• Bug,  shopping,  travel

    Hawaii Day Four: the girls go adventuring

    turtle wall

    Bug and I did some “adventuring” downtown yesterday. I’m so glad we decided to pack the stroller at the last minute. It was a bit of a pain in the neck at the airport but it has paid for itself here when we cruise up and down the main strip.

    diggin'

    The main drag is right along the ocean with patches of sidewalk here and there between a retaining wall that keeps the ocean out and the road that is pretty much a “cruising scene”. Some parts are narrow and if you wanted to, you could stick your hand out and give some gangster a high five as he rolls by in his lowered truck with the bass booming so loudly that his door, that is twisty-tied on, rattles to the beat.

    lamp post

    those crazy banyan trees

    Most parts are totally safe but I am very glad to have the stroller because as you know, Baby Bug does not like to walk in a straight line and if I let her loose she’d be picking up cigarette butts from the gutter and running out into traffic.

    There is definitely a bit of “Spring Break” atmosphere here in Kona. (And why not?!!) It reminds me of Mexico except more expensive. There aren’t any kids selling Chiclets and you can’t get a margarita for a dollar but there are definitely drinks flowing and lots of people just out to see and be seen.

    Hawaiian Shaved Ice!

    Even though it can be scary at times to walk the streets of an unknown city, I really do love exploring. I like being somewhere long enough that you start to feel less like a tourist and more like a local. The woogies (what Toby calls tourists) are so thick here, it’s hard to see what the locals see. But if you look between the shops selling imported shell necklaces from the Philippines (that I’m totally going to buy anyway because hey! they are only 39 cents!) and the bars crowded with people drinking way too much tequila, you can start to see a glimpse.

    red stairs

    Or maybe I just like exploring.

    Weaver Man

    We did something really fun yesterday. I had passed this Weaver Man a couple of times and I was intrigued by the funny palm frond hats he was making. I was a little afraid to stop and buy one since he often had a pretty shady crowd of people who looked like they had meth mouth hanging around him. But I finally got up the guts to inquire and I’m so glad I did.

    "helping"

    He was a very nice guy and ended up making a custom hat just for Baby Bug. She thought it was grand and wanted to try on all his bowls he had out on display. I was worried about her getting in his way (and even worse in the way of his knife) but he said she was fine. He told me that she was actually good for business.

    measuring

    I guess you don’t have to have a permit to sell your wares along the highway here in Kona but the police do harass you if you seem to be there just to sell drugs or something. So he was very happy to have a mom and daughter hang out with him for the half hour it took him to make Baby Bug a hat.

    teaching Bug to sign "shaka"

    When he was done, he wanted me to take a picture of him and her together because apparently these palm frond hats last for 40-60 years and she will probably have it long after her little two-year-old memory of him making it has faded. I thought that was a sweet sentiment and of course I was happy to oblige since after all everything is bloggable!

    Jungle Princess

    I think the hat is pretty cute and I will definitely try to keep it for a long time. I might even have to go back and get one for myself. Who knows maybe I’ll start a new trend back on the mainland.

    sunset o'clock

    That pretty much sums up our day of adventuring. I left out a lot of parts (like the little beaches we discovered and the drunk guy sleeping under a giant palm frond) but you can sort of figure them out from my flickr pictures. Later we met up with Toby for dinner and ended our day the usual way with a slice of sunset for desert.

  • Bug,  shopping

    the world’s smallest grocery shopper

    the world's littlest shopper

    We went shopping today. Obviously. A picture is so much more efficient than anything I could say on the matter. But of course that won’t stop me from rambling.

    I timed our shopping trip a little too close to naptime for comfort so I thought it would be smashing fun to let Baby Bug push her own little wee cart. Also, Toby is going on a business trip for 2.5 weeks and I am going on a dinner-cooking strike. So that means I don’t need to shop for so much. I can put everything we need into a cute little wee cart. (I love using the word “wee”.) Food is overrated. We can eat cold corn right out of the can when Toby is gone. Or pizza. Either one.

    So anyway, back to the smashing fun of shopping with Baby Bug who was NOT strapped into the safety of a regular grown-up sized cart. Yeah…it wasn’t so much fun. Unless you think of fun and smashing your head against a wall in the same sentence. She was one grumpy, nap-needing, tenacious little shopper and how dare I interfere with her quest to put all the green products in the cart.

    I exaggerate some. Obviously it was fun enough for me to whip out the camera and take some photos.

    green diapers mommy!

    “Green Diapers Mommy”

    no green cheese, moving on...

    Things we ended up with that were not on our shopping list:

    1. a pineapple
    2. a green apple
    3. a “mommy lime” and a “baby lime”
    4. a can of pineapple (I think this is purely because the label was green, not because she is loving pineapple
    5. a can of tomatoes (who knows)
    6. three 20 cent jello cups from Mexico
    7. some watermelon-flavored kid shampoo
    8. two skor bars (scored major point with daddy on that one)

    Things I put back when she wasn’t looking:

    1. balogna
    2. a pack of jumbo-sized hot dogs
    3. a pack of hard plastic sparkly headbands (those things give you a headache!)
    4. some stupid baby bottle sour apple candy thingy
    5. an Easter bunny
    6. a tub of non-fat organic sour cream (we buy full-fat everything since bb is underweight)
    7. four bottles of green shampoo
    8. some green hair smoothing serum (has she been talking to whoorl?)
    9. green shamrock cookies
    10. a green package of feminine napkins
    11. and some other green things I cannot remember

    building an arsenal

    Clearly, the marketers behind grocery products have taken toddlers with small carts and a preference for green into consideration.