08/10/2019

It rained all night but the singing birds were pleasant to wake up to in the morning. Oh yeah, the sun rises before 0600 AM here! So I woke up early and made reservations in the west side of the island in Waimea for a luau, about an hour away. I also found a roach in our room floor. Gross! I’m thinking of bailing on this place and finding somewhere else to stay.

My daughter says its beach day! We leave and walk towards the water, about 2 blocks away. We couldn’t find an access area to the beach, and it looks rocky and we see people with fishing poles hanging. There’s an info booth in the parking lot by the water so we speak to the ladies there and tell her that we are looking for a beach to play in. She tells us about 2 places about a 5 minute drive away. First is Coconut Beach where the locals go, and just past that is Carlsmith Beach Park, where sea turtles can be seen.

But first is breakfast. We discovered a gem called Surf Break Cafe. There’s smoothies, bagels, oatmeal, wraps, and burritos! We settle for the Scramble: 3 eggs with mix ins of your choice (we picked bacon, cheese, salsa) and toast. While you wait for your food, they give you a colored rock as you sit so they know which table to send the food to. We watch the people as they come in and out and its beach bums in sandals and tourists in straw hats.

Off to find Coconut Beach. It’s situated by the lovely Japanese-style Lili’uokalani Gardens. But it was still set on a dock, and it wasn’t the “Hawaii style” beach we had envisioned.

So instead we went to Carlsmith Beach, and found this paradise oasis:

Some things about this beach park, though: the rocks are very sharp so if you don’t have water shoes (like us), you have to step very slowly and gingerly to the water. There’s also lots of these little black crabs crawling in and out of the crevices of the rocks. And they camouflage themselves very well too. Nope.

This place is family friendly! People have pop up tents and they’re playing ball, snorkeling, grilling food, and collecting rocks. Tattoos are also very popular in Hawaii I’ve noticed. If I were here alone, I’d be in danger of getting one myself. 🙂

After some time there, it’s time to get ready to go to the luau. I stop at a gas station where it cost me $49 for half a tank of gas! It’s also acceptable to pump gas in your bathing suit, and it was the first (and let’s be honest, probably only) time I pumped it in a bikini.

My daughter is really craving a banana smoothie still, and Surf Break Cafe didn’t do plain smoothies, just ones mixed with aca’i. We hit up the famous Hilo Farmers Market about a block from the water in the downtown area. This market is filled with the smells of fruit, vendors with pre-made bento box meals, food trucks and small stands. It’s also open every day! No banana smoothies, though.

I bought a cold frappe coffee at the Kula Shave Ice stand, and I want to come back tomorrow and sample some more things.

A quick change in the Airbnb room and we’re on the way to Waimea and the luau, located at the Fairmount Orchid Resort right on the oceanfront. We pass the Mauna Kea protest site again, and a rain storm follows us for a bit.

Arriving at Waikoloa, it’s a little town filled with nice homes and sprawling golf courses. But we did see a hitchhiker with his thumb chucked out and all!

The Fairmount Orchid is exceptionally fancy. There’s even fabric wallpaper in the restrooms! It looks like a palace, and it has its own lagoon area facing the ocean, idyllic and photogenic. We walk down and dip our feet in and it’s warm. My daughter asks if we can stay here tonight, but I have to pop her bubble and tell her that it’s around $500 a night to stay here.

Check in time for the luau is after 5 PM, and there’s a line already. It’s $10 extra to buy a real flower lei, and I get one for my daughter because she wants the whole experience.

You then get in line by the seating area and a resort worker is passing around a tray filled with Mai Tai’s. He passes right by me. Hey, I’m of age! I wave him down on his way back down the line and get one, and it’s nice, relaxing, and totally cliche to sip on it but I don’t care.

For the under-agers, they offer Pog juice. It’s passion fruit, orange, and guava juice all together. It looks like a sunset in a glass (for my Star Trekkers, think of the look of a Samarian Sunset drink), it’s delicious, and we instantly fall in love with the taste!

The luau begins with a beautiful lady as a host, and she begins by inviting the guests to playing games, getting “tattoos”, or learning a hula dance. After that’s done, it’s time to eat the buffet style spread. There’s everything you would want to eat at a luau: a whole kualoa suckling pig, vegetables, fruits, breads, fresh dressings for your salads, poke and noodles. There’s even the traditional poi root mashed into a paste. I had just a bit to say I tried Hawaiian poi, and it certainly is an acquired taste. You can refill your drinks (alcoholic and non) at the bar whenever you want, too!

I tried pork, rice, poke, shrimp on skewers, salad, noodles, vegetables, and this wonderful purple sweet potato that I vow to find and cook for myself when I get back home because its just so darn good.

Then there’s the dessert table, with pineapple banana bread, tapioca pudding, and the absolute show stealer: molten lava cake. It’s absolute chocolate heaven, and there’s yummy vanilla and strawberry sauces to dip it in. I could have eaten that all night but it ran out fast!

The sun begins to set, and everyone goes to the golf course behind us and takes pictures of the sunset.

The mealtime winds down, and the hostess gets back on stage and she starts telling the history of Hawaii and the dancers come out. They begin to tell the story in dance form, from the first settlers from Tahiti, the Polynesian influences, the way that hula tells words with their hands, and a number about the cowboy culture influence in Hawaii with a western-style number. It made my kiddo a little homesick!

Fire dancers of course!

I recommend attending this luau. It was fun, informative, and highly respectful of the Hawaiian culture, which I’ve come to appreciate and feel connected to. It’s kinda calling to me (and I’ll probably say that after every trip I go to but who knows). My daughter even wants to come back to Hawaii next year, say whaaaaat?

The night ends and we drive back to Hilo listening to a 1920’s radio station we find through the static. Another night to crash and more sites to see tomorrow on this wonderful island.