Tuesday January 26, 2010- Hilo day 2

I slept in till like ten and then got up to go out with Sarah and Kayln.  Thankfully my wood varnish was still around so I returned that first thing to Walmart, and then we took a taxi downtown to explore the farmers’ market.  I bought an avocado, water, a pastry and something like a Hawaiian sweet tamal made of rice and coconut and wrapped in banana leaves.  After moseying around awhile we had lunch next door at a Mexican restaurant (Reubens) and I got my much-craved guacamole and all was well.  Then we took a taxi to rainbow falls, which apparently a lot of students had been hitting up to swim and explore and jump off cliffs.  I, however, am not very god at negotiating with rocks, we do not understand each other.  So when Kayln and Sarah began climbing these rocks to get to the cliffs beyond, I wimped out and went to go sit and be weak and unexciting in a little cove.  Mostly what I did there was sit, bark at rustling leaves, eat my pastry after noticing that I had sat on it, and attempt to do tai chi even though I was on an awkward incline.  After like an hour they returned with some other brave people who know how to have fun and we called for a taxi with pink seats.  I should mention that prior to this trip I have never taken a taxi.  So this is good and I feel all accomplished and things.  We got off in another section of town and went into a Kava Bar, where we drank Kava out of coconut shells and had beautiful ice cream.  There is a tradition before drinking one’s first Kava to clap together, sprinkle some on the ground for th earth that it came from, sprinkle some behind us for the ancestors, clap in unison, chug it, and then clap twice.  However, I am royally ungifted at chugging, so half an hour later I finished my Kava shell, and five minutes after that I remembered about the clapping and partook.  By this time we were supposed to be back on the boat so we called our same taxi and headed to port. 

About an hour or so later I headed to dinner, it was this guy Corey’s birthday so he had a cake, and I got up about four times to hunt down this chocolate mousse that kept disappearing as soon as it was put out (I hunted in vain).  But like, Nat proceeded to give me a necklace he got me at the farmers’ market, so it’s all good.  Hoorayyy.  Then a bunch of us (including Kayln, Sarah, Tyler from yesterday, my friend Edwin, and two cats from England James – in my theatre performance class- and Kristina) played a very addicting stressful and exhilarating card game called Pounce.  We meant to go to spiritual dance on the seventh deck but were much too roped in to quit.  Afterwards we thought we’d spend the night outside on the deck, but Kayln Sarah and I changed our minds and thought we’d have a movie night.  In reality, we sat in our room with Nat and talked until we decided it was too late for a movie and went to bed.