Hawaii - the series: The Big Island 101 & I ate sushi...

There are several islands that make up the state of Hawaii.  I'm sure you've heard of Maui.  It's the most popular & a lot of honeymooners (Alicia McAfee) go there.  The state capital of Honolulu is on the island of Oahu.  It is the most 'built up' island meaning there are around 8 million people living there.  The 2 big airports for Hawaii are Honolulu & Kona on the Big Island.  We flew into Honolulu because the times & prices were better.  We stayed on Oahu for 1 night & on Sunday, we had to get to the Big Island.  Now, I had never been to Hawaii before & I wasn't sure how you get from one island to another.  They don't look too far away from each other on the map...

At first I thought we might be able to take a ferry or something?  Wrong.  It would take a day & a half to get to another island by ferry.  Uhm, I don't even think there were ferries there to take!  So we had to fly from Honolulu airport to Kona airport.  (That cost an extra $200 for the round trip.  Gasp...) The plane was a jet, but it was a little bitty baby jet.  You know, the ones where you have to walk outside...onto the runway to get on?!

It was a super quick 40 minute flight & we had arrived to our final destination!  Oh, happy day!  Let me explain the big island to you.  (Because I have been there & even though I knew nothing before we went, I am now an expert...)  The Big Island is the youngest AND largest island.  It has 5, count 'em, 5 volcanoes on it!  1 is dormant the other 4 are still active.  Anyone ever heard of Kilauea?  Uhm, yea...Kilauea is on the Big Island.... cool...

 Students-please look at this map:  You will notice the big red areas.  Those are freaking volcanoes.  Mauna Lona is Hawaiian for 'long mountain'. It is the largest volcano on earth because of the volume & area it covers.  Yup, it's bigger than Mt. St. Helens.  It is still active.  Mauna Kea is the dormant one.  I will be telling you more about it later.  We got all up in Mauna Kea's grill.  The other 2 active volcanoes are under water & haven't broken to the surface.

 Mauna Loa is still active.  Kilauea is in that area in blue that says, "Volcano national park."   

Since the Big Island is the youngest...it is also the ugliest.  Stalkers - it's nothing but crappy black lava.  Everywhere...

They build things by moving the lava around.

This was our view on the drive from the town where we stayed to Kona.  (Kona is the airport we flew into & the closest city to where we were.  It was about 45 minutes away.)

We stayed in Waikoloa.  (I will be doing a post on how things are pronounced in Hawaii.  I bet you read that like I pronounced it...all I can tell you is- you're wrong...) That's near the top of the map on the left.  There's not much there.  A couple of gas stations & a grocery store.  There was a mall with some food places...including the infamous sushi place.   

Home sweet home...

We used mom's timeshare so we had a kitchen & everything.

This was the view out of our condo's back door.  That's not a mountain people...that's Mauna Kea...

Along the drive there were a TON of white rocks on the black lava that spelled out messages.  Most my pics didn't turn out because Butterfly drove 9000 miles an hour.  

There were some old messages like "RIP" but there were new messages too & even some for the Ironman people.  The bike course was on this main road that took us back & forth to Kona.

It's so funny to see how it's all lava & then they've had to bring in grass & flowers to make it look presentable.

Mom, B-rad & I drove to Hilo on Saturday when Butterfly & Rhonda went to watch Ironman.  Students, Hilo is there in the middle of the island on the right.  It's a totally different world than Kona.  Because of some weather phenomenon with the volcano (they told us, I just don't remember) the Kona side gets very little rain.  (B-rad could comment & tell you, but he won't.  He'll just text me what it is & tell me what a moron I am...) The Hilo side gets something like over 100 inches of rain a year.  Gasp.  It's green & lush...no black lava laying around everywhere...

Also in Hilo are the waterfalls!  This was something I really wanted to see.  While we were driving, I put 'tourist attractions' in moms gps & it told us about this waterfall...

It was very pretty.  Not too big though.  I would say it was a couple of hundred feet down.

This guy was really pissing me off.  He was right in the way of everything.

See him ruining my shot?!

He finally left & we had mom take our pic with the fancy schmancy camera.  It focused on the waterfall & not us.  We're just a tad outta focus...

The guy finally left!

There were also little waterfalls surrounding the big one.

UHM sushi.  Butterfly & Rhonda LOVE sushi.  (Ginmommy-you & butterfly could bond over raw fish all day long!)  They were just dying to eat sushi in a place that could walk a mile & catch the stuff they would serve.  I have never eaten sushi.  I don't like to try new things.  Give me a hamburger any day.

We were at the mall near our resort one afternoon & there was a sushi place there & Butterfly wanted to go 'try it'.  I think these were 'edemamay' or something?  It's basically soybeans.  UH I could've saved a TON of money & just got these right outta the field.  But whatever...

Butterfly ordered 'for the table'.  I'm so dumb I didn't know that we'd get like a block of sushi.  I thought when you ordered, you just got one piece...

So mom was NOT happy about the sushi...not.at.all.  She doesn't like raw fish but Butterfly said he would order something with just veggies in it.  He did.... and that's what she's dissecting on her plate.  Butterfly kept telling her that she had to eat it in one bite & she refused... And round & 'round they went...

I decided to take a walk on the wild side & try it.  The first one I ate had tuna fish in it.  Ok, I can handle tuna fish.  The next one was raw salmon...wrapped in seaweed.  GAG.  Tracey-don't.do.it.  It's totally mind over matter.  I found myself gagging a couple of times eating it!  PLUS since you're supposed to eat it all in one bite I found it too much to have in my mouth (that's a shocker...look at that mouth!).  I drank about a gallon of water trying to wash it all down.  I am NOT a fan of sushi.  I will NOT eat it ever again.  

But I can say I tried it & really don't like it...not that I just don't like the sound of it.