In spite of what I said in the previous post, we did not wind up seeing the Hilo sunrise. It turns out, one should not plan a sunrise viewing to follow the morning after star-gazing. There are some logistics there involving sleep patterns. Complicated stuff. Also, we realized that our helicopter trip leaves from Hilo, so we could save gas by doing both trips on the same day.
So instead of Hilo by sunrise, today was devoted primarily to catching up on our souvenir shopping. After breakfast we headed into town. One of the parking lots had been converted to a pseudo-permanent tent-city of souvenir shops and fruit stands. Some of the stands sold the made-in-china flea-market stuff, like plastic sandal keychains, etc. Multiple produce stands sold fresh fruits and vegetables. One shop featured genuine tiki woodcarvings, and you could watch the shopkeeper make more with a wood chisel and a hammer. We found many good souvenirs today.
For some reason Elly woke up irrationally grumpy. She knew she was being irrationally grumpy, which helps a lot. Everything we did sounded terrible, and the gifts we were buying probably weren't good, and it was too hot, and she didn't like the new car, and those pineapples were too fluffy. Nothing I could do was cheering her up. Some days you just have to have a good grumping, I guess.
Speaking of the new car: Elly came back from the rental place with a red Ford Fusion, with license plate beginning in ZAK. I like the name "Zack Fusion" because it sounds like the protagonist from a dumb kids cartoon on Fox. Elly hates the name "Zack Fusion" because it sounds like the protagonist from a dumb kids cartoon on Fox. So far we've just agreed on "Zack" something (but really, its obviously short for "Zack Fusion". Right? I know. Totally dumb and awesome).
We spent much longer at the tent city than it seemed, and by the time we wandered out of there with our overflowing bag we were quite hungry. We stopped at Seiji Brew Garden and Sushi for lunch. They had a sign on the street advertising teriyaki that had my mouth watering. I got the teriyaki ono, Elly had the tuna don. Both were very delicious! But Elly's was also dumb, and the sun was in her eyes, and the water had too much condensation on it, and we took too long shopping, and we probably should have spent more time shopping, and... I could have sworn some lunch would help, but sadly the grumping was still at full strength.
We wound up going in to a clothes shop that we could see from the sushi place because Elly liked one of the dresses she could see from the street. We went inside and Elly began browsing. We were immediately assaulted by an extremely helpful shopkeep who wouldn't take no for an answer... but somehow in a good way. She sent Elly into the dressing room with 5 dresses, including 2 that she knew she didn't like, but the shop keeper insisted that she try them on and see what she thought. This seemed like exactly the sort of thing that Elly would normally hate, but for some reason today it was okay. Somehow instead of being pushy, she was just friendly and helpful. Elly did come out of the dressing room with at least one victory, a purple, backless dress perfect for our Luau that night. She also came out with a big grin on her face; somehow, just like that, the grumps were gone!
After that we went to a swim suit shop that we had looked through on one of the first days we were in Kona, but we'd opted that day not to buy anything. Elly had a swim suit that had caught her eye that day and over the course of the following days she decided that it was the swimsuit that she wanted. While she was trying it on the shopkeeper and I chatted, mostly about Colorado. He'd heard about the flooding and Lyons and was interested in stories about it. In the end Elly found a suit that fit well, and we left with another successful purchase. We also left with a bag of tangerines and star-fruits fresh from the tree at his house. "Organic, pesticide free" he insisted. Oh, Hawaii, you so crazy. Star-fruits don't have a lot to offer in terms of taste: they're kind of sweet but bland. The texture is awesome, though. You eat the whole thing, seeds and all, after buffing off the waxy texture on the outside. I don't know how to describe the texture... but its very fun to eat.
We'd also been keeping an eye out for good, but not too expensive, Kona coffee for gifts. I'd been sampling coffee and keeping an eye on prices, and there was one place I'd selected as having great coffee, but being reasonably priced. They also did free shipping over a certain amount. We picked up several pounds of ground coffee, as well as a small bag of chocolate macadamias as a treat for ourselves.
On the way back to the car we were kind of overwhelmed by a man with parrots. As we were passing him on the street he began displaying his parrots, and talking quite quickly in broken English and an accent I couldn't place. Elly and I wound up both with a parrot on our arms, wearing prop leis, and grinning into a camera. See, the parrot guy ropes you in and gets you set up, then he calls over another guy to take your picture, then they charge you if you want to get them printed. The pictures turned out very good, especially one of just Elly with both parrots, so we were happy to take them home. It was a little bit of shady fast-talk, but the camera man was clearly quite professional. And its not every day you get to get your picture taken with a parrot.
After the parrot incident we stopped and watched the ocean for a bit, and we saw that in the mini bay down below the rocks were covered in palm-sized crabs! We wound up snapping several good pictures, but we weren't feeling brave enough to climb down the wall for a closer look. The rocks were positively covered in them, and the tide was at a level where it would splash the rocks but not take the crabs back out to sea. We spent awhile counting crabs and snapping pictures.
Finally back to the car, and it was time to leave again for the luau. The luau was at the Fairmont Orchid, the same resort where we had dinner at Brown's Beach House, which was a 40 minute drive away. Not much to report, except that we noticed something we hadn't seen before, though it must surely have been there. For a stretch of a few miles the lava rock on the side of the road was covered in signatures and symbols created by piling white stones against the black. There was stuff like "Bob was here" or "Bazinga" or "Class of 2009". There was also symbols like peace signs and hearts and the Hawaiian hand sign, "Shaka." I snapped pictures like crazy as we passed, but we didn't have time to stop, so most of them didn't turn out. I got at least 1 good one, though. Looking back through what I frantically snapped, I even got the symbol from the video game Half Life!
We arrived at the luau, were given a shell lei necklace, and placed at our table with a couple who was from Michigan. The bar was an open bar (included in price of admission) so Elly and I started with a Mai Tai each. She was driving, so I followed that with a couple more Mai Tais, then a beer at the end of the night. We didn't have a lot in common with the people we were sat with, but they were friendly enough. He told us a story of his octopus-phobic friend and the pranks they pulled on him during his bachelor days. Elly was on a roll, embellishing his story off-the-cuff octopus puns that had us all laughing. I think my favorite was "preoctopied."
There was an arts-and-crafts demonstration where four different groups of young people in Hawaiian garb would offer to teach you how to weave palm leaves, or how to do fire dancing, or how to do poi dancing, or you could get a traditional body-paint. Elly and I opted to learn to weave leaves, and after a short fun bit of weavery we each had a palm-tree angel fish on a pole.
Then it was time for dinner! The dinner was a buffet of food from four different polynesian islands: Hawaii, Tahiti, New Zealand, and Samoa. There was also the traditional barbecue pig. There was poke, poi, many different kinds of seafood salads, and roast duck and chicken, and fruit salads, and on and on. Elly and I had just a tiny little bit of each dish, but it took us two full trays each to sample it all. Not everything was awesome, but most of it was really good. We were both very satisfied and VERY full by the time dessert came around.
Last call on drinks (I wound up ending the night with a local beer) and then it was time for the show to start! It began with a bang, with dancers moving between tables carrying torches and chanting. One guy was walking around on stilts. It was kind of a circus initially. After dancing amongst the diners they made their way to the stage, and over the course of the evening we were told a history of how the polynesians followed migratory birds into the sunrise, looking for paradise. And of how they eventually found New Zealand and thought "gee, it's actually getting kind of cold" and stopped. As they told the discovery of each island the dancers would come out in costumes appropriate to that island and perform a dance appropriate to the island. The luau, entitled "The Gathering of Kings" was focused on telling of the kings of each of the four isles. While the dancers performed, a King and his aide would stand at a separate platform, statue-still and spotlit, through the entire dance. Elly and I joked that it must be a pretty cushy job, except on nights where you have an itch.
The show was closed with a fire dancer, and a finale music number where all four kings came together... to stand statue-still while other people did all the work. The fire dancer was quite good, and several pictures turned out awesome!
Tired, and (in my case) a bit buzzed, we made the drive back to Kona and crawled immediately into bed. Tomorrow we really would make the drive to Hilo to see the sunrise. Really! I know this because I'm writing this post from the car at 4:30 the next morning.
Photos
https://plus.google.com/photos/105719328153023565846/albums/5941933379584030513
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