Hawaii!

Back on the ship and slightly rested, have more homework than I would like... but Hawaii was fantastic!

My first day i went with two girls, Elizabeth from CO and Laura from Germany and we walked from the port of Hilo into town (about 1 mile) heading for Rainbow Falls ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_Falls_(Hawaii) ) and we met up with another group also walking to the falls so we trekked together, stopped shortly at the Hilo Farmers Market and asked around where to get good local food for lunch.

We ended up walking about another 3 miles before we finally found the recommended dinky little local place near the falls. Food was AWESOME! I ate some weird green goop looking stuff that apparently is Spinach and Chicken, highly recommended.

We met a random local who goes to college at UH Hilo who was very typical Hawaii ("bro" "dude" "gnarly" ) and he just decided he would go to the falls with us. So off we went, with our new local friend, saw the falls, beautiful! Hiked through the forest of mangrove trees I believe around to the upper part of the falls where there is a small cliff to jump from and swimming. It was chilly, but I jumped off the 20 ft jump... exciting! Definitely tops the Stevensville Pool :D

We left the falls, walked back to town (much easier down hill) and hit up what I think is a Hawaiian version of DQ, and made a last minute Walmart run before we are out of the country!

We ended the night at Ken's pancake parlor and then hit the hay in the ship for the night to get up early and head out again.

Yesterday we went to the Farmers market early and ate fresh pineapple, starfruit, and papaya (so out of this world good) and then we walked through town, hit up some Hawaiian coffee (great) and ice cream (homemade!) mailed our post cards and headed to the black sand beach.

At Richardson's beach we hiked around on the volcanic rock for awhile, we saw too large sea turtles in some of the pools in the rocks, and then I went in the ocean and borrowed a friend's snorkeling gear and came within two feet of a GIANT sea turtle underwater, and we looked at each other. So cool. I love turtles!

Man... exciting two days. It's hard to go back to class, especially when I have an exceptionally large amount of reading to do. We are currently sitting in the Honolulu harbor because we filled up here (still not sure why we couldn't fill up in Hilo or why we couldn't just come to Honolulu) but there is a large storm system so we are staying in the harbor overnight to let the storm pass so we have better passage to Japan.

I will post pictures when I am in Japan, it eats up too much of my data to email them from the ship, but I will post several then!!

Thank you again for following, having the time of my life and it's only a week in!

L