Hawaii: the Constantly Erupting Volcano

It’s been 2 days since we’ve left Hawaii but I never really had the chance to have any sort of alone time. There’s nowhere to really go on the ship without bumping into someone you know or others that want to meet you. It’s starting to get cliquier now though, which I kind of hate because I still feel like there are so many people I want to meet

Anyway going back to Hawaii…Before landing in Hilo, a group of 6 of us decided to book this tour that Michael, this guy who is from Honolulu (another island) put together. A bus picked us up from the dock and took us to this beautiful park right by the ocean in order to have lunch. Apparently after a volcano some years ago they have decided to not allow anyone to live there but just to have parks. We had lunch under this enormous weeping willow that was breathtaking, it was hard not to enjoy. We spent the rest of the afternoon, hiking in the rain around the National Park of Hilo. We saw a giant crater that the volcano had formed and this crazy deep Hole in the ground that showed how many times the volcanoes had erupted from all the different colors. We then went into these lava tubes that are created by the lava after the volcano erupts and is now safe to walk through.

Finally, we ended our night at the top of this mountain and overlooked an incredible site.
There was a volcano far off in the distance beneath us that was a constantly erupting volcano. We saw huge amounts of lava bursting into the air and making a large sound much like thunder. Our tour guide told us it was the brightest and loudest she’d ever seen
it!

Afterwards, we got driven to the other side of the island, a city called Kona (a.k.a the dry side). In Hawaii what’s crazy is it rains in one side of the island, the wet side, and doesn’t in the other, the dry side. Hawaii is a strange, mysterious place to me. The fact that it is in the middle of the pacific, in the middle of nowhere, with literally no one surrounding it for miles. The fact that it is an American state yet is so different than any other place in the US.

So we got to Kona and it was a dead city. We were definitely one of the few people awake at 10 pm (the room service had just stopped) so we ordered a taxi to go to the nearest restaurant to eat anything. Problem was the cab companies close at 11 so we had to take everything to go and come back to the hotel. We hung out by the Jacuzzi just talking and
getting to know one another as many of us didn’t know each other before. The next morning, we got an entire day just laying on the beach, drinking our island drinks (hapuna splash is fantastic…the mai tai not so much), and calling our friends and family back home since we could using our US numbers.

We then got back on the ship only to go to another island in Hawaii to refuel for an entire day! Its only been two days but I’m getting restless I just want to get to Japan! The most fascinating thing is after tomorrow we are going through the International Date Line and just skipping a day! So we’ll go to bed tomorrow on the 20^th of January and wake up on the 22^nd! Isn’t that crazy? I guess I sort of understand it since we’ve also been turning our clocks back an hour every night. I just have no clue what time it is at home and it a shame for people whose birthday is on the 21^st!

Related articles

• 5 Fun Vacations To Take When You Retire (channelvoyager.com)
• Volcanoes (veersaini.wordpress.com)
• Hawaii Volcanoes National Park: Lava glows, steam shoots (usatoday.com)