It was not until much later that I realized what we had stumbled upon. One of those interesting places that makes Hawaiʻi special. One of those places that is now gone forever. It was a few years ago now, just travelling around the island with my sister-in-law, on island to visit for a week…
Nene’s aloha shirts on display in the shopWandering up the street ahead of the gals I saw it. A shop full of fabric is a problem, the bright colors would attract my wife like a bee to flowers. The little shops along main street of Honokaʻa all had colorful window displays designed to attract tourists. I expected there would be delays as the gals wandered in and out of the shops, just to be expected. Among these Nene’s Sewing Corner was definitely a problem. I casually blocked the door as my wife strolled up.
She, of course, realized what I was doing. Despite her attraction to the bolts of cloth, we were hungry and it took little to convince her to move on in the direction of food. Our stop in Honokaʻa was for lunch, not fabric shopping.
On the way back to the car we again wandered past the little shops, this time there was nothing to do but give in to the inevitable and go in.
You do not need to visit some remote Serengeti plain to see wildlife being wild. Our front lanai can be quite wild on occasion. In this case a pair of male carolina anoles having a territorial tiff. It was quite fun to watch, in the presence of another male they can puff themselves up to twice the size and deploy a bright red dewlap.
Carolina anoles (Anolis carolinensis) in the midst of a territorial threat display.
I have a growing collection of wreck photographs, to which I added another this week. What is it about the local roads that causes this?
A overturned car resulting from a single vehicle accident on Waikoloa Road 12Feb2015Many of the wreck photos in my collection came from the old saddle road. That road was truly dangerous, I did not even photograph every wreck I encountered. Not so much anymore, the rebuilt road is much safer. there are still wrecks, just not nearly as often. It is usually tired or drunk drivers running through the guardrail at the end of the road. That has happened four times now.
The latest wreck on Waikoloa Road seems to have been a single vehicle affair, encountered while returning from work. Best guess is that the driver put a couple wheels on the gravel shoulder for some reason, from there they lost control and flipped the vehicle. There was gravel all over the road just above the accident site.
Aside from the old Saddle Road, island roads are just not that bad. In comparison to the winding country roads I grew up on these should be much safer. Yet the accident count seems much higher in proportion to the cars on the road. It is also not that unusual to witness some really bad driving.
Checking the data shows Hawaiʻi is not the worst state. The traffic fatality rate is right in the middle for the states, about 1.01 deaths per 100 million miles driven for 2013. Data for Hawaiʻi County would be interesting to compare, a different situation than the other islands with our more rural nature. Hawaii is noted to have the largest proportion of single vehicle wrecks in the same set of data.
This morning there is news of three more fatalities, a fiery crash down in Kona that closed the Queen Kaʻahumanu Highway all morning. A reminder to be careful on the local roads.
This weekend was Cherry Blossom Festival in Waimea!
There are a huge number of events, exhibits and vendors at multiple venues scattered across town. You really need to pick and choose what you want to see. In years past we had checked out the events at Parker Ranch Square or visited the historic Puʻu Opelu home at Parker Ranch. This year I started at church row, parking at Keck and walking over. The large lawn in front of the churches is really the center of the whole event, here are the cherry trees for which the festival is held.
Cherry blossoms on a tree in WaimeaActually the cherry trees were at their best last week. We have been enjoying them, they are right next door to Keck. There were still a few trees in blossom for the festival. Everyone stopping to take a few photos of the blossoms. Even better, the notoriously fickle Waimea weather produced an absolutely glorious day for this year’s festival.
The first event I look for on the schedule is Taiko drumming! This island boasts several excellent Taiko groups and performances are always a treat. This year I caught Hui Okinawa Kobudo Taiko’s early performance at church row. A chance to enjoy the performance, take some great photos, and just feel the pounding of the drums pass through you. One set was a great Shishi Mai (lion-dog) performance, the dancers interacting with the crowd.
Hui Okinawa Kobudo Taiko performs at the 2015 Waimea Cherry Blossom FestivalFood is available in abundance. Traditional Japanese fare at the Hongwanji Mission, cooking demonstrations from local resturant and resort chefs, and local island favorites everywhere. No problem getting lunch. Well, there was one problem… making a choice!
I particularly enjoyed a bonsai exhibit, there were some gorgeous examples of the art. I also visited the Hongwanji Mission, a Buddhist temple of the Jōdo Shinshū school. The building is almost next door to Keck, but I had never given it much thought.
The only downside of the festival is the traffic. Half the island comes to Waimea for the day, the result is no parking, near gridlock on the main street, and crowds everywhere. As with most of these Waimea events, get there early!
The annual 100 best places to eat in the US list for 2015 was published by Yelp this week. A number of Hawaiʻi restaurants make the list, but only one on the Big Island. You will find Da Poke Shack in spot 51, holder of last year’s top spot on the list. Not being a raw fish fan and not getting into Kona very often I can not offer an opinion on that selection. I did wonder what restaurants are best rated for Waimea. Is the list very good?
The remains of the meal litters a table at Hawaiian Style Cafe.Yelp’s reviews are reader generated, and as such are subject to a great deal of personal bias. But with a lot of reviews from a large reader base you would hope that the result averages out to something reasonably accurate. Thus I did a quick search on Kamuela, as Waimea is known to the post office to avoid confusion with the other towns of the same name elsewhere in the state.
The top ten does not look that bad…
Hawaiian Style Cafe
Merriman’s
Village Burger
Red Water Cafe
The Fish and the Hog Market Cafe
Big Island Brewhaus
Yong’s Kalbi
Pau
James Angelo’s Underground Pizza
Aka Sushi Bar
The restaurants any local resident would expect to see are there. I would quibble with the placement of some of these establishments on the list, but there are no surprises here. If you really want to read further I will add my own opinions and comments in the remainder of this post…
