Travel to the Big Island
Aug.27(Sat.)
I got up later than usual namely 8 o'clock, because I felt a little tired after returning from Yugawara. Today was the date I left for Hawaii. The typhoon passed Chiba, so I was lucky. The fｌight was 9 o'clock pm and I had enough time and I went to my mother's house and ｊoined in English conversation lesson. My wife and I left my house at 5 o'clock and checked in. We got a ticket of Sakura room for relaxation which I usually used for the people which have executive class tickets. The room was big and relaxed for one hour. This was campaign season for Goku ticket. We could drink beer and wine and coffee with candy etc. without any payment.
JAL 070 flight bound for Hawaii was fully occupied
We arrived at Kona Airport at 9:30 am and rent a car at the dollar office near the airport. We took a dollar company charter bus at the airport front. My wife and I left airport at 11:00 o'clock. I asked the company's person to give me a map of Hawaii Island, but he said we have only our pamphlet. I was wandering how I would leave the airport and take a highway. It was so easy that I realized no map required. The car was Stratus, Dodge and it was wide enough to drive for long time.
I stopped at the Hapuna beach near the town of Waikona. It was so hot that I hardly kept standing at the beach for a few minutes. There were many people swimming. I kept on driving and as it was just after 12:00 o'clock, I dropped in the Parker Ranch shopping center in the Waimea town which is a small town. We ate lunch. As we ate a lot of food in the airplane, we were not hungry. We just ate Japanese noodle namely Udon which tasted bad. We bought bread and water and so on.
We drove up and elevation was getting higher and the temperature was cooling down. Then we drove down and arrived at Waipio Valley. I drove to the scenic spot. We could have a great view from the scenic spot. There were high cliffs, white waves, green area and beach between cliffs.
After visiting the Waipio Valley, we directly went to the Hilo Hawaiian Hotel in Hilo town. We had the beach side room with a veranda in front of Hilo bay and we could get a great view from our room namely Mt. Mauna Kea and small island (Coconut Island) and Hilo bay. We took a nap for one hour and then took a walk in the park in front of the hotel. I was surprised that there is a big Japanese garden with Tohroh, Torii and Japanese tea ceremony house and the park was well maintained. There were many Japanese people who immigrated here about 100 years ago in order to develop sugar field. It was very hard work and they wanted to build Japanese town and a Japanese garden which reminded them of Japanese memory.
After returning, we tried to eat dinner at the hotel restaurant at 6:00 o'clock. It was already full occupied, so we could not eat there. My wife looked up a restaurant and she found a Japanese restaurant 10 minutes walk near the hotel. We went there and we tried to have a dinner, but it was also fully occupied and no seats. I returned and had a dinner next to our hotel. It was a steak restaurant which offered us Hawaiian music and dance.
We got tired, so we went to bed earlier than usual.
