Big Island: Hime Sushi

Meet my new obsession: Hime Sushi in Hilo.

Here's the Pink Lady roll. Avocado, crab, sweet gourd, pink tofu skin.



While the spam sushi at the Farmers' Market was surprisingly tasty (in Hawaii, eat what the Hawaiians do), this was more my style.

YUM.

Today, I am thankful for sushi. I just am.

Big Island: Sea Turtles

According to the locals on the Big Island, Richardson State Park is the place in Hilo to find sea turtles. So guess where I went?


There I was, scanning the shoreline, the horizon. No sea turtles. I settled myself on a large hunk of lava rock and began writing my new novel. A teen girl asked what I was up to and I wailed, "Looking for sea turtles!"

She said: "They're right behind you."

Lo and behold, in the tide pool behind a hill of rocks...there they were...

my sleeping sea turtles disguised as boulders.


Just like beauty. Hidden right under my nose. All I had to do was look behind me.

Chilling--Doctor's Orders

You know it's time to take a vacation when five people who don't know you tell you to take one. When your sister (who happens to be studying for her nursing degree) cites one study after another about how stress takes its toll. Its fatal toll. Which implies that I might just keel over any second. (This just goes to show that too much knowledge can be too much knowledge.)

So nurse's orders: Go relax.

The weird thing is, I had a calling--that's exactly what it was--a calling to go to the Big Island in Hawaii. Airfare was cheap! I called up a girlfriend, Mia King (GOOD THINGS, SWEET LIFE), who happens to live on the Big Island. One phone call later, and she set me up with the most outrageously gorgeous place to stay.

Which leads me here. On a volcano:

That's the Kilauea Iki crater where I hiked yesterday morning, still steaming. Yes, you are allowed to walk across the volcanic floor. Traipse across it. Clomp across it. 24/7. I'm not joking.

After devastation, growth. That's how tenacious life is. Flowers thrive atop lava. Gorgeous.