Back to the Mainland

I heard it was way hotter in San Diego than it was in Hawaii. I called Lotus to say hello; she says it's 96 F and she's sweating while sitting there chatting with me. It never got hotter than 85'ish. The heat wasn't so bad and neither was the humidity, surprisingly enough. Pics will post later after Bert shows me the process...

Interesting facts about Hilo: Second to Honolulu as the most populated city in all of the Hawaiian Islands. Also the most rainiest city in the United States (it's not Seattle believe it or not!) which has an average rainfall of over 130" per year. Hilo is on the windward side (aka the "wet" side) of the Big Island; Kona is on the leeward (dry) side.

This is Banyan Drive near our hotel, the Hilo Hawaiian which faces Hilo Bay and Coconut Island. We took a nice walk on Banyan Drive on Tuesday morning while it was still a bit cool. There was even a tiny rainshower. We were greeted by several locals while we strolled and looked at the placards at the bases of the giant Banyan trees that were planted back in the '30's by people like Babe Ruth and Amelia Earhart, among others (famous authors, dignitaries, and movie stars) .

Interesting things we saw in Hilo, Hawaii:

1) A wild mongoose scampering across the sidewalk and hiding near a banyan tree. Sorry, no photo of the critter. Apparently mongoose (mongeese?) were brought to the islands to eradicate rats or some other vermin. Unfortunately, they proliferated all too quickly and became vermin themselves.

2) A centipede that was crawling about on the floor of a Thai eatery (the Lemongrass Cafe) we were at.

I'm sure it was not a big deal to the locals there, but I was sitting with my legs up on the bench seat after our waitress freaked! A waiter came by to "kill" the multi-legged creature. Using all of his body weight, he crushed the beast's tough carapace with the heel of his heavy sneaker. Several times. It was still alive. He repeated this a few more times and yet the centipede still lived as evidenced by it's frantic wriggling. He ended up sweeping it into a dust pan and disposing of it. He told us that he had one crawl out of his tub once while he was taking a bath!

3) Size 5XL clothing at the local Wal-Mart. We were there getting postcards (cheap too) and a makeup remover (for yours truly). We were perusing the racks of Aloha shirts and the sign said 5XL (sizes 2XL and up $5.00 extra)! Day-umm! Hawaii's got some beefy people!

4) SPAM!!!! Just had to put this in there! This is SPAM at the Wal-Mart in Hilo:

5) Killer snacks! At Wal-Mart and the Hilo Market, they had the most awesome snacks. These were not your ordinary snacks, but items like Nagaraya brand Adobo Peanuts & Garlic Peanuts, Japanese rice crackers (arare), many varieties of Li Hing Mui flavored snacks and crackseed. Think of the powder on saladitos. You know how it's sweet/sour/salty? They've got Li Hing Mui plum seeds, cherries, coconut strips, cuttlefish (gross!), dried mango slices - you name it, they had it at the Wal-Mart snack aisle.



6) At the Hilo Market, we ate Portuguese malasadas, which is like a donut, but no hole. And it's not round either. It's made out of a sweet dough, fried, then sprinkled with sugar (and sometimes cinammon). My opinion - no big thing. The piece was kind of big and I would've enjoyed it more if the piece was bite size instead of this big old bun. We ended up tossing most of it after a few bites. Fresh lychees were also a treat (pictured below - bagged):

Prior to this, we only had them from cans where the seed has already been removed. Fresh is definitely better. TC enjoyed peeling her lychee fruits. We had a craving for them yesterday so we drove up to Kearny Mesa to buy some fresh at Ranch 99. They were about the same price ($5 a bag in Hilo and Oahu); $2.48 a lb; our bag was 2 lbs.

The last killer snack I really enjoyed was the ubiquitous Spam Musubi. This is Spam that's been fried (sometimes marinated in soy sauce and then fried) and wrapped with nori (seaweed) and rice; much like the manner of sushi or onigiri.

The version we had at the Hilo Market had furikake (a Japanese seasoning mix consisting of dried bits of nori, sesame seeds, sugar, salt and MSG), sprinkled on it. The Filipina lady who was selling them also had hot dog musubi, spam musubi with egg, and shrimp tempura musubi. For those of you who don't know, Spam consumption in the highest in Hawaii. I love me my Spam!

More on Hilo and Oahu later...