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...

Disaster is a Dish Best Served Twice... (Narrated by Matt)

So, where are we? It seems Christina has led us to the cliff of the story, I suppose I will take us the rest of the way down.  

First, let's take a step back. One important detail Christina left out of our first day on the island, is the rental car experience we had when we got to the Big Island. We did have a reservation for a car (Chevy Aveo, yeya!) but we had to change the drop off location - so I was expecting disaster in the form of major charges. Much to my surprise, the car rental place was very accommodating, and because it was my Birthday they even upgraded us to this:

2011 Mustang Convertible



So - at this point I am lulled into a false sense of security. I think to myself, "Self, looks like things are about to turn around for us. After having to wake up at 2:30 a.m. and then having to pay $130 to change our flights, and then having to wait for our bag because it got mixed up - I thought, these are just things of the past. Only good times ahead." That was a bit optimistic on my part, because in that moment I had forgotten Christina's greatest super power: she can spill or break anything at any time.

Back to the present time, we had just filled two 64 ounce growlers with terrific, amazing, delicious beer.




Like this, minus the leaf.


I am excited, it's Birthday beer. Everybody loves Birthday beer. All I have to do is drive us back to the hotel, and then enjoy said beers. So, we come to the end of our 35 minute ride back to the hotel, and at this point Christina lets up her guard. She had been in charge of the ever important, and apparently impossible, task of holding the growlers and keeping their precious cargo (beer) safe for the ride home. As we go to take the left into the hotel, Christina decides to whip out her Iphone, probably to see what's happening on cracked.com or look up something girly on pinterest.com... A moment later, as I am completing the final left turn on my long road to beer heaven, I hear the most dreaded sound possible. The sound of glass clinking together. And not the clinking of a joyous toast, but clinking with a hint of shattering... I decide that what I think is happening, cant possibly be happening. So I ask my dearest Christina, "What was that?" At first she doesn't respond, but then, ever so calmly replies "...It broke." Fear and panic set in. "Both of them?" I ask in terror. "Just one..." she says. "Probably the good one," I think to myself. I pull over, and ask Christina how much of the beer spilled on the floor. You see at this point I hadn't admitted to myself that the entire growler had just spilled onto the floor of the 2011 Mustang convertible I was driving. I thought maybe only the top broke and half a glass worth had spilled. Guess what? The bottom broke out, so all 64 ounces were pooled at the feet of our beloved Christina.

At this point, I would like to tip my cap to Ford, and if I might be so bold offer a suggestion for their 2012 model. Although it is nice that this area of the car is completely sealed, they may want to consider offering a "Christina" model, in which a drain can be opened in the occurrence of a self inflicted disaster.

At this point I have transitioned to triage mode. I ask Christina what we can do. She responds by panicking, and throwing her Iphone into the previously described 64 ounces of beer... we have officially hit rock bottom.

I'll spare you the horrific details of how we cleaned this up. In short, 2 full rolls of paper towels, an entire bottle of febreeze, and a much needed shower washing of the passenger side mat later - the car was still in bad shape. Keep in mind this was day one, so we cleaned it everyday after this, and it still smelled like my old fraternity's common room on a Saturday morning up until the day we returned it...

And so, a fitting PUN for the lovely Christina. "Beauty is in the eye of the beer-holder."

Stay tuned for "Disaster: The Second Course."

Big Island Adventures Part I

Our holidays this year were pretty wild.  After Christmas, we flew to the Big Island and stayed from 12/29 (Happy Birthday Matt!) to 1/2 in a different kind of paradise.  Different is definitely the key word here.  So you have a general idea of the size difference: Hawaii island is twice the size of all of the other islands put together, but contains only 15% of the population.  Crazy.  Here is a map!

We flew into the airport on the West side (Kona Side) early early early on Matt's Birthday.  Boo.  This, of course, is after dealing with horrible Hertz experiences, and flight changes.  In all, pretty stressful...but we got there.  Then, we drove about a half hour up the coast to the Hilton Waikoloa Village (the black and orange house-looking icon).  The drive along the coast was very very different from what you'd see on Oahu.  For starters, it is desert-like because of the old, cooled, sometimes cultivated lava flows.  You'll see lots of brush, possibly some wild donkeys, and LOTS of lava rock:



People leave messages in white rocks that stand out against the black. Really really beautiful.

 We get to the Hilton and it's like an oasis.  We found out later that this is because they crushed up a layer of lava and added some topsoil which created a very fertile base for a tropical-type resort.  It is also HUGE.  There is a lagoon that feeds out into the ocean, too many pools to count, restaurants, and these greet you in the main lobby:



That sign warns that this bird is a jewelry thief.  Beware! No cages..



Yes, that guy was equally (if not more) unhappy in real life, despite the joyful shirt.

 After check-in, Matt and I took the train (whaaaat) to our section of the resort: The Ocean Tower.  After dropping off our stuff in our sweet room with these views...



Note the black lava rock.



...we walked around the resort.  Here are some pictures from our exploration:



Looking out on the lagoon, then ocean from the main lobby




Awesome statue



Lagoon and walk-through waterfall





There is NO way to look graceful and competent on one of these.



Under the waterfall

  As we were walking, we saw signs asking people not to feed, touch, or crowd the Honu (sea turtle).  I thought they were mostly fake.  I couldn't see how turtles would want to swim into a lagoon with so many people there every day, until we spotted this guy:



He's the brownish spot.

 Then, we saw these people snorkeling next to the turtle. 

They had no idea it was there.  So we watched for a while.  Matt was narrating, going "Wait for it...wait for it...", when the girl practically jumped out of the water!  Matt described it best when he said, "I've never heard someone scream out of a snorkel before."



Rawr! Turtle-dragon?



Buddha - so happy!



Buddha Buddies



Oh...did I mention they have dolphins there??  Matt and I enjoyed a delicious lunch and a couple drinks while watching a 40-year-old mom, 4-month-old baby, and a pregnant dolphin frolic around.  We also saw the preggo dolphin get an ultrasound. 

So after lunch, Matt and I decided to snorkel the lagoon.  The visibility was ok, but we could clearly see many fish and we hung out with at least 4 sea turtles, grazing along the bottom.  Really cool, considering all of the people there.  After snorkeling, we fell asleep for a bit on the beach, then decided to go to the Kona Brewery about 45 min South for dinner (revisit map for reference).  It was deeelicious. 

We scored some prime seats at the bar and tried some limited edition beer that was all really good.  My favorite was the Black Sand Coconut Porter, Matt's favorite was the Koko Brown.



We filled two growlers to take back to the hotel with us...and that's when tragedy struck.  Disaster: Thy Name is Christina.  More on that later.

One day at the bar there was a blackout. 

Good thing I had a light beer.

Is this a little bit of foreshadowing?  Stay tuned to find out next post on The Rogue Islander. (Possibly featuring a guest blogger!)