Disturbed by noises, I was awakened by the other girls in the hostel dormitory at 6am. The sun had already risen considerably and lots of golden sunlight illuminated my bed, which was on the top bunk. I was forced to wake up sleepily. Proceeding to take a hot shower, I realized that the body shampoo was with Kenon and he was sleeping in the male dormitory. What an inconvenience!
I washed my face and went down the street in search of my favourite breakfast drink, coffee. I found a cafe after a short walk in the crisp and cool morning air. Bringing a few pastry and my large cup of coffee back to the hostel, I sat at the common table and enjoyed my slow morning.
The interior of the Hilo Bay Hostel was a restored Burns hotel. There was even a display museum glass case showing very old artifacts. It was a very charming lobby with a sky-roof that allowed sunlight to shine through right in the middle of the lobby, a humongous bird cage with one parrot was placed along a large plant just below. All the furniture were made of wood or wicker and there was a decidedly British colonial feel to everything. I sipped my coffee while looking through the book of Aloha detailing Hawaiian proverbs that I bought the day before.
Kenon finally woke up two hours later, and we checked out, carried all our luggage [which is only one rucksack] and went to explore Hilo beyond the Suisan Fish Market, where our efforts were thwarted the day before. We stopped at the now open fish market first. There were only a couple of yellow-fin tuna for auction, but Poke was sold at an air-conditioned enclosure next to the market.
Poke is a delicious local delicacy, that I first tried at Big Island grill. It was made of square pieces of raw tuna marinated in soy or other types of marinade like chilli, pickle, curry, etc. We ordered rice and piled it high with different marinated raw seafood. Kenon chose chilli tuna and pickled seaweed with kelp. I chose baby lobsters and the largest mussels that I'd seen so far.
After having eaten lunch al-fresco, we continued down Banyan drive to the famed Liliuokalani Japanese gardens. A large portion of Hilo townspeople were actually Japanese, and Ralph from Big Island Divers had earlier told us that the Japanese "mafia" controlled almost all organizations in Hawaii. As we strolled in the garden, a young Caucasian man in his early thirties was playing with his young daughter and son. He was teaching them to swing on lichens like Tarzan and Jane. Kenon and I decided to try our hand too, but found the roots too slippery to hold onto.
The garden itself was a sight to behold. Black rocks were carefully arranged on white pebbles to outline a spiral path down the middle. Half the garden were shallow fresh-water ponds, lined on the side by grey rocks and half full of clear water. Little black and grey fishes swam, likely cichlids, underneath lily pads and darting in between the rocks. A red wooden bridge arched over the waters, over little stone lanterns on the edges of the ponds. The still ponds contrasting strongly with the blue ocean separated by just a one-lane road away. A light sea-breeze blew, and the sky was azure with clear-weather cirrus high above.
Passing the garden onto a small beach littered with tall hotels, we decided to return to the Mooheau Bus Terminal to wait for the Hele-on bus and return to the leeward side of the island, which I much prefer. The tropical weather was already too humid for my liking.
The bus came on time at half past one, and duly transported us back to Kona. We dropped off at Macy's, and bought tickets to watch Iron Man 2. The rest of the evening was plasantly unremarkable, and I was too exhausted to pay much attention to anything else.
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