Teresa Fannin, reader, writer, gardener, chocolate fan & tea drinker

Tag: Waikoloa Beach

Waikoloa Beach

So, by the time you read this we will be home. This beautiful land will be a memory for us, ten lovely days. We’re staying at King’s Land. Open, along a golf course, with wild goats, the buildings are spread out over a number of acres. One afternoon we took a ride around the Waikoloa area to the Hilton Waikoloa Beach. the tramThis place is amazing. And although I don’t mean for this to be a commercial, you can’t help but be impressed by a hotel that covers sixty-three acres, has over twelve hundred rooms, three large buildings, plus a convention center, a lagoon inside the hotel property and views, OMG, views. As you walk into the main lobby you, check in on one side and Hilton1concierge on the other, ahead is a tram. Yes, it’s that big, a tram is needed. And, if you don’t want to go on the tram, well, then, take a boat. We walked into a pavilion that was being set up for an event, and found a small pond on the other side of the pavilion.

Black SwanAs I walked to the water edge, a black swan turned from across the pond and swam Black Swan posedtoward us. And then, much like that peacock at the rain-forest zoo, turned and posed, as it kicked large Koi from gathering around it.

The hotel has it own swinging bridge. And views.

rope bridgecabana hill

Amazing views from the cabana hill just below Buddha Point at one end of the property, to the view Tom is recording on the other. 
tom recording view

budda hilOkay, so here is the rub. This is a beautiful facility. One woman on the concierge staff said that many people come and never leave the hotel.

 

view from budda hill

Good for Hilton, if you own stock, well, great for them. But to come all this way, to the most isolated population center in the world, and never leave the hotel? Really?

shopping

A vocation, avocation, hobby, addiction, call it whatever you want, but I can not resist shopping. There was a time when I bought, but what do I really need to accumulate? Now I just look. It’s not the big IMG_0019department stores that are so much fun, you can find that stuff anywhere, it’s in the little shops that you find the nifty stuff. So we went to the Macadamia Factory. I wanted to go to a farm, but no. You can’t do that, the macadamia farmers–growers?–keep their property personal, private. So. Okay, and, oh, yes, chocolate covered macadamia, 70% cacao, ah, love those anti-oxidants.

The Bamboo The Macadamia Factory is on the north eastern shore of Hawaii, the big island, at Waikoloa Beach. Today, after we recovered from the flight, had a nice breakfast, because that can set you up for the whole day, and we had moved fully into a time zone six hours from our own, we decided to head north along the only road that traverses the eastern side of the island, We went north to Hawi Town, to The Bamboo, a lovely little restaurant in a former hotel for the Chinese brought into work in the sugar plantations.

IMG_0024 I had a lovely fish, ono, with a fresh fruit chutney. I love chutneys, I love the flavors, the mixing of tastes and colors, well, wow. So then we walked around the town, it’s now a historic property. In one shop we came across had these baseball caps, with hardwood visors. Cool, but not for the price.

IMG_0048Then we drove. It’s one of our favorite things to do. We do long-cuts. Never short-cuts because theyIMG_0047 are much less fun. Long-cuts, there should be more about this in the English language.

Anyway, after a roundabout long-cut, we ended up back in Waikoloa Beach, and The King’s Shops. With, are you ready? the smallest Macy Store ever. Yes, it is that small. So, now we can say, we’ve been to the IMG_0050largest Macy store, in New York City [ha! where else?] and to the smallest. I like the symmetry, the stores being at either end of the United States, like bookends. Sort of fits in with my shopping.