Hawaii Day 2 - Orientation

Wednesday we went to an "island orientation" supplied by the local "island experts." Of course they were also trying to sell us a ton of tours, which we did buy. We met some of the representatives of the tours and also Captain Kris. He was the owner of one of the smaller tour rafts that did snorkeling at Kealakakua Bay. He was so very pleasant and personable, he smiled alot and had that easy island lilt in his very soft voice. He was kinda grungy but made his tour sound really personal and fun, and he touched people I lot. I really wanted to do his tour but Judi and Scot convinced me that we should do the big boat because Laura would not do well in the "life raft" kind of tour. I did acquiese and later on you will see that I was sooooooo glad I did.

After orientation we went to get familiar with the surroundings. We went looking for places to shop and ended up in Keahou. The roads just don't make sense and it took a lot of time to find our way, plus the usual speed limit is 25 mph, 35 mph if you're lucky. We found this little outdoor mall back in Kona where there were lots of vendors. Here Judy and Scot shop with the local owner of a shop that sold lots of stuff from korea.

She insisted Scot try on this shark teeth necklace. She said he could use it as a weapon. She was pretty aggresive about making a sale, it was a slow shopping day. One thing we did notice pretty quickly was how quiet it was tourist-wise. The bad economy has certainly hit the Big Island. About 50% or the shops in the tourist areas were closed and it was really easy to get into restaurants and get great service. Good for us but bad for the locals.

Next we went to lunch at Jackie Rey's. I grew up on Oahu and was expecting a similar culture but the culture on the big island was completely different. Whereas Oahu is primarily asian- based the big island is not. There is a really nice even blend of all the races which made it really hard to find some good teriyaki. We found an L&L, which I am not fond of, and most restaurants served high-end dinners, mostly fusion and seafood. It is really tasty but not what I expected.

Everyone ordered something fun and Laura had fish, it was pretty good.

It was a nice little restaurant with open windows and a good breeze. Since Laura didn't make it to orientation I had to fill her in on all the things we were going to do in the upcoming days. It was too late to turn back though, I had paid for her with her credit card.

There was an old style woody outside with a vent for a roof where you store surfboards. It was pretty cool, had no windows or doors you just slide in.

We finally headed back to the timeshare for the night. We had gotten the lay of the land, spent some time at the local Walmart and floated off to sleep.