Hawaii

February 24, 2024 | Mike Mikus | The Americas

Hello again. Thank you for coming back.

Today is Saturday, day number 77. We’re running behind a bit, so I’ll be brief. Here is a quick recap of our recent adventures.

International Mikey Day (Photograph Courtesy of Pamela J.)

After leaving LA, we had several days at sea before island hopping in Hawaii.

Hawaii is made up of a total of 137 island, 8 of which contain most of the population as well as the tourists. There are 2 million citizens in Hawaii, and 1.2 million of them live in the capital of Honolulu. Their history of becoming a US state is quite colorful…

In my humble opinion, this place is very cool. They do not use any plastics here. (Very cool!) It is considered the world’s most isolated island chain. (Very, very cool!) The Hawaiian language’s alphabet only has 12 letters. (Kinda cool!) Most Americans can’t pronounce hardly any Hawaiian words. (Okay, very cool again!) And their state fish is the “humuhumunukunukuapuaa”. (Very very cool!)

Our first stop took us to Hilo, the capital of “The Big Island” (a.k.a. the island of Hawaii).

Hilo was the location where Captain Cook met his demise. It is a little town that reminded me a lot of Juneau Alaska. A nice tour gave us a glimpse of some beautiful places around town. Rainbow Falls is an 80’ waterfall a few blocks up the street from the local high school. (Unfortunately, it was cloudy, so no rainbows during our visit…)

I also really enjoyed our extended visit at their Liliʻuokalani (Japanese Gardens).

Afterwards, we explored the old town area, shopping a bit and taking in the Farmers Market (which had the largest avocados we had ever seen).

We had dinner at the popular open air Pineapple Restaurant. We loved this place. Excellent downtown location, food, music and vibe.

For dessert we wondered across the street where we had been watching all of the locals getting shaved ice. It was kind of funny. The girl asked if we wanted regular or “Kiki”. I said regular. It turns out all the locals were eating Kiki (the kids’ size), and the “regular” size was as big as my head (as was the avocados we saw earlier)! Yummy though.

Afterward we took the local bus back to the ship.
Afterward we took the local bus back to the ship.

And now, it is time for the Did You Know” game!

Did you know that in Hawaii:

Appetizers are called poopoo, and beef is called peepee! Hmmm…
Real estate is broken up in lava zones. The closer the active volcano, the better the price! Hmmm…
A fishing license is not required to fish! Hmmm…
The average cost for 9 holes of golf is $15! Hmmm…

The following day took us around to the other side of the island to Kona.

We had read that the local colorful trolley would take you all about town. (All of the busses on The Big Island are free.) We waited around, but decided to wander down the beautiful, shaded sidewalk. Shortly, we began coming across little beachfront restaurants serving Sunday brunch and playing Hawaiian music. Karen picked a winner! Nice food, best seat in the house looking across the little main street to the ocean across the street. (People watching and wave watching, all at the same time!)

Karen had the Huevos Rancheros with the local chili, and I opted for the house special (stuffed French Toast with the local Portuguese Sausage). It was all fresh and delicious, and the bloody Mary’s went down smooth as well.

Huevos Rancheros @ Kona, HI (Karen’s Photo)

Wandering further down the street, we saw lots of beautiful local sites. Eventually, the trolly bus showed up, and we jumped on. Several miles later, we got off near “downtown”. It was hot and not much to see there.

We were a bit worried about how long we might have to wait for the trolley to come back when we stumbled upon a little narrow walkway between the beachfront condos that lined the road. (I am saying road, because this area was pretty desolate.)

You know, it’s funny how sometimes, things just have a way of working out. In this section of the island, most of the beaches are private beaches tied to the condos. We stumbled upon a little walkway between the buildings, which lead to a 25’ across public beach, with nice sand and shady trees. On both sides were landscaped lawns that stretched out behind the condos.

We sat in the shade and watched the surfers. Eventually, we noticed all of the whales just off of the beach, right behind the surfers. I swear, we saw more whales breach during the hour or two that we sat there than we’d seen in both of our entire lives combined. It was awesome.

Eventually, all the surfers got out and sat in the grass in front of their condos and ate lunch before going back out for more surfing. It was like we were at a big family reunion. What a nice life!

Sometime later, we walked back out to the road and made a new friend while waiting for the trolley. Such nice folks here.

We jumped off of the trolley at the same place we got on. (Pretty much at the edge of the fun part of town, which stretched out a mile or so in both direction from the seaport.) I had seen earlier that that was where a nice restaurant that Karen had picked out the night before was located.

On the Rocks Restaurant and Bar is the happening place in Kona. Something about eating blackened fish tacos and poki wonton nachos barefoot on the (shady) sandy beach. Yummo! Super fun place.

On the way back to the ship, they had the street blocked off and had a fabulous street fair going on. A wonderful time was had by all.

Hugo’s Famous Mai Tai @ “On the Rock” (Kona, HI)

The following two days, we enjoyed Honolulu. I have to admit, this is one of the nicest US cities we have visited. Super walkable, and lots of noteworthy tourist sites. The Pearl Harbor memorial was very well done, and a city tour helped us get our bearings before getting out on our own.

Among the places we enjoyed was two outdoor downtown food courts (for lack of a better term). Nestled between skyscrapers the open-air malls had shaded bars with tables you could bring food to from the surrounding restaurants. One of the sandwich places I ate at reminded me of the old Bavarian Sausage House in ABQ. Best sandwich I’ve had in as long as I can remember.

I also really enjoyed walking around the downtown area and seeing the historical buildings. Their State House is especially cool. It is open-air and has security X-ray machines in four corners (leading to the courts, etc. which are located on upper floors). It is all very beautifully designed. The clouds in the sky were extraordinary that day, and I took a photo looking up through the center of the statehouse ceiling, with a unique cloud formation overhead.