Hilo, HI day 1

We arrived in Hilo, HI on Monday morning around 5:30am and I was awoken to an announcement over the ships PA system. This was my wake up call to then proceed to knock on all of my residents’ doors and then head up to start the debarkation process. Since we arrived from Mexico we had to have customs agents check the passports. After I reported to duty we called the students up by their seas (so for example the 75 students that are on my ‘floor’ are part of the Mediterranean Sea. So when we arrive to each of our ports everyone will need to clear customs before anyone can get off of the ship and this is what we got to experience very early!!

After all was cleared I left the ship with a few people and we headed to downtown Hilo. It was quite nice to be off the ship and after spending some time getting my sea legs it was now time to find my land legs again. We walked about the 2 miles downtown, stopped in a Natural food store and ended our walk at a Coffee, tea and Kava bar. Kava is a natural relaxant which I originally tasted when I was in Fiji. “Kava is sedating and is primarily consumed to relax without disrupting mental clarity “(Wikipedia). It is illegal in some countries and very hard to find in the US but apparently found in Hilo, HI. We were all given samples, drank our coffee and then went on our way. We took a taxi back to the ship and low and behold a UMass student of mine, who I forgot was studying for the semester at the University of Hawai'i Hilo was taking a tour of our ship, so we got to see each other for about 5 minutes before she headed on her way , but it was nice to see a familiar face. 

I will say that it took a while to realize that we were in Hawai’i. This part of the Big Island is not what I typically think of when I think of Hawai’i.  It was much less tropical then I anticipated. Cindy rented a car which made it really easy to get around and I took on the role of driver for our 2 days in Hilo. Midhun, Emily, Debbie, Cindy and I were on our adventure around Hilo; first stop Akaka Falls (now I am seeing tropics!). I thought it would be something we would be able to venture into but it ended up being only something we could view from afar. It was quite beautiful though and we took a nice walk around. I kept commenting that it was like we were in a Botanical Garden without anything labeled because there were so many different types of plants as we walked around to see the falls.

After the falls we headed to Volcano National Park where we saw large craters of steaming hot magma. Ok maybe it wasn’t magma but it was dangerous sulphur dioxide gas and if the wind had been blowing in a different direction we would not have been allowed where we were. It is really hard to put into words and the pictures do not do justice to what we saw. There was Vog(volcano fog) in the distance which is what we saw on the drive to the Park as well.

Vog:

The evening ended at a Chinese/Vietnamese restaurant though when we found the restaurant on someone’s iphone it said it was Korean and we figured since we were visiting neither North nor South Korea then Korean food would be great. Since we were quite hungry by the time we reached there we decided to stay the food was disappointing yet decent though there were many overtired laughs had!