My first day in Hawaii!

In case I haven't mentioned it enough already, my mom and I were gone for over a week to the big island of Hawaii to visit my little sister Eden. She moved out there to do a work exchange program and ended up staying after it ended. She's lived there for about four months now.

Our flight left from Oakland at 7 a.m., so I stayed the night at my Mom's house in Los Banos the night before we left. Because of the hour and a half travel time to Oakland, plus the required hour and a half pre-flight arrival time, we had to leave the house at 3:00 a.m. Yikes.

We hit some traffic and had to taxi from the parking lot, so luckily our flight was delayed by an hour or so.

Approaching the big island. Notice how black and green it is. The green obviously is vegetation, but the black is volcanic lava rock. The island of course is made of it, so it's visible all over the landscape and coastline.

The lavatory on the plane had orchids by the sink. It's the small things that make a five hour flight more enjoyable. I found out on the flight back home that the first class bathrooms have orchids covering the entire wash basin area. 

I rediscovered how much I love puzzles on this trip. I started this one on the flight to Hawaii and finished about five more 280 piece ones while we were there. BONUS: that's a free Maitai sitting next to my iPad! It tasted like really saturated, sugary, concentrated juice though.

Our plane landed around 11 a.m. Hawaiian time, which is three hours earlier than in California. My sister Eden, who lives in South Kona, picked us up and our first stop was the grocery store.

The funny-flavored syrups amused me. Coconut, guava, lillikoi (or passionfruit in English) flavors. Who would put those on pancakes?

There were also funny-flavored jams and jellies. Interesting stuff that you wouldn't find on the mainland.

Mom bought us all leis when we landed at the airport. Mine and Eden's ended up on the mirror of the rental car because when you wore them around your neck, it was like wearing a scarf and it was just too dang hot to wear a lei "scarf." 

My sister Eden sniffing the plumeria leis.

After the week's groceries were secured, we drove about 20 minutes to Kona, which is where our timeshare hotel was at. It was located on Ali'i Drive, the main road that runs adjacent and closest to the ocean on the far Western side of the island. The place was called the Royal Wyndham Seacliffe Resort and it was a pretty posh little establishment. My mom and Eden shared the bigger room on the ocean side and I had the room that faced inland with the smaller bed. There was a full kitchen so we could cook our own meals, a living room, and TVs in each room. The patio was also a pretty sweet place to eat or relax.

The front entrance of the hotel. Gotta love the palm trees.

My mom checking in. The foliage ran along the center of the hotel and there was a little waterfall and stream as well.

Mom's room with the sunny windows. The gothy vampire in me was thankful my room faced the opposite direction.

My room. We don't have cable in our apartment, so being able to watch TV (namely the Cooking Channel and Adult Swim) was something I enjoyed.

The view out the room's front door facing inland. So green everywhere!

I caught Eden in the process of sitting down I think, but this is the living room area. 

The patio view. We ate breakfast and dinner out here and the ocean was just beyond those tall plants.

After unloading all the groceries, we headed to Dragonfly Ranch, which is the bed and breakfast retreat where Eden did her work exchange program. It's kind of a community living project, although there are separate, themed rooms for each guest that books a room.

It's crazy how green everything in Hawaii is. This is the main road we were on to get to Dragonfly Ranch.

My mom taking pictures of Dragonfly Ranch. We had just gotten there, so this is kind of the view from the "driveway" area.

Looking at the Dragonfly from the parking lot area. The rooms and living areas are pretty much built into the trees like tree houses. It's pretty neat.

Most of the rooms and a lot of houses in general on the big island are open-air like this kitchen/common area of the Dragonfly. 

There were some kitties and dogs living at the Dragonfly. This was a mother and daughter, I believe. Super chill, friendly cats.

Eden leading us down a path to the garden area of Dragonfly. When she lived/worked there, some of her duties were to garden as well as to clean the rooms and common areas. There's a little chihuahua following her that was so cute.

This spiderweb forms an "X" shape but is composed of little zigzags. It's made by a giant, ugly spider called a zipper spider, which is actually in the very center of the web if you look closely. Ugh - so scary. 

After the Dragonfly, Eden had to stop by her house and pick up her overnight things, so we got to see how she's been living for the last month or so after she moved out of the Dragonfly.

This is Eden's little abode. Inside is a bed and nightstand and that's pretty much it. There's an extension cord running to it to provide power to charge her phone or tablet. She said it used to be a greenhouse. This is how a lot of people on the big island live. It's not all touristy and expensive mansions and vacation homes like you would imagine. Simple, clean living.

There are tons of wild chickens, roosters, and ducks that roam around. Eden said there's also sometimes a wild donkey who just shows up. This photo is of Eden feeding the chickens a mango. She says when she comes home sometimes they follow her expecting more food.

 I really hate this photo of me. I felt hot, sweaty, and stinky and was not enthused about having my photo taken. Plus, I'm not wearing ANY makeup and had been awake since two in the morning. But I posted this picture because Eden and my mom look so happy and cute. All that jungle in the background is basically Eden's front yard. 

A boy that's crushing on Eden stopped by and brought us some fresh swordfish he had caught that day as well as some pretty plumerias for our ears. Plumerias are my favorite flowers…besides orchids that is.

Since we were pretty much beat from the long flight and it was around dinner time, we headed back to the hotel and munched and that was the perfect end to our first day on the big island.