couples we met on the Mi Dushi, we decided we should use our next gift the following night with them. Adam's parents, Jason, and Wil purchased us our bar crawl on the Kuku Kanuku. This was a wild ride! It started off by going to each participants' hotel. We were the first to be picked up, along with our new friends Laura and Blu. First stop was for a sunset on the beach with a champagne toast. Here's a good shot of the spectacle of a bus:
Our tour guide for the evening was Mama. She was absolutely crazy but a ton of fun. Here we are posing with our Mama:
Next stop was for dinner at some one's really beautiful mansion. Dinner was edible at best, but the company was great. The couple sitting across from us and at the end of the table are both from Boston. The girl sitting next to us was a physical therapy assistant.... so lots of great conversation with some really nice people.

So here's the deal with the Kuku Kanuku: You buy a sippy cup and get a "free" drink at each of the three bars you visit. If you want another drink you have to buy it. These drinks were quite strong and the sippy cup was no thimble. We have no idea where we were all night. The bus would go around these round abouts 4-5 times in a row honking it's horn and with all of us yelling and shaking our maracas that we had been given. At the second bar, we were welcomed by a surprise performance by the apparently reincarnated Michael Jackson:

And, as if that wasn't enough..... he actually got back on the bus with us and came to the third bar! The third bar was a trip. They had all these Mexican props for us to play with. It was like a Mexican Fiesta:

Beth doing the Mexican Hat Dance with our new friends cheering me on:

This evening ended with a search for pizza that resulted in finding some not so tasty hamburgers. All in all, it was enjoyable evening, and lucky for us, we got to sleep in the next morning!
Next up was our gift from our friends Erin, Kaine, and Kim. The bought us a Tom Car excursion and snorkel trip. A Tom Car is a four wheel drive vehicle that looks like this:


Adam had a ton of fun driving this thing around through sand and rocks. I was terrified for most of the time and screaming my head off! I was the only female on the trip and after doing it I understand why. We were absolutely covered from head to toe in dirt when we were done - and I mean absolutely covered. I was a little embarrassed walking back into the hotel when we were done.... that's how dirty we were.... ew! The tour was pretty cool and you got to see a lot of things that you wouldn't otherwise have access too. Here is a natural bridge formed by rock behind us. This one is actually called Baby Bridge. There used to be a bigger one, but it fell down a few years back.

The next day we packed up our things and moved to the Westin. Because we get points for SPG hotels, this portion of our honeymoon was FREE! This hotel was totally different from the Renaissance. It is in what is referred to as the "high rise" district of the island. This is on the west coast of the island and the beach is lined with hotel after hotel. There was a little more stress associated with this beach because if you wanted a cabana, you had to arrive early. If you didn't get a cabana, then you may as well lay yourself down on top of a fire because you will burn. This is pretty much what we looked like for most of our honeymoon:
You can see the beach is kind of crowded. We missed the peacefulness of the private island, but we by no means suffered here at the Westin! We should mention that, not only did we have enough points to have 5 nights for free here, but our wedding planner, Anne, completely hooked us up! She had us upgraded to a junior suite overlooking the water with not one, but two porches! We were also given a bottle of champagne and a free night at the Westin in Aruba to be used some time within the next two years! We feel incredibly lucky and really appreciate everything that Anne did to make our wedding day and honeymoon super special.
Anyway, here is the sunset from one of our two porches:

Next up is our barefoot dinner on the beach at the Westin given to us by our cousins Heidi, John, and their daughter Monica, and Lisa, Scott, and their kids Rachel, Lauren, and Matt. What a great gift! They made you take your shoes off as soon as you stepped on the beach. We had a 5 course meal that was delicious! Shrimp cocktail, escargot, Caesar salad, fillet Mignon and Mahi Mahi, and dessert (which we barely had any room for!). They also served us a bottle of champagne! Here we are before the sun went down:

A little romance between courses:

Dancing on the beach after dinner:

This was one of our best meals in Aruba and definitely our most memorable!

Our last gift was a couples' massage at the spa at the Westin given to us by Aunt Judy, Uncle Mike, and cousins Drew, Erin, Logan, Kennedy, Kati, and Greg. We thought it would be a little weird to take pictures of this, so we don't have any. But, we had an awesome time and were super relaxed afterward. We got a bottle of champagne and some chocolates afterwards too. Notice a trend? I think we had at least one bottle of champagne per day in Aruba and that doesn't count any mimosas we may have had in the early part of the day!

One of our last nights we met a nice couple at happy hour. There just happened to be a baggo set at the Westin, and we thought since this couple had never played, that it would be an easy win. We one the first two games, but then they kicked our butts the next three after Adam showed the guy the proper technique for throwing the bean bags.

They were pretty happy that they won:

We had an amazing time in Aruba and highly recommend it to anyone who wants a romantic vacation on a beautiful beach. The people of Aruba are all super nice and it's motto is "one happy island". We can see why and were really said to leave!

ADVENTURES WITH LESA AND MATT

We had our friends Lesa and Matt fly into Kona so we could meet them there after work on Friday. They arrived into Honolulu the day before and took in the sites there for a day before coming over to the Big Island. We met them with Leis at the airport and then headed over to our favorite hotel in Kona, the Sheraton. The Sheraton is right on Keauhou Bay and has Manta Ray viewings at night at their outdoor bar. We were skeptical at first about being able to see Manta Rays in the water at night..... but we did!

Lesa and Matt with their first Mai Tais and Leis

Beth and Lesa

We woke up early the next morning, grabbed a quick breakfast at the hotel and headed out for a Kayak trip to Captain Cook Monument. Since we had been so lucky with the manta rays, we figured that the statement "you'll probably see dolphins" on the kayaking brochure pretty much guaranteed we'd see dolphins. The guy that rented us the Kayaks was super nice and even gave us the Kama'aina (residential) discount. Adam and Matt had never been kayaking and were making fun of Lesa and I on the drive there.... we think they were just really nervous!

Here we are getting ready to put the kayaks in the bay:

We had a really great time and Lesa had purchased some underwater cameras. Unfortunately, we didn't use all the pictures, and since she's going to Key West soon, she's going to wait for a while to develop those pictures. I will tell you that we did NOT see any dolphins. It's about a mile paddle to Captain Cook Monument and back through Kealakekua Bay. Captain cook was an explorer who was killed by the Hawaiians when they discovered he was not immortal. The highlight of this trip was definitely the snorkeling. The water was really clear and they bay was pretty calm. We met some nice people at the monument who let us use some of their goggle defogger after Adam did some pro bono work on the one lady's jammed finger. Anyway, wish we had more pictures, but this is it.
Like most people who come to Hawaii, Matt and Lesa wanted to experience a Luau. It was challenging to find one offered on a Saturday night. We found one at the Fairmont Orchid Hotel, which was a little farther than wen wanted to travel, but we figured what the heck. We were a little disappointed when we first got there because the luau was so far away from the ocean. It was still a super beautiful setting, just not right on the water. We had more mai tais which were not as strong as the other Luau at the Royal Kona Hotel, but still good. They were pretty because they put live flowers in them. Beth only had one this time!

Here's Lesa and Matt enjoying a drink before dinner

On the last post we did about a Luau, we talked about poi and how much we wanted to like it but did not. I decided to keep an open mind and try it again at this Luau, and I was pleasantly surprised. This poi was much better. Like most people describe it, it didn't have too much flavor, and seemed to just take on the flavors of whatever else you were eating it with. Speaking of food, the spread at this Luau was amazing and much better than the Royal Kona. They had foods from all the different Polynesian Islands and everything was delicious!

Here's the poi


Adam and Beth getting ready for the show:

The show was absolutely disappointing. It was soooooo long and the dancers weren't that talented at all. One guy had no idea what he was doing and kept trying to copy the others. It was torture sitting through this.

The next day was another beautiful day in Kona, and also our last day in Kona. We woke up early again, headed to Java on the Rocks and then set out to see a coffee farm. We chose Kona Joe's, solely because it was the only one open on a Sunday.... we were pleasantly surprised!



Here's Adam outside the entrance before we went in. It's hard to tell but the blue behind him is the ocean meeting the sky.... it's hard to tell where one ends and the next begins.

We had a very nice tour guide from Brazil who showed us the inner workings on the factory. Here's the machine that sorts the beans into different sizes and qualities.Kona Joe's is world renowned because of their patented technique for growing their beans. Much like a winery, they use trellises to ensure maximal and even sunlight to ripen their beans.
Here's what the beans look like on the plants. At this stage they are actually called cherries:
Lesa and I after our great tour with free coffee:
We had a few short hours to kill before check out and wanted to make sure we made the most of the beautiful hotel pool. It's becoming a tradition that all those who visit Kona with Beth and Adam must ride and have their picture taken on the water slide..... Mom and Dad we hope you bring your bathing caps and nose plugs!

Here's Matt!

And Lesa:
We should also mention that the Sheraton gave us a fabulous upgrade for our stay. Our room was right over the manta ray viewing spot.... so anytime we wanted we could look out from our room and see them swimming below us. It was pretty sweet!
On our way out of Kona we stopped on the Kohala Coast to visit one of the world's best beaches per Conde Nast Traveler, Hapuna Beach. This beach was really pretty. Really soft white sand and tall palm trees. The water was pretty rough so Lesa and I only took a quick dip.



Here's Matt and Adam basking in the sun:

Lesa and Beth after their quick dip:

When we got back to Hilo that night, we stopped at our house to freshen up and then went out for some delicious Thai food.... yum! There is lots of good Thai food in Hilo.... but our favorite place is called Naung Mai Thai Kitchen. Spicy! After dinner we went for a walk on Banyan Drive. Banyan Drive is known for the impressive Banyan trees that were planted by all sorts of famous people. Here is one planted by Babe Ruth:
Matt and Adam leaning on a huge Banyan:
The next day was Monday and Adam and Beth had to work. But Lesa and Matt went to Volcano National Park for the day. When we got out of work, Lesa and Matt picked us up and we went back to the Lava viewing spot that we had been to with Kim. It was a little more impressive this time since there had been some big explosions the night before and made the lava flows even closer to the viewing site. Our camera wasn't taking very good pictures at this point... here's the best we could get:
The next night Matt had to fly back to Chicago. Lesa and I went out for a few drinks while Adam played basketball. Wednesday night after work, we met up with Lesa again to learn how to paddle board. Paddle boarding is pretty much standing up on a surf board and using paddle to steer yourself around. It wasn't as hard as we thought it was going to be, although Adam did fall off of his board twice! We were in some pretty calm waters since it was our first time. Beth's friend, Michelle, from work, came out to join us for a little while too. Our instructor's name is Herb and he's going to take us into Hilo Bay next time so we can try out some mild waves. Sues and Chris, we hope you're ready for that! Here's Herb on a paddle board:
The next day Lesa had to fly back to the mainland too. We had a really awesome time with them.... it was nice to have some friends again! Lesa if want to fly back for the manta ray snorkel trip.... we're in!