The King and the Mongoose

*The prolific nature of these posts is brought to you by yours truly, a bored educator on summer vacation with lots of time on her hands...

And this, everyone is King Kamehameha the Great himself...The first ruler of Hawaii.

According to Wikipedia: "Kamehameha, also known as Kamehameha I and Kamehameha the Great (circa 1758 – 1819), unified the Hawaiian Islands in battle and formally established the Kingdom of Hawai'i in 1810".

This particular statue is in Hilo. The white sign you see below is for Bert's co-worker who is Russian. There's a photoshopped picture of him holding the flag of his soccer team's rival. A bit of an in-joke among the co-workers.


At the Queen Liluokalani Botanical Gardens in Hilo, Bert saw a tiny mongoose on the black lava rocks below. Look closely in the middle and you can see him.

And he's off...

There he goes!

Another creature Bert saw at the gardens that day.

A bamboo grove.
History Alert: Queen Lydia Liliuokalani was the last reigning monarch of the Hawaiian Islands. In 1898, Hawaii was annexed to the United States and Queen Liliuokalani was forced to give up her throne. Queen Liliuokalani was deposed in 1893 by a group who advocated for the Republic of Hawaii. Considered a gifted songwriter, she penned the classic Hawaiian song, "Aloha Oe".

Nuts, collon and pineapple!

We visited my aunt and uncle in Kea'au, which is a small town 10 minutes away from downtown Hilo. They wanted us to see the Mauna Loa Macademia Nut Farm. There were hundres of acres filled with nut trees.


Hey, wanna hold some of deze nutz?

After a full day of sightseeing at the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, walking through the Thurston Lava Tube, visiting the Pana'ewa Rainforest Zoo, etc, we had a delicious homecooked dinner at their place. My uncle grilled kalbi (Korean shortribs - beef), salmon, game hen, with sides of broccoli and garden salad, plus rice of course. The soda cans were Aloha Sun Passionfruit Guava.

At a local food market in Hilo, I spied these gorgeous anthuriums.

Here are some vibrant purple skinned onions, along with taro root (which is used to make poi, a starchy paste that tastes like glue, ugh!).

This ginger flower was near our hotel, right after a brief rainshower.

Bert's breakfast: Fried rice with two scrambled eggs, topped with grilled Portuguese sausage and green onions.
At Volcanoes National Park - one of the craters near Kilauea.

This following photos are from Oahu. This was the name of a local food joint we visited one night for dinner. My friend called them before closing (8 p.m.) and asked if they would stay open for us. Fortunately, they did, but I was wracked with trepidation, thinking of that one scene in the movie, "Waiting" where the cooks are all waiting anxiously for closing time but at the last minute, customers walk in. As revenge, the cooks do awful things to their food. I would hope that didn't happen with us. The crew seemed to be nice guys and they got our food ready quickly. I'm sure they wanted to get out and go home.

My friend had a Hawaiian plate lunch. This particular entree had a scoop of rice, a cup of poi, lau lau (chicken or fish wrapped in taro leaves and steamed), kalua pig (shredded and baked pork).

Another friend had the Loco Moco, a favorite of many. You can get this and other variations of the Loco Moco at the local Hawaiian food joints in San Diego like Da Kines, Island Boy Grille and L & L Barbeque. This is rice with a hamburger patty which is smothered in gravy and topped with two eggs of your choice. He chose a side of corn as well. When confronted with the heart attack qualities of his meal, he said, "It is what it is."

A sign we saw at the ubiquitous ABC stores (think of 7-11 but on EVERY corner). Yes, there were tons of Japanese tourists everywhere in Oahu. Hey, I remember seeing a sign at the Otay Mesa Wal-Mart that said, "Aceptamos Pesos"!

Also seen at the ABC store were these cookies with an unappetizing name, "Collon" (yeah, yeah, I know it should only have one 'l').

Another shot of another ginger flower near our hotel in Waikiki.

We visited the Dole Pineapple Plantation like any other tourist.

History Lesson Alert: Filipino workers were recruited since 1906 to work in the pineapple (and sugarcane) fields of Hawaii. They were called 'Sakadas' (government contract workers) and were recruited largely to supplant the Japanese and Chinese workers who, at the time, refused to work for low wages and were on strike. The Filipinos laborers worked long hours harvesting cane and pineapple in the hot sun for very little pay. Another example of an ethnic group being exploited as a cheap labor are today's Latinos who work in the agricultural fields in California and neighboring states. (okay, I'll take off my educator hat now).

I thought this was an unusual looking pineapple. This variety was from Vietnam.

The night view from our hotel room. We were on the 22nd floor of the Renaissance Ilikai in Waikiki. We had a city view; the street below is Ala Moana Blvd. This is the hotel made famous in the opening credits of Hawaii 5-0 where Jack Lord is on a balcony looking towards Diamond Head.

Photos from Hilo, Hawaii

Photos from the Hilo Market which we visited on our last day on the Big Island. Flowers like this cost only $5 a bunch. In San Diego, this would cost about $20. These are Heliconia.

Fresh vegetables galore! Chinese celery, malunggay leaves, bananas, tomatoes, potatoes, bittermelon, taro, bok choy and some other stuff I've never seen before.

Ahh, Hot Dog Musubi...only $1.50! Actually these hot dogs looked kind of freaky because they were very red! Seems like the Hawaiian chicken musubi was a popular item. Only 3 pieces were left.

Another tropical flower you don't see much in San Diego, the Protea:

Here are some mangos, papayas, avocados and breadfruit.

This guy was hacking fresh coconuts with a large knife and selling them for $2 as a drink. We bought one and couldn't finish it amongst the three of us. My aunt kept the husk because she wanted to use the buko later (young coconut meat).

The following are some photos taken when we visited the Pana'ewa Rainforest Zoo in the Big Island on the second day of our trip. This is the state bird of Hawaii, the Nene. It seemed so sad as we walked by, crying and making a "Nay- nay" sound.


Beautiful flowers were everywhere at the Rainforest Zoo.

Interesting foliage this is. I looked it up and it is called Monstera Deliciosa, aka the Swiss Cheese plant.

Moss growing on the stone fence:

More spectacular flowers...orchids here:

I found this sign quite humorous. This was an ulo (breadfruit) tree. Funny, in Tagalog, ulo means 'head'.

Some wild pigs that were taking a nap:

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...