Spring 2015 - Day 8: Hawaii
I got up at 7 and was outside of my cabin, pretty much ready for the day, by 7:40.
My phone worked! Hallelujah! I called my parents and I called Josh and I texted a whole bunch of other people until I had to meet my class at 9:30. I hadn't really been feeling any social media withdrawal. I think it's because I got relly used to not having it on my first voyage and came to learn that you don't miss very much when you only go on it once a week. So I am perfectly content to look at it only periodically. Also, it is way more fun to log into Instagram and see that you have 35 likes and 2 comments instead of watching them build gradually.
Since I was part of a field lab I got to go through face to face immigration first. I went to the Union around 15 after 8. When I got up to the first station where I should be given my passport I was told that my passport was one of the ones that was pulled. What does that mean?
They had to call over one of the crew members and he escorted me over to one of the officers sitting at a table. The guy was really nice and cheery and just asked me if I had ever lost my passport or had it stolen. I told him yes, I lost one a while ago. He said ok, gave me my passport, and told me I was all set.
It is true, I lost my passport in the spring of 2013 right before I needed to submit the paperwork to get my visas for my first voyage. I had to get a new one rushed to me so that I could get my visa paperwork in on time. It turned out that I had left it on the scanner part of my printer when I had made a copy of it in Florida. But I didn't find that out until the voyage was already underway and Kellie was moving my stuff into our apartment. So I guess it's not really lost any more. But shhhhhh.
Our field lab also got to be one of the first groups off the ship when they announced that the ship was clear. Everyone else was lined up in a huge line leading down to deck 2 and we got to just walk right past them. We gathered right outside of the ship and then boarded the bus together. Our first stop was a contemporary heart museum in downtown Hilo. On the way there our tour guide, Lori, told us a bunch of facts about Hilo, which is on the big island.
The big island is called the island of Hawaii. While the entire group of item is called Hawaii each individual island has its own name the the big ones happens to also be Hawaii. You can final of the small islands on the big island twice and still have room.
There are 5 volcanos on the island of Hawaii, three of them are active. One of them is the largest volcano on the planet. It is 91 miles from the ocean floor to the top and it takes up 1/3 of the island.
When we reached the museum we met the president and were given a tour where he told us all about the history of the museum. Its full name is EHCC: Hawaii Museum of Contemporary Art. It originally was the sheriffs office when the park in front of it was considered the center of town. It switched over to a museum in 1932. The main room on the first floor was where there were offices and booking rooms. The upstairs was where the municipal court used to be. The building that housed the temporary jail is also still standing but they are in the process of renovating the space so the building is not currently being used.
The museum is a temporary exhibit museum because they do not have the space or resources to be able to preserve and maintain a permanent exhibit. The current exhibit is a ceramics show featuring busts that are portaits of artists in east Hawaii.
The exhibit took 3 years to complete. The artist started with one friend and the added two or three more and eventually the project just grew and grew until it was large enough to be an exhibit. The bust were pretty cool. They all were shaped similarly but she would throw in aspects of the persons personality to make their bust unique. So if the artist was a painter there would be some swipes of paint on the chest of the bust, or something like that. It was really interesting to see how she brought each persons personality into the piece.
The museum had a snack for us, which was incredibly kind of them. It was Mochi, a traditional Japanese rice cake. They take rice and pound it down into a paste and then form it into whatever shape they want, generally with things in the middle of it. The ones they served us were balls filled with fresh strawberries. They were served in a Mochi box, which was beautiful.
Apparently Mochi is pretty big in the U.S and you can buy it at Trader Joes. I had never had it before and I thought it was interesting. Of course of the strawberry was very delicious but I thought the rice paste outside didn't have all the much flavor and was a very strange texture. I ate one and felt content with that and everyone else was raving over it and eating multiple of them. Guess I haven't really jumped on the Mochi train yet.
After the museum we had lunch at a Chinese restaurant. Not exactly the kind of food I was expecting to eat in Hawaii but it was pretty good. Maybe they are trying to get us ready for Asia (ha).
Actually I observed a lot of asian cuisine places around downtown hilo after that. I was surprised by how common it was. But Hawaii is home to a lot of immagrants from Japan and China so I guess it makes sense. I had Kung Pow Chicken, which was delicious. I just picked around most of the vegetables. I have never liked veggies cooked in soy sauce in asian food, it never tasted good to me. I probably need to change that now that I am headed to Asia. Hopefully I can learn to like them.
After lunch they gave us time to walk around the local farmers market. It was incredible, there were tents set up all over the block and people were selling anything from fruit to jewelry or artwork. And it was all fairly cheap. You could buy a bag of 2 papayas for a quarter. How amazing. We had almost an hour to wander around the market. Earlier in the day we paired up into buddies in order to utilize the buddy system and my buddy Fiona wanted to go to the grocery store so we spent some time in there getting groceries for her roommates.
The grocery store was exactly like any other grocery store and carried almost all the same kinds of things. In the market I bought magnets and post cards and two really pretty coasters made out of shells. They were only $1.50 a piece!
I looked really hard for pins and failed completely. I even went into the kitchy souvenir shop and they didn't have them. I was disappointed but oh well. Hopefully this isn't how the rest of the voyage is going to go when it comes to pins!
After the farmers market we made our way to the Lili'uokalani gardens. On the way Lori told us more about Hilo. They have had two tsunamis, one in 1942 and the other in 1960. After the one in 1960 they enacted a law saying they could no longer build buildings over 5 stories. So all of the building we saw along the coast that were over 5 stories survived the tsunami.
One of the roads we drove down was Banyan Drive. It is named that because it is full of banyan trees that various celebrities came and planted. There are trees planted by Amelia Earhart, Babe Ruth, and President Nixon. The last tree was planted in 1991 and that was just to replace a tree that was lost in a tsunami, the last tree planted in honor of someone was planted in 1972 by Pat Nixon. The road lined with trees leads right up to Lili'uokalani gardens.
The garden is the largest Japanese garden outside of Japan. It was built in the early 1900s to honor the Japanese immigrants.
It looks more like a park than a garden but the trees inside of it were gorgeous. We spend 2 hours there sketching. We had to do 3 drawings, one of an architectural structure, one of a natural element like a tree, and one that showed depth with a foreground, mid ground, and background. We also had to do a color study and take down the various colors we were seeing.
I sketched a beautiful vibrant red bridge. It was the only thing in the garden that was very colorful and I was drawn to the pop of color among all of the green and brown.
I then sketched a bush that had a few really pretty pink flowers on it.
Our time in the garden was very peaceful and it felt like the first time I had been alone since we set sail from San Diego. It was really nice to just be by myself in the quiet and be able to sketch without having to think of anything else.
We left the garden around 4 and made our way to the Hilo Community College campus. It is only about a half mile down the road from the University of Hawaii and the printmaking shop from the University is located on the community college campus. It was relocated there "temporarily" about 30 years ago. We met with professor Jon Goebel. He is originally from North Carolina and has been living in Hawaii for 2 years. He showed us the printmaking shop and then talked to us about the various different kinds of printmaking.
There is relief printing, which is the process of carving something into a block and then applying ink to the outside surface. Then there is intaglio, which is where the ink is applied beflow the surface, usually down with etching on a metal plate. Then there is screen printing, where ink is squeegied on top of a screen and ink leaks through the screen and onto the paper.
He had a lot of different artwork that was just completed by a class as well as some pieces done by visiting artists. It was absolutely fascinating. The most interesting thing to me was the color theory. He showed us a print that he had some of a lipstick and a fishhook. It was incredibly detailed and very colorful. He had made the print with only three colors: yellow, blue, and red. It was amazing. The printed the yellow first, then the blue on top of that, and finally the red. And the colors had mixed together in the areas he wanted them to inorder to create the image filled with many colors. It's so technical, I was so impressed.
I wished he could have demonstrated to us how to use the printing press and how color theory works but he wasn't set up for a practical demonstration and eventually we had to leave so that we would get back to the ship on time.
It was a good thing we left when we did because when we got back to the port there was a huge line of people waiting to get on board. We stood in line for at least an hour. It was actually pretty funny because no one else us used to having to wait to get back on the ship. Everyone around me was complaining about how annoying it was to have to wait and I was just sitting there enjoying the scenery and taking full advantage of being able to use my phone. It was completely normal for the line to be that long 1 hour before on ship time. That is why you should get back to the ship early, so that you don't risk being stuck in the line when the clock hits ship time.
When I got back on I had a massive headache and a strange mixture of feelings hit me. I became very sad. I think it was because I am not at all looking forward to the next 10 days at sea. I am nervous for how rocky it is going to be, and I really enjoyed being able to talk to my parents and my friends freely so going back to having no voice communication is going to be hard.
I went and got my kindle and sat and ate dinner by myself. It was very peaceful and when I was done my headache was gone. I completely utilized the fact that my phone worked and spent the rest of the evening on it. I think almost everyone did that. All around the ship people were talking on their phones or facetiming and giving their family members a tour of the ship. This was the last time our phones would be working so I think everyone decided to be antisocial and take advantage of that fact.
My phone didn't work in my cabin so I wandered around the ship finding various places to sit and outlets to use until I was exhausted and decided that even though it was barely 10pm it was time for bed.
I mean, I do have an 8am class in the morning.
I definietly want to come back to Hawaii. I want to see the beaches and the waterfalls and hike up a volcano. I want to spend more time at that farmers market and go to a luau. I want to visit pearl harbor. Hawaii is a pretty cool place and definitely is worth coming to and doing as much as possible. I'll come back, I will definitely come back.
My phone worked! Hallelujah! I called my parents and I called Josh and I texted a whole bunch of other people until I had to meet my class at 9:30. I hadn't really been feeling any social media withdrawal. I think it's because I got relly used to not having it on my first voyage and came to learn that you don't miss very much when you only go on it once a week. So I am perfectly content to look at it only periodically. Also, it is way more fun to log into Instagram and see that you have 35 likes and 2 comments instead of watching them build gradually.
Since I was part of a field lab I got to go through face to face immigration first. I went to the Union around 15 after 8. When I got up to the first station where I should be given my passport I was told that my passport was one of the ones that was pulled. What does that mean?
They had to call over one of the crew members and he escorted me over to one of the officers sitting at a table. The guy was really nice and cheery and just asked me if I had ever lost my passport or had it stolen. I told him yes, I lost one a while ago. He said ok, gave me my passport, and told me I was all set.
It is true, I lost my passport in the spring of 2013 right before I needed to submit the paperwork to get my visas for my first voyage. I had to get a new one rushed to me so that I could get my visa paperwork in on time. It turned out that I had left it on the scanner part of my printer when I had made a copy of it in Florida. But I didn't find that out until the voyage was already underway and Kellie was moving my stuff into our apartment. So I guess it's not really lost any more. But shhhhhh.
Our field lab also got to be one of the first groups off the ship when they announced that the ship was clear. Everyone else was lined up in a huge line leading down to deck 2 and we got to just walk right past them. We gathered right outside of the ship and then boarded the bus together. Our first stop was a contemporary heart museum in downtown Hilo. On the way there our tour guide, Lori, told us a bunch of facts about Hilo, which is on the big island.
The big island is called the island of Hawaii. While the entire group of item is called Hawaii each individual island has its own name the the big ones happens to also be Hawaii. You can final of the small islands on the big island twice and still have room.
There are 5 volcanos on the island of Hawaii, three of them are active. One of them is the largest volcano on the planet. It is 91 miles from the ocean floor to the top and it takes up 1/3 of the island.
When we reached the museum we met the president and were given a tour where he told us all about the history of the museum. Its full name is EHCC: Hawaii Museum of Contemporary Art. It originally was the sheriffs office when the park in front of it was considered the center of town. It switched over to a museum in 1932. The main room on the first floor was where there were offices and booking rooms. The upstairs was where the municipal court used to be. The building that housed the temporary jail is also still standing but they are in the process of renovating the space so the building is not currently being used.
The museum is a temporary exhibit museum because they do not have the space or resources to be able to preserve and maintain a permanent exhibit. The current exhibit is a ceramics show featuring busts that are portaits of artists in east Hawaii.
The exhibit took 3 years to complete. The artist started with one friend and the added two or three more and eventually the project just grew and grew until it was large enough to be an exhibit. The bust were pretty cool. They all were shaped similarly but she would throw in aspects of the persons personality to make their bust unique. So if the artist was a painter there would be some swipes of paint on the chest of the bust, or something like that. It was really interesting to see how she brought each persons personality into the piece.
The museum had a snack for us, which was incredibly kind of them. It was Mochi, a traditional Japanese rice cake. They take rice and pound it down into a paste and then form it into whatever shape they want, generally with things in the middle of it. The ones they served us were balls filled with fresh strawberries. They were served in a Mochi box, which was beautiful.
Apparently Mochi is pretty big in the U.S and you can buy it at Trader Joes. I had never had it before and I thought it was interesting. Of course of the strawberry was very delicious but I thought the rice paste outside didn't have all the much flavor and was a very strange texture. I ate one and felt content with that and everyone else was raving over it and eating multiple of them. Guess I haven't really jumped on the Mochi train yet.
After the museum we had lunch at a Chinese restaurant. Not exactly the kind of food I was expecting to eat in Hawaii but it was pretty good. Maybe they are trying to get us ready for Asia (ha).
Actually I observed a lot of asian cuisine places around downtown hilo after that. I was surprised by how common it was. But Hawaii is home to a lot of immagrants from Japan and China so I guess it makes sense. I had Kung Pow Chicken, which was delicious. I just picked around most of the vegetables. I have never liked veggies cooked in soy sauce in asian food, it never tasted good to me. I probably need to change that now that I am headed to Asia. Hopefully I can learn to like them.
After lunch they gave us time to walk around the local farmers market. It was incredible, there were tents set up all over the block and people were selling anything from fruit to jewelry or artwork. And it was all fairly cheap. You could buy a bag of 2 papayas for a quarter. How amazing. We had almost an hour to wander around the market. Earlier in the day we paired up into buddies in order to utilize the buddy system and my buddy Fiona wanted to go to the grocery store so we spent some time in there getting groceries for her roommates.
The grocery store was exactly like any other grocery store and carried almost all the same kinds of things. In the market I bought magnets and post cards and two really pretty coasters made out of shells. They were only $1.50 a piece!
I looked really hard for pins and failed completely. I even went into the kitchy souvenir shop and they didn't have them. I was disappointed but oh well. Hopefully this isn't how the rest of the voyage is going to go when it comes to pins!
After the farmers market we made our way to the Lili'uokalani gardens. On the way Lori told us more about Hilo. They have had two tsunamis, one in 1942 and the other in 1960. After the one in 1960 they enacted a law saying they could no longer build buildings over 5 stories. So all of the building we saw along the coast that were over 5 stories survived the tsunami.
One of the roads we drove down was Banyan Drive. It is named that because it is full of banyan trees that various celebrities came and planted. There are trees planted by Amelia Earhart, Babe Ruth, and President Nixon. The last tree was planted in 1991 and that was just to replace a tree that was lost in a tsunami, the last tree planted in honor of someone was planted in 1972 by Pat Nixon. The road lined with trees leads right up to Lili'uokalani gardens.
The garden is the largest Japanese garden outside of Japan. It was built in the early 1900s to honor the Japanese immigrants.
It looks more like a park than a garden but the trees inside of it were gorgeous. We spend 2 hours there sketching. We had to do 3 drawings, one of an architectural structure, one of a natural element like a tree, and one that showed depth with a foreground, mid ground, and background. We also had to do a color study and take down the various colors we were seeing.
I sketched a beautiful vibrant red bridge. It was the only thing in the garden that was very colorful and I was drawn to the pop of color among all of the green and brown.
I then sketched a bush that had a few really pretty pink flowers on it.
Our time in the garden was very peaceful and it felt like the first time I had been alone since we set sail from San Diego. It was really nice to just be by myself in the quiet and be able to sketch without having to think of anything else.
We left the garden around 4 and made our way to the Hilo Community College campus. It is only about a half mile down the road from the University of Hawaii and the printmaking shop from the University is located on the community college campus. It was relocated there "temporarily" about 30 years ago. We met with professor Jon Goebel. He is originally from North Carolina and has been living in Hawaii for 2 years. He showed us the printmaking shop and then talked to us about the various different kinds of printmaking.
There is relief printing, which is the process of carving something into a block and then applying ink to the outside surface. Then there is intaglio, which is where the ink is applied beflow the surface, usually down with etching on a metal plate. Then there is screen printing, where ink is squeegied on top of a screen and ink leaks through the screen and onto the paper.
He had a lot of different artwork that was just completed by a class as well as some pieces done by visiting artists. It was absolutely fascinating. The most interesting thing to me was the color theory. He showed us a print that he had some of a lipstick and a fishhook. It was incredibly detailed and very colorful. He had made the print with only three colors: yellow, blue, and red. It was amazing. The printed the yellow first, then the blue on top of that, and finally the red. And the colors had mixed together in the areas he wanted them to inorder to create the image filled with many colors. It's so technical, I was so impressed.
I wished he could have demonstrated to us how to use the printing press and how color theory works but he wasn't set up for a practical demonstration and eventually we had to leave so that we would get back to the ship on time.
It was a good thing we left when we did because when we got back to the port there was a huge line of people waiting to get on board. We stood in line for at least an hour. It was actually pretty funny because no one else us used to having to wait to get back on the ship. Everyone around me was complaining about how annoying it was to have to wait and I was just sitting there enjoying the scenery and taking full advantage of being able to use my phone. It was completely normal for the line to be that long 1 hour before on ship time. That is why you should get back to the ship early, so that you don't risk being stuck in the line when the clock hits ship time.
When I got back on I had a massive headache and a strange mixture of feelings hit me. I became very sad. I think it was because I am not at all looking forward to the next 10 days at sea. I am nervous for how rocky it is going to be, and I really enjoyed being able to talk to my parents and my friends freely so going back to having no voice communication is going to be hard.
I went and got my kindle and sat and ate dinner by myself. It was very peaceful and when I was done my headache was gone. I completely utilized the fact that my phone worked and spent the rest of the evening on it. I think almost everyone did that. All around the ship people were talking on their phones or facetiming and giving their family members a tour of the ship. This was the last time our phones would be working so I think everyone decided to be antisocial and take advantage of that fact.
My phone didn't work in my cabin so I wandered around the ship finding various places to sit and outlets to use until I was exhausted and decided that even though it was barely 10pm it was time for bed.
I mean, I do have an 8am class in the morning.
I definietly want to come back to Hawaii. I want to see the beaches and the waterfalls and hike up a volcano. I want to spend more time at that farmers market and go to a luau. I want to visit pearl harbor. Hawaii is a pretty cool place and definitely is worth coming to and doing as much as possible. I'll come back, I will definitely come back.
