Day 5: On the wet side of the island - Hilo

Hilo is not your typical tourist town, it doesn't have fancy resort complexes like on the west side, it isn't plastered with overcrowded sandy beaches and touristic adventures. There are some souvenir shops, but also some nice local boutiques and shops, a workshop making ukuleles, etc., along the oceanfront promenade, and, interesting architecture, murals, markets and other places only locals know. 

Hilo, in general, gives a much more "authentic" Hawaiian experience than Kona - it's appears a little run-down, but it certainly has its own unique flair. Its historic buildings (pics above), mostly from the beginning of the 20th century, like  The Palace Theater, the Kress or the Koehnen Building (with the Mokupapapa Discovery Center) still show the former wealth of the city, when sugar milling was florishing.

Hilo Farmers' Market (right photo) is a must-see in Hilo downtown, mostly, farmers from the countryside selling their produce for great prices. We bought fresh strawberry papayas and apple bananas - much cheaper than anywhere else before. 

In our favorite garden shop we noticed these two posters below, showing all the different varieties of bananas and avocados growing on the island. Isn't it amazing? And, what do we get in our stores?

 

 

We went for a walk through Queen Liliuokalani Park, named for the last Queen of Hawaii. This lush public garden with ponds, a teahouse is an arboretum at the same time, with rare and huge trees- like the Monkeypod Tree (from the tamarind family) on the photo above.

Rested there a little before we got us late lunch/early dinner at a little take-away restaurant: Lokomoko, a typical Hawaiian dish, a beef patty, rice, brown gravy and an egg on top. There are many variations of this traditional simple dish nowadays - but originally, it was nothing fancy, but affordable and filling!

Weather was - as usually on this coast - mostly cloudy, with some sunshine and some rain showers. But,,, temps were constantly at around 70-80 deg F (21-25 C), rather humid, and, sort of pleasant.