When I saw these 2 different Polynesian material displays at the Hilo Farmer's Market I thought the colors were so vibrant and happy that I wanted to share it on my BLOG.

Lots of fresh vegetables and these anthurium's which I have only seen in the red color... but these were purple and a lavender color...Pretty!

Vegetables, fruit and lots of coconuts at Hilo Farmer's Market

We went to the wonderful Hilo Farmer's Market!

There were people making fresh dishes to eat there or take-out, plus lots of fruits and vegetables. These are the Rubatan's that I mentioned eating at the Dolphin Bay Hotel. If you ever can get your hands on these they are wonderful. Just open the red, hairy outer covering and find the seed covered with the scrumptious sweet covering. These are in the same category as the Lychee Nut. The word "Rambut" in the fruit name if Malay for "hairy" and this refers to the spiky rind. This luscious fruit is slightly larger than a Lychee, usually the size of an apricot and has sweet translucient flesh.

The following few pictures were taken in or around Pahoa, Hawaii... This sign was posted in the window of a Pahoa restaurant. Love that Lau Lau and love that Ahi so I might have tried this..... A Lau Lau is meat (or fish) that is wrapped up inside of a banana leaf and then steamed....it is ONO!

This young gal pushing a baby in a baby carriage quickly passed in front of our parked car. She was traveling at a speed that suggested she was on some sort of mission. Sure wish I could have gotten the camera out earlier to get a better snapshot of her. I don't know if she was in the parade or just one of the "Pahoa residents".....but definitely worth posting.

For those of you who live on the Long Beach, WA peninsula you might remember Aileen who owned Aileen's Teriyaki Chicken restaurant. She was from Pahoa where she owned a restaurant in this storefront building.

Al remembered where it was, although he didn't know her back then.

Al's old property at Lailani Estates, Pahoa, Hawaii....

We drove to Al's old property to check out what the new owner had built and this is what we found...the whole lot looked like this.... (I picked out the prettiest part of the jungle). So, obviously, the new owner never built there either!! One of the problems is that after the lava swallowed the whole town of Kalapana and the famous Black Sands Beach, Lailani Estates is now in the Riff Zone.... so no one can get home insurance. This would seem like a good idea to me..... don't build unless someone is quite the gambler.

Obviously this was a Christmas float...........now picture some pretty Hawaiian hula dancers on this float and let your imagination go....I sure wish we would have gotten there in time to see the whole parade.

Some typical Pahoa residents..... I think she felt honored that we were driving by taking her picture but I don't think the gentleman was that thrilled..... wonder what he would have said to me if we had stopped.

Entertaining the children was

"Mr. Balloon Man" who was part of the Parade too. We are on Main Street in downtown Pahoa.

Now this was a "Gem" to find in Pahoa....he calls himself the "Coconut King" as his head dress was 100% made out of Coconut tree.. This is typical of Pahoa residents. The "Coconut King" told me that his head dress was 100% coconut.... I believe he was 'all dressed up' for the Christmas Parade! We arrived too late to see the whole parade, but we saw some of the 'leftovers'.

Pahoa is where Al had property in Lailani Estates... more about that later. We went on a day trip to see his old property and to check out the town of Pahoa..... that is a story in itself!!

Now ~ one has to have good eyesight for this one...but if you look very closely through these trees in the parking lot of the Dolphin Bay Hotel, you will see a Cruise Ship... When we parked our car we noticed this huge ship out in the Bay and later we got better pictures of this monster which we will post. The other picture below is again from the parking lot looking down on the grounds.

Al and I thought that this would be a wonderful bench to sit on and enjoy the beautiful, peaceful, and tranquil Tropical Jungle where we could hug and wish each other a wonderful 2nd Honeymoon...... but as so often happens the tranquility quickly vanished when all we heard was.... http://allaboutfrogs.org/files/sounds/greentree.wav

The Dolphin Bay Hotel has it's own jungle on part of the property.. all guests are encouraged to walk the paths, but be aware of Breadfruit falling. Their whole property is just filled with all sorts of tropical fruit trees and is gorgeous.

The path weaves through this luscious, green, heavenly forest and Al loved it.

This Hotel was so great..not only did we have a beautiful balcony but we looked down at breakfast....that you can look down on too.... Yup, everyday throughout the day we could go to the lobby and grab fresh papaya's and fresh bananas, along with other tropical fruits. We had bread fruit, star fruit (Carambola), gigantic avocado's, rumbutan's which we saw at the Farmer's Market...and is ONO), and I am definitely sure that in the late spring and summer months they have lots and lots of fresh mango.

The entrance here is to the Lobby where there is coffee brewing at 5:30 a.m.... and always fresh.

When we walked into our room the kitchen table had fresh flowers and also in the living room...this always makes a great welcoming. On the other side of this table was a full kitchen fully stocked...they even had an "Emergency Kit" which had a small flashlight, matches, candles. This nice 'touch' is because the owners of the Dolphin Bay Hotel are from Port Townsend, WA and avid boaters... (this definitely would be in a boater's Emergency kit).

To check out this fine hotel go to: http://www.dolphinbayhotel.com

Al use to live in Hilo and still knows his way around that town. He had told me about this great Chinese food restaurant in a "working man's neighborhood" and he really wanted to see if it was still in business. When we got there the air smelled incredibly 'ono'. So he said "let's have some lunch". Inside was filled with lots of people and hardly a chair to be found. There was a yummy looking buffet so I agreed. I have to say that it was another 'ono' experience.

Molly's meal is in the middle and includes some "Chicken Long Rice**" which she had at the Manago Hotel, "Chinese Noodles" and "Schezwan Eggplant".. Allan's meal is "Beef with Broccoli", "Sweet & Sour Pork" and "Pork Fried Rice". ***It does look weird but is great.

These palm trees were so cute. They look like they are wearing their hula skirts..!!
I noticed quite a few of them which made me giggle because we were in Hawaii...

It was still pouring down rain when we got to the Akatsuka Orchid Garden. Al had told me about this beautiful Orchid Garden and was overcome by the huge variety of lovely orchids. They also had a large Gift Shop where one could purchase the lovely orchids or quite a number of other unusual flower gifts or keepsakes.

Al is surveying the territory...what a huge building this was, packed with every color orchid one could imagine. I thought I would post a few of the pictures I took inside this beautiful Orchid Garden of these amazing flowers.

Orchids....and more orchids we saw at the Orchid Gardens outside Hilo, Hawaii.

These were so gorgeous I am posting quite a few pictures.

Just a few of the gorgeous orchids we saw while visiting the Akatsuka Orchid Gardens. http://www.us.totaltravel.com/link.asp?fid=618424

When driving on the Hilo side we drove over numerous valleys that were just lush with greenery..the valleys would lead down to the ocean which was the view on the other side.

The bad news is that it was really raining when we got to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park so we didn't get out to take more pictures......but the good news is that we had seen it before when we were there on our Honeymoon.... and one does expect rain when entering the Hilo side of the Island...it is the prettiest because of all the rain.. It is just one lush green 'jungle' and is totally awesome.

We saw quite a few signs like this warning drivers that it was a Nene Crossing

(Pronounced Nay-Nay). This is the State Bird of Hawaii and is actually a variety of a Hawaiian Goose. Unfortunately, we did not see one 'crossing the road'.

http://www.50states.com/bird/nene.htm

Views from our 3rd Floor balcony at the Manago Hotel,

where we enjoyed the warm, tropical breeze and a few cool

tropical Mai Tai's. What a life!!

Took this picture from our balcony where we could look down on the town of Captain Cook and off in the distance is the City of Refuge.

The sky at the top was after we consumed a few cool tropical Mai Tai's...as it did get quite stormy with thunder and lightening.... Pretty Awesome.

This is one of our very favorite Hotel's on the Big Island because this is true Old Hawaii...

Lots of the locals go here to enjoy meals, holidays, birthdays, anniversary's as we saw many happy families celebrating and sharing a meal...Hawaiian Style.

Check out their web page. http://www.managohotel.com