Big Island Adventures Part II

Ugh.  I think we can all agree that I am the WORST.  Clumsiest. Person. Ever.  But wait...you haven't even heard the whole story yet. Let me continue.

Big Island Day 2 began with a lazy wake-up and drive down the coast to Kailua-Kona.  Here, we got some delicious lunch (and beer) and went snorkeling at Kahaluu Beach Park.

We had lunch at Humpy's!

Great name (self-explanatory), great food (fish tacos and pizza), great beer (local, delicious variety - about 50 draft total) and...great shirts:



Yeah.



Then, we drove another 4 miles south to the Kahaluu Beach Park:

Another perspective: 

You can see there are some breaking waves and it stirred up the sand a bit, but it was a very cool place to jump in the water.  We saw 3 different sea turtles, a ton of fish, and urchins.  It was a fun place to explore.

After snorkeling we ran back to the hotel and got ready in record time for the Hilton Luau.  We upgraded our seats to Ali'i (Read: Open Bar and personal server - Yeya!)  The food was amazing and there was a lot of it.  Favorites? Ahi Poke (raw Ahi perfectly seasoned in I-Don't-Know-What), Lilikoi and Guava Bread (Purple and Pink Hawaiian sweet rolls made with Passion fruit and Guava...YUM), Potato-Mac Salad, BBQ Ribs, Coconut Cake.  OK, I'm hungry now.  Just know that those were a fraction of our food options served family-style at a table of 12.

Then, the show started. 

Blowing the Conch Shell

It presented a variety of dances, music, and myths.  In the beginning, the MC(?) had everyone get up and learn a hula. (Yes, Matt did it too!  I wish I had pictures of that...)  Here is one of the performances:

The best part of the show was when they added fire:

He is spinning a stick that's on fire at both ends.  Oh, sorry, did I mention that he lit with his mouth?

Behind the back action.

Show-off.


But, really, it was so awesome.

Yes, he added another double-lit-stick to the performance.  So cool.

 After many free Mai-tais, Blue Hawaiians, and Lava Flows, Matt and I walked back to our room.  We were really excited about the performance and inspired by the artistic talent displayed so we decided to display some talent of our own using the wall of priceless artifacts collected by the hotel:

Don't worry, we weren't running the whole time to stay ahead of the Asian tourists at all.  Nothing like that.

The next day, we went snorkeling about 8 miles north of the hotel (refer to map if interested).  We swam out from Beach 69, named so for the mile marker.  It was gorgeous:

Not my image, but I had to include one. So beautiful.

This has actually been our first snorkeling bust.  We didn't see much, but the water was so clear and warm it was fun to just play around a bit.  We ended up going back to the hotel and drinking (secret) beer camouflaged in our Humpy's Beer Coozie at one of the pools.  We read for a while, then went down the Super Amazingly Fun Water Slide...about a million times.  If you were wondering, yes.  Matt and I were the only adults (if you could call us that) going down the water slide for a very long time.  I like to think we broke the ice.  

After a very fun day at the pool, we went to happy hour at one of the bars and had the special: Cherry Bombs  (Red Bull, grenadine, Cherry Vodka, cherries)  



Cherry Bombs: Better than you'd think..


So Matt immediately called Jonnie Q (apparently it's a thing):

Pictured: Matt and JQ

After a couple drinks, Matt and I walked to pick up a New Years Eve dinner of Chinese food.  along the way, we stopped at a hammock.  I could have stayed there indefinitely.  Very peaceful.

And we encountered many cats:


They're everywhere!

We ate dinner, drank some champagne, then walked to the Buddha statue close to our room because why not?

 
Hau'oli Makahiki Hou! (Happy New Year!)

This one isn't the best, but I really wanted a New Year's themed one:

Hypochondriacs prefer Cham-pain.

Yeah, not proud of that one.  Also not proud of what Matt will blog about in his next feature.  Will it be next post?  Did something happen on New Year's Eve??

Stay tuned...