Rubinary » Big Island http://www.rubinary.com Our small place in the virtual universe. Thu, 09 Sep 2010 04:08:53 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 en hourly 1 Большой Остров — Заметки http://www.rubinary.com/2009/12/12/big-island-notes/ http://www.rubinary.com/2009/12/12/big-island-notes/#comments Sat, 12 Dec 2009 22:05:33 +0000 Alena http://www.rubinary.com/?p=1900 Alena on the west coast of Big Island.Из мест, куда мы ездилии, больше всего запомнились следующие.

Гавайский вулканический национальный парк


Bottom of the caldera. Cooled lava.Видели кальдеру, из которой валил дым (она еще светилась красноватым в темноте). Прошлись по пещере, проделанной когда-то лавой (lava tube). Спустились в старую и неопасную кальдеру и прогулялись там по хрустящим под ногами вулканическим камням (вообще иногда казалось, что всё простаранство залито асфальтом). На стекаующую лаву мы смотреть так и не поехали. Маруки сказали, что для того, чтобы что-то увидеть, надо брать экскурсию на лодке — и так как впечатления у них от экскурсии остались смешаные (было страшно, когда лодчонка прыгала по волнам), то мы решили не ехать. На вертолёеную экскурсию мы тоже не решились — не знаю почему, но мне жутко страшно… Может, зря, конечно, мы такие нерешительные, но уж как было, так было. )

Jungle on the east side of the island.
Akaka Falls.

Водопад Акака


Довольно симпатичный водопад высотой 135 метра. Мне очень понравилась окружающая природа — прям джунгли, почти как из приключенческих фильмов.

Парк, где расположен водопад, очень маленький — прогулка по проложенной тропинке заняла минут 15. В целом – стоило поехать.

Pu‘ukoholā Heiau национальный
историцеский парк


"Castle".В этом небольшом парке вроде бы и нет ничего особенного — ну если не считать развалин “крепости”, построенной королём Камехамеха, которые лично для меня выглядят просто грудой камней — но в местечке есть какое-то спокойное очарование.

Sun rays coming down through the dark clouds.Мы прошлись по окресностям, посмотрели на развалины, а потом просто посидели на деревянной скамеечке и полюбовались океаном, небом, лучами солнца, пробивающимися из-за туч. Еще мы там видели двигающиеся над водой рыбьи гребни, которые, как нам потом обьяснил парк рэнджер, принадлежали серым рифовым акулам (по размеру они достигают 1.5-2 метров).

Пляж с чёрным песком


Black sand beach.На самом деле мы немного ошиблись с этим пляжем. В отеле нам сказали, что на острове таких мест несколько — и единственная разница между пляжами, это рассторяние до них от отеля. На самом деле пляж с вулканическим песком на острове только один (и когда мы поняли что да как, мы на него уже не успели доехать), а остальные представляют собой гибрид – вулканический песок смешанный с перемолотыми белыми кораллами.

Salt and pepper sand -- lava and corrals. Вобщем, мы попали на пляж с песком а-ля “соль и перец”. Тож ничего, но впечатление от “настоящего” пляжа, думаю, было бы сильнее.

Гора Мауна Кеа


К моему удивлению, это гора является самой высокой в мире. Да-да, именно ей, а не Эвересту принадлежит пальма первенства. Дело в том, что высота горы считается от ее подножия, а подножие Мауны Кеа находится на дне океана (примерно 6 км горы скрыто под водой, и чуть больше 4 км возвышается над водой).

On our way to Mauna Kea.Изначально наш план был поехать на макушку горы (~14 тыс. футов на уровнем моря), где, кстати, находится известная астрономическая обсерватория, построеная еще в 1967 году. Однако, в свете бедного Даниного глаза, конечной точкой нашего восхождения стал центр для посетителей, расположенный на высоте ~9 тыс. футов. Возле центра висели предупреждающие знаки, что давление на вершине горы сильно меняется, и людям с разнообразными проблемами здоровья лучше туда не ехать.

Looking over the clouds from Manua Kea.По совету работников центра мы прогулялись минут 10 до места, откуда хорошо смотреть на закат солнца. Было очень интресно смотреть на облака сверху, а не снизу, как это обычно происходит. Пошли мы на прогулку в свитерах, и успели немного подмерзнуть. Температура снижалась буквально на глазах. )

Moon.Когда стемнело, мы посмотрели документальный фильм, посвященный горе, её значения для гавайцев, постройке обсерватории и установке разнообразных телескопов. После этого работники центра (вернее, добровольцы) рассказли нам немного о созвездиях, видных с горы, и очертили некоторые из них лазерной указкой. Потом мы имели возможность посмотреть в телескопы на луну, юпитер и некоторые звёзды. Нам не очень повезло с небом — половина луны нагло сияла ввышине, и из-за этого мы не смогли разглядеть даже млечный путь. Еще было жутко холодно. Мы одели еще по одному свитеру, куртки, шарфы и перчатки — и всё равно мерзли. ) Спасибо Марукам, которые предупредили нас о таких погодных условиях.

Pu`uhonua o Hōnaunau национальный исторический парк


City of Refuge.В этом парке находится так называемый “City of Refuge”, где когда-то могли укрыться от смерти гавайцы, нарушившие определённые законы, а так же раненые в бою воины. Опять же — ожидала я от парка большего. В разных местах очень небольшого парка стояли вырезанные из дерева фигуры (наверное, божества?) и не особо впечатляющие дервянные постройки. Больше ничего в голове не отложилось.

Mahaiula Beach, Kekaha Kai State Park


In the water.В этот “штатный парк” мы поехали главным образом потому, что могли. Именно так! ) Дело в том, что дорожка к парку (а вернее её отсутствие) представляет собой сплошные колдобины и выбоины, естественно ничем не заасфальтированые. Некоторые люди ехали туда на обычных легковушках — не знаю, чем они думали (хотя застрявших машин мы на дороге таки не встретили). Качало-мотало нас солидно, но зато наш джип наконец-то смог показать себя во всей красе. )

Mahaiula beach.Парк оказался пляжем, где мы увидели несколько довольно больших компаний полностью экипированых для пикника (стульчики, еда, питьё в переносных холодильниках). Мы на пляже пробыли довольно недолго (купальников/плавоок у нас с собой не было). На обратном пути мы увидели семейную троицу козлов — причём всё они были разных оттенков серого и довольно неплохо сливались с окружающим вулканическим пейзажем. К сожалению, запечатлеть на память эти лёгкие создания нам
не удалось.

Кофейная ферма


Coffee on the trees.На острове оказалось довольно много кофейных ферм, и мы решили заехать на одну из них и взять небольшую экскурсию. Расставленные вдоль шоссе рекламы кофейных ферм напомнили мне рекламы виноделен в Мэйне и Нью-Йорке (Hudson Valley area).

Coffee beans.Вообще Гавайи знамениты кофе “Кона”, которое из-за места произрастания по вкусу немного отличается от других видов кофе. Мы попробовали разные смеси этого кофе на ферме, но если честно, то мне не понравилось. Может, дело в том, что я всегда пью кофе с большим количеством молока, а на ферме молока нам на предложили. Данька (известный “любитель” кофе) тоже рискнул снять пробу, но неожиданной любви к этому напитку в нём не проснулось. )

Coffee farm.Небольшую эскрурсию для нас провёл молодой работник фермы. Он показал нам кофейные деревья; аггрегат, который отделял кожуру от кофеный ягод; чан где в воде отмачивались свежеобработанные ягоды; ну и наконец длинную платформу, где на солнышке сохли кофейные зёрна. По словам нашего экскурсовода, большой частью бизнеса для них является продажа сырых кофейных зёрен разным японским компаниям.

А ещё я на этой ферме впервые в жизни увидела авокадовые деревья. Вот уже не думала, что они могут быть такими высокими. ) Экскурсия, кстати, была беспланой, но можно было в благодарность оставить любую сумму в специальной корзиночке (мы оставили $5).

Post Scriptum


Scenic route near Hilo.В заключение, хочется сказать, что отпуск — это всегда хорошо. Да, в этот раз у нас было несколько не очень приятных моментов, которые немного омрачили общий тон поездки, но в целом я осталась довольна. ) Ну и еще приятно воткнуть новую булавку в нашу карту путешествий! )
]]> http://www.rubinary.com/2009/12/12/big-island-notes/feed/ 3 Hawaii — First Days http://www.rubinary.com/2009/12/06/hawaii-first-days/ http://www.rubinary.com/2009/12/06/hawaii-first-days/#comments Sun, 06 Dec 2009 21:06:19 +0000 Daniel http://www.rubinary.com/?p=1877 Lagoon view from our balcony.I still didn’t come up with a good structure to write about this trip, so I’ll just go on about things that come to my mind. Our general approach to this vacation was to take it a bit more easy than usual, but we ended up driving somewhere every day anyhow. There was only one day when we didn’t use the car at all.

Our room in the hotel got upgraded because of our Gold VIP status. I didn’t realize this at first and was slightly upset, but later on after checking the website it turned out that we ended up in the best location the whole resort has to offer. We had a small balcony. The view on one side was a lagoon and on the other dolphin pool and open ocean.

View of the ocean and some lava rocks.As for the island itself I expected it all to look like Jurassic Park. Turns out different parts of the island are polar opposites of each other. The western side is mostly a lava dessert. Everything is surrounded by dried up lava and sharp black rocks. Barely anything grows at all. Very unusual looking landscape.

Our yellow Jeep.On our first day we decided to explore the western side of the island, the part that we were staying on. Since we drove to our hotel during the night we didn’t really see any surroundings. There were also 3 official national park sites on this side of the island — two to the south and one to the north.

Sea turtle. This one was about a meter in length.In the morning, after eating our breakfast1 we got into our awesome yellow Jeep and drove south. Our first Hawaiian stamp stop was Kaloko-Honokōhau National Historical Park. We were told that there are giant see turtles feeding near by and went went down into the water. At first we couldn’t really see anything and felt disappointed. And then we started noticing that there are numerous huge turtles sitting in the water. Since they barely move around they are hard to spot.

Wooden statue at the City of Refuge.Next stop was another NHP — Pu`uhonua o Hōnaunau National Historical Park. This location probably has the most unfriendly and unhelpful ranger we have ever met. But since the territory is rather small anyhow we just took a hike on our own and saw the wooden carved statues that I’ve seen pictures of before.

In the evening we ate dinner in the Lagoon Restaurant that’s right under our hotel room, but the food was crap again and we still payed a lot even with coupons. That was the last time we tried eating at the hotel with the exception of Luau. And that was the end of our first day.

On Saturday we couldn’t help ourselves, but go to the Volcanoes National Park, the thing that I wanted to see the most. The drive is about 3 hours and we took the road that goes by Mauna Kea through Hilo and to the south. The ranger at the Visitor Center was very helpful and she built a good plan for us for the day.

Volcano crater at Jaggar Museum point.We went in the direction of Jaggar Museum. First short stop was near some spot where vapor was coming up form under the ground. Normally this might be a very interesting sight, but after our Yellowstone trip this looked utterly unimpressive. The next stop was a view point near the Jaggar Museum itself.

Now there one could clearly see a very large volcano caldera filled with lava and in the middle of it there was a large crater with a lot of fumes coming out. During the day the lava glow is not visible, but at as we saw later at night there is a distinct red glow inside. For some reason I always imagined the volcano in the way they are drawn in cartoons — big mountain with a top cut off. This really looked nothing like it, but it was a first time I actually saw a volcano crater.

Inside the caldera.After that we drove in the other direction to some other caldera (I don’t remember any of the actual names). What was interesting about this one is that there was a hiking trail down to it. I’m not sure about the actual elevation difference, but the hike itself was about 1.2 miles each way along a rather steep trail, so not an easy exercise, especially for those of us who barely move at all on regular basis.

Lava rocks. Walking on these sounds like walking on frozen snow.Walking on the lava is an interesting experience. At some points it felt like a good asphalt and in others it felt like walking on a frozen snow. With each step you can hear the cracking of little pieces of lava breaking up under your feet. They are actually very sharp little stones full of pores from the air when it was drying up.

Then after we got out of the caldera we went through a lava tube — the place where lava actually used to flow. It reminded me of Carlsbad Caverns somewhat because of how moist, dark and cool it was. At that was about a time when I started to realize that not taking any kind of a sweater was a big mistake. On the other side of the island, where we were staying the temperature was around 90 degrees and here it was quite cold in a t-shirt.

Inside the lava tube.Our dinner was yet another “adventure”. We found a place with really nice Zagat rating not far from the park entrance. We ordered some hot soup and hot tea in an attempt to try to stop shivering from the cold. I also ordered a $40 filet mignon and Alena ordered some salad. The said part came when our food was given to someone else and we were told that it was the last filet mignon they had. And we saw all this play-out in front of our eyes, but not like we could stop the waitress and say — are you sure that’s not our food? )

Either way, they did have another piece for me and they ended up giving us their most expensive appetizer and the soup for free and the steak was just exceptional. So we hold no grudge.

Then we drove back to the hotel and as soon as we got back we went to the pools. It was nice when they keep them open until 11pm. They had one of the jacuzzis there that can only be reached through the water and is completely secluded from 3 sides. I don’t think I have to say anymore. ) And that pretty much concludes our Saturday.
  1. We paid $40 for a rather simple buffet after applying $20 Gold VIP coupon. Would’ve been $60 otherwise
]]> http://www.rubinary.com/2009/12/06/hawaii-first-days/feed/ 0 Hawaiian Negatives http://www.rubinary.com/2009/12/05/hawaiian-negatives/ http://www.rubinary.com/2009/12/05/hawaiian-negatives/#comments Sat, 05 Dec 2009 20:33:15 +0000 Daniel http://www.rubinary.com/?p=1869 Ocean tower of Hilton's Waikoloa Village on the shores of the Pacific Ocean.It’s time to write something about our Hawaiian vacation and I can’t really think of a good place to start. I have mixed feeling about this particular trip because of a number of events, but I think with time all the bad memories will fade and only good ones will stay.

Yet I can’t seem to be able to proceed without talking about the bad experiences and getting them off my chest. So excuse the negativity of this post and the general lack of pictures. The upcoming posts will be better, I promise.

I will start with our flight there and then I’ll jump right into the middle of the story to Monday, the 23rd — our anniversary.

Flight to Hawaii


I don’t want to dwell on the sad part of the flight, so I’ll try to lay it out in as few words as possible. We got to JFK some 2 hours and 30 minutes before the departure. When none of the computers recognized any of our cards, confirmation codes or names we were directed to a Delta representative.

She was unable to check us in because our 2nd leg of the trip was with United and there was some issue there. She was kind enough to call United1 instead of sending us there. United couldn’t help either because Expedia held the rights to the tickets and Expedia needed to reissue them.

You see, the whole thing was booked through Expedia. They kept rearranging the flight and royally screwed something up. I was forced to call them and was placed on hold. Once somebody picked up they tried to fix our problem by putting me on hold yet again. There was only 5 minutes left before we could check in when they came back and said that they need to transfer me to yet another department.

At about that time Delta agent told me to hang up as they manged to work the issue out together with United. You can imagine our general mood by this time — standing in the front gate of the terminal for roughly hour and 30 minutes and being unable to proceed and see time dwindle away from us. And thanks only to the Delta rep who was willing to stay on the phone all this time trying to resolve it we made it onto the plane.

The flight itself was great. The plane to SFO tuned out to have a lot of empty seats so Alena got 3 seats for herself on the right side of the row and I had 3 seats for myself on the left. We basically slept through most of the flight and then for the last hour we just watched some TV shows in built-in TVs.

Time in SFO flew by rather quickly, not counting another incident with Expedia when they sent me an email that our flight was canceled2 . On our Kona based flight we lucked out with ending up in an emergency exit row with a lot of legroom, partially thanks to yet another one of Expedia’s screw ups.

And this gradually brings me to my next point of dislike.

Price Insanity


A one feeling that hasn’t failed to leave me through this trip was a feeling of us getting ripped off left and right. We got ripped off any chance anyone had on a daily basis. It started with us renting a car. I had a reservation, yet somehow we ended being charged $200 more.

Hotel had several restaurants, yet the prices were insane and food was not good. I don’t mind paying a high buck for good quality food, but it just simply was not the case. The price was higher than a lot of high end places in the city and the food was nowhere near. However thanks to Zagat and some references from Maruk we did find several really good places that even though were still expensive gave us a couple of nice dinners.

Same can be said of our luau experience. For $90 a person we had a mediocre buffet and an extremely primitive show. And then they wanted to charge us $55 for photos taken by a bad photographer who lacks any sense of a good composition or any lightning techniques.

And I could go on for a long time, but you get my point.

The Eye


By now I have arrived to the so called peak or culmination of our bad luck during this short trip. You see, it started on our very first Hawaiian evening. We just have checked into the hotel and were carrying our bags into the room.

I had one of those said bags hanging on my shoulder by a strap. Well, at a certain moment that freaking strap decided to get ripped of from the bag, and a heavy metal hook that was holding that strap in place, propelled by a motion of this heavy bag falling down to the ground swung around my shoulder a flew full speed into my left eye before I had a chance to blink.

After about 20 seconds of excruciating pain I thought I was OK. I was wrong.

By Friday evening I started to see a lot of bright flashes and on Saturday my eye started filling up with dots and clouds — the so called floaters. We decided to wait for a day or so and see if it gets better, but on Sunday evening I got yet another big cloud in the bottom of my eye.

Needless to say, this was very bothersome and worrisome and on Monday morning I started looking for an ophthalmologist to make sure there is nothing bad like retina detachment is going on.

After calling a couple of numbers and finding out that the doctor is either out of the office or the number is just plain wrong I was referred to some place where they set up an appointment for me in 30 minutes or so. When we got to the car we realized that I could actually just call my insurance and get a couple of references to places that would actually take it.

First number was a dead number, second — the doctor is gone, third was on wrong island at all. However they did mention that on this particular day they have a doctor on the Big Island, but on the very opposite side of the island. At least 2 and a half our drive. So we figured we’ll just go to the one that is relatively close by and will just pay.

When we arrived to this office we came to a sad realization that the doctor was not an ophthalmologist, but a simple optometrist. I asked if they were qualified to diagnose this correctly and I was assured that they do this all the time and that they most definitely are.

The doctor turned out to a 20-something girl that while giving me an initial examination told us a “funny” story. Just last week, you see, she had a patient, who also spoke Russian and was from New York, that got hit by a bag that fell out of an overhead compartment in a plane. But, she said, he didn’t even have to go home because he got hit so hard that he retina got completely detached and there was nothing a doctor could do at this point anyhow. I’m not really clear on where the “funny” part comes in, but I don’t think you tell something like this to a patient who comes in to check for retina detachment.

Anyhow, she put something into my eyes to open up my pupils that made me see everything blurry. All this was accompanied by “go wait until we call you back” episodes and was in its 3rd hour by now. When she called me back again she started looking into my eye over and over and over again. Then she concluded that everything looked somewhat OK for now, but I really shouldn’t move much or do anything and I specifically should avoid going to the mountain and taking a flight home was not a good idea…

Then she proceeded to say that even if I don’t do any of those things there is a chance that my retina that is fine at the moment will detach and then I’ll have to get a surgery, where they will put me on my stomach, put an oil bubble into my eye and I will have to lay face down for several weeks. And in conclusion she noted that even though retina will reattach the vision will probably not return.

At this point Alena pointed out that she needs to lie down. In the next few seconds her face and lips proceed to turn completely white and she slid out of a chair. Her eyes just went in different directions and stayed open and she was gone. I haven’t been so scared in a long time. I started to uncontrollably cry, not knowing what’s going on with her, the doctor ran out to call 911 and all kinds of crazy things were racing through my mind. I had no idea if she’ll wake up or not and I just kept crying.

Within a minute or so she woke back up feeling very disoriented. Apparently she fainted when she started imagining parts of our doctor’s colorful description of what could or would happen to me.

She kept lying on the floor, while I didn’t really know what to do now. We will have to pay over a $100 without getting any kind of definitive answer from the doctor on the eye and Alena is in a bad shape.

The doctor girl said that I really should see a retina specialist, but they have none on this island and maybe I should book a flight to Oahu. Then somebody realized that there was a visiting doctor on this island today and it turned out to be the guy that was on the other side of the island that I should’ve gone to in the first place, and they take my insurance to top it off. Now in retrospect I think I should’ve refused to pay, but that was the last thing on my mind at that moment.

So I barely got Alena into the car, put her down on the back seat and took on a 2 hour drive to another doctor with my fuzzy vision. On my way I stopped in a deli and bought a pair of sandwiches, so Alena could eat something. But she felt so bad that she couldn’t sit up and couldn’t think of food at all.

When we were 2 blocks away from the office of the doctor we were coming to see, Alena sat up and grabbed the bag with sandwiches. Looked at them and proceed to throw up right into the same bag. I guess the sandwiches appeared particularly appealing to her at that moment in time. The good thing is that after that she started feeling OK.

As for myself, I spent about 40 minutes in the doctor’s office. They put the same thing into my eyes and made my vision even more blurry, but after being looked at by 2 doctors I was told that they see some gel detachment from the injury and that’s what causing my floaters. They also said that retina is fine and I have nothing to worry about. I was told that I could do anything I want, including going to the mountain and should just enjoy my vacation. They suggested that I should just be on the look out for some changes in the eye and in the unlikely event that it gets worse I should see my doctor when I get back to NYC.

As you can see it turned out to be one memorably anniversary, just not in the way we expected or hoped it would be.

Conclusion


It’s time to get off my soap box now. Sorry for all the melodrama, but I wanted to get it out of my system. Overall I’m still happy with our vacation and we do have a lot of good memories about it. But more about that in the upcoming posts.
  1. They are located in a different terminal and it would be a huge hassle for us to get there.
  2. Luckily for us the flight was not canceled and Expedia just screwed up yet again, but it cost us some nerves.
]]> http://www.rubinary.com/2009/12/05/hawaiian-negatives/feed/ 0 Big Island, Hawaii http://www.rubinary.com/2009/06/05/big-island-hawaii/ http://www.rubinary.com/2009/06/05/big-island-hawaii/#comments Fri, 05 Jun 2009 16:11:04 +0000 Daniel http://www.rubinary.com/?p=1347 Satellite image of Hilton resort on Big Island.Alena and I booked our next-next vacation. We’re going to go back to Hawaii for our 3 year wedding anniversary. But if last time we went to Oahu and stayed in Honolulu, this time we’re going to to the Big Island.

We’re going to stay in luxurious Hilton Waikoloa Village resort. And the best part is that we don’t have to pay1 anything for the hotel at all thanks to us being a part of Hilton Honors program.

What we do have to pay2 for is the flight. But flights these days seem to be much cheaper than they were even when we went to Hawaii the first time in 2005. We’re going to rent a car and explore the whole island. I can’t wait to visit Hawaii Volcanoes National Park for example.

This should be a great honeymoon vacation. mrgreen I can’t wait.
  1. We’re staying here for 8 nights. Normally each night runs 40,000 points here, but Gold VIP members get a discount, so we’re spending 235,000. And we have plenty more left for long weekend trips.
  2. No direct flights, so there is a plane change in LAX. Total cost is going to be $1,782.80 for the 2 of us. The flight is about 13 hours each way.
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