Instead of staying in hotels, Cameron and I wanted to rent a car and travel around the Big Island staying in different Airbnbs. We wanted to experience the island Hawaiian style, in actual Hawaiian homes. I took photos here and there of the different houses we visited, and this is the first. I didn't get any photos inside the cottage, and yes it was a very small WIDE open cottage. It was a little too Hawaiian for us. The area surrounding was beautiful, but we had absolutely no privacy in the cottage, which was a no go for us. We were extremely tired from traveling the night we arrived, so we just sucked it up and dealt with it the first night.
We wanted our first day in Hawaii to be more relaxed since we had been flying for basically a day. First, we went down to a very small and quiet beach called Manini Beach, which did not have a sandy shore, but a rocky one. This was not uncommon for the Big Island. We went to the Coffee Shack higher up the mountain for brunch, and we were so stuffed. Food portions in Hawaii are extremely large to cater to the Samoans. It was very rare that we left a restaurant with clean plates, because the portions were that crazy. After brunch, we spent most of the day at Manini'owali Beach. The water was incredibly beautiful. Clear, with many shades of blue. I took my underwater camera to the beach to get some videos too.
If you scroll a few photos down, you will see a little lizard on a tree close to our house. Lizards are everywhere you look in Hawaii. Every time we went out we saw at least 6, and we weren't even trying to look for them. They aren't as scared of people in Hawaii as they are in North Carolina.
We ended the day with dinner at Broke da Mouth Grindz in Kailua Kona. Culture in Hawaii is very Asian influenced. In the US, we often hear English or Spanish languages, but in Hawaii everything was in English first, then repeated in Japanese. Rice was a very common side in most restaurants. I got the braised short rib and butter garlic shrimp with rice. Cameron got the garlic furikake chicken and kalua pork with kimchi rice and sweet potato salad. Yes, the sweet potatoes in Hawaii are purple!
Day two coming soon!
