Day 9 - April 8?, 2025

 After the luau, I just fell in the bed and did not get today’s blog done. So now that I’m semi-conscious and ready for a 26 hour day (I think) I’ll talk about yesterday. Gary & Claudia’s cousin Jill and her husband Eric picked us up at the hotel after 9 am, and drove us to a cute little restaurant for breakfast, called The Gazebo. It was a tiny place on the beach, a real gazebo, and we waited in a long line for awhile to get in. Very popular place with the locals. They have umbrellas to keep the sun off of you while you wait. The food was good and plentiful, and for where we are, the prices were good. They had Oma coffee, which I thought was great - much better than Kona. When Claudia went to the bathroom, the little sparrows attacked her leftover macadamia pancakes! We really have to watch the birds as so many restaurants are open-air and the birds like the leftovers.

Rainforest tree with dragon fruit plants.

Breadfruit tree.

At the luau.

Poi on pineapple. The taro that poi is made from is purple. The rolls were purple. And the fried taro I had a different night was purple.

Jill took us to a beach that had a rain forest next to it, and we walked through it. She pointed out trees like the ones our Kona nut necklaces come from, breadfruit trees, Hala trees, the ti plants that hula girls make their skirts from, and the dragon fruit plants that are like orchids growing in other big trees. We saw many mango trees, and papayas - just growing wild. I could get to like this place. We talked about prices and Jill sent me the picture of milk below. After they dropped us off, we went exploring the Whaler’s Village again, and I ate some Tapioca pudding from the ABC market while Claudia shopped some more. I found a cute pair of pants on sale for me - $12.40!! 

Claudia found the trolley for us and we rode back to our room to get ready for the luau. We dressed up as Hawaiian as we could manage and the lei they gave us helped a lot.There was all kinds of Hawaiian food, and I tried poi for the first time, over pineapple. LOTS of pineapple here. I had Kalua pork, P.O.G. chicken, teriyaki beef, noodles, fried rice, a taro roll, some salad, and a Pina colada. No dessert for me, but I didn’t need it. We were entertained by Hawaiian stories, music and dances - some with fire. The cliff-divers dove off the cliff at sunset, and it was a beautiful sunset. All in all, a very good day!