Big Island, Hawaii Trip Day3

Today we started our day closer to normal.  I think we were up closer to 5:30am, definately a better night's rest than day 2.  We had a chance to Skype with the girls, which was awesome - love you!!!,  and then headed off to the farmer's market in Hilo, Hawaii.  The market was filled with fruits and vegetables of all kinds, crafts, jewelry, t-shirts and Hawaiian clothes, wood carvings, glass blowings, art in many forms, and then things like massage.  Our sunburns are pretty sore today so we enjoyed walking under the tents and surrounding shops.  The market is a much better experience than the grocery stores here. The stores are expensive to say the least and no where near the variety that we are used to.  They also smell. It is from the fresh sushi counter but you can smell it as soon as you enter the store and almost have to cover your nose as you get closer to the counter.  Neither of us like the stuff but I can't imagine the smell would be tolerable to even those that enjoyed it.  Today I saw some children, like 3 and 5 years old, beg their Mom for a sample like our children beg for a cookie sample at the bakery.  They happily marched along following their Mom eating raw fish on a skewer - UGH!  We were in the Walmart here today to see what it was like.  It didn't smell but that was because they only sell prepackaged items.  No deli, no bakery, only frozen meat, small, small produce section - like 6 items total.  Imagine a Walmart like in the states with all its annoying aspects and multiply it.  After the market we went back to the cottage to rest and eat and then made our way to the Volcano National Park, but only stayed a little bit.  It is an awesome place.  It costs $10/vehicle for a week.  There is enough to do there that you could literally spend 5-7 days and not do it all.  I am sure you will hear more about it many more days to come.  It is perfect for us to go check something out whenever we want or have spare time as it is 7 miles from the cottage.

Matt waiting for me to put some purchases in the jeep.

Houses up on hillside in Hilo

Jewelry was everywhere at the market

 Our vegetable fares

Andi & Grandma would love this butter avocado - it is huge and can't wait for it to get ripe!

We ventured out with the fruit and got some exotic ones.

One of the spewing, venting, smoking craters at the park

We stopped and got some fresh fish and made a vegi stir fry with our 

market purchases.  (That is juice in case anyone is wondering).

The Longan fruit (also known as dragon eye - and I can see how it got that name as it feels like you would expect an eye ball to feel)- taste kind of like plum once you peel off the tough outside peel.

Rambutan Fruit - the inside is much like the longan fruit above.  Clear
gel like and the texture of the inside of a grape.  This fruit is unique in
its flavor. It is vaguely familiar but I haven't been able to place it yet.

This is the Hawaiian star apple.  They come in purple and green.  We
ate a purple one tonight.  It looked like an animal organ coming out
of its skin but was good to eat.  I guess we opened it wrong after looking
on the internet.  It is supposed to be segmented kind of like an orange
but it ended up being one big mass of goo.  If you cut it the opposite way
we did you will see the seeds inside make up a star shape.  It tastes like
no fruit we've ever had but sweet and light, almost like a sorbet that
isn't frozen if you can imagine that.

Love to all - Aloha po (good night)