Posts Tagged hilo
Things I Won’t Miss: Bad Hilo Drivers
Bad drivers are everywhere, not just in Hilo. You’ve got your standard array of aggressive lane-changers, people who don’t use turn signals, and idiotic tailgaters. Hilo’s drivers are especially horrible, though, and I won’t miss them one bit.
Take, for example, the Foot Driver. Sometimes you’ll see a passenger with their foot out the window. This is perfectly fine; I’ve done it once or twice before. But a driver hanging their foot out the window? Just how bad a driver do you have to be to think, “You know, what would really make this driving experience enjoyable is the wind blowing through my toes”? Alice has seen this three times here!
And then there’s the Kind Yielder. Picture this scenario in your mind: you’re driving down the road, approaching a traffic-signal-controlled intersection. The light’s green. There’s one car in front of you. You’d expect to just drive right through, right? Not in Hilo, home of the Kind Yielder! You always have to be ready for the Kind Yielder, the person who will stop at a green light to let oncoming traffic turn left in front of them. Here’s a tip, Kind Yielder: IF THE LIGHT’S GREEN YOU GO. It drives (ha) me up the wall! At least once a week I’ll get stuck behind someone who think they’re doing the whole world a favour by stopping in the middle of the road when nobody’s expecting it.
Nope, won’t miss them at all.
The BETTER Best of East Hawaii 2009
Today the Hawaii Tribune-Herald released its annual Best of East Hawaii list. While I agree with some of the choices, I can’t help but think a few of them are either because nobody in East Hawaii goes to the better places, or nobody in East Hawaii has any taste. Here are my selections for some of the restaurant winners:
Best Cup of Coffee: Trib readers voted Starbucks Coffee in as the best cup of coffee in East Hawaii. This, I think, is the greatest travesty in this whole list. Starbucks? They’re renowned for having about the worst cup of coffee you could ever sell. Even McDonalds has better coffee here. My choice? Kope Kope Espresso Cafe, hands down. Not only do they have excellent coffee, it’s local coffee too! The only fault I can find with Kope Kope is their customer service has gone downhill of late. A friend of mine was buying around ten pounds of local coffee, and we waited nearly an hour for the girls behind the till to get labels on them and package them up — and even then they weren’t labelled properly! If you’ve got the time to spend waiting for service, then by all means hit up Kope Kope for the best cup of coffee in town.
Best Italian Food: For some reason Pescatore Italian Restaurant keeps winning this category. I don’t know why. Serving mediocre pasta does not make for an award-winning Italian restaurant. I think nobody knows about Cafe Concerto, which blows Pescatore out of the water. The quality of the pasta at Cafe Concerto is miles above that at Pescatore. Customer service is about equal, but you’ll probably be offered an apéritif at Cafe Concerto.
Best Pizza: Honestly, I thought this was going to be a toss-up between Big Island Pizza and Pizza Hawaii. Both make awesome pizzas, and this category should have gone to both of them. So imagine my surprise (and disgust) when I found that it went to Pizza Hut! Ugh!
Best Smoothie: Another case where chain trumps local, Jamba Juice won this one, when it should have gone to What’s Shakin’, a little smoothie shack on the Onomea Bay scenic drive. Sure, the smoothies are kind of expensive, and sure, they take a bit of time, but they’re made with fresh fruits and are super delicious.
Those are the egregious offenders. There are other categories where I would have picked different winners (Best Japanese Food: Miyo’s over Nihon; Best Poke: Sack & Save over KTA; Best Hamburger: almost anybody over Burger King), but these four are the worst.
Ken’s House of Pancakes to close? Update: no.
There’s a rumour going around that Ken’s House of Pancakes is not going to renew its lease, which ends this October. Rumour also has it that Ken’s is going to be replaced with a Denny’s.
Ken’s is a Hilo institution. Everybody’s been to Ken’s. Almost everybody knows that when they bang the gong you yell “Sumo!” That’s what happens when someone orders a Sumo Moco – six scoops of rice, your choice of fried spam, two 5 ounce lean beef patties, or six ounces of mahi mahi. Oh, and three eggs and gravy to top it all off.
And Ken’s is open 24 hours a day. And it’s busy each one of those 24 hours. I’ve been at 1am and it was packed.
Sure, the food isn’t great. It’s a diner, it’s not high cuisine. Still, it was named one of ten great diners in America by USA Today. And honestly, the food isn’t that bad. It’s one of the rare restaurants in Hilo that has veggie bacon. And check that menu!
And it’s going to be replaced with a Denny’s? Shameful.
Let’s hope that this rumour is just a rumour and it doesn’t come to pass.
Suisan Fish Market, Hilo, Hawaii
Posted by Brad in Hawaii, Photography on 28 January 2009
The second in my long exposure series (Singing Bridge was the first), the Suisan Fish Market has been on my list of things to photograph for some time now.
Suisan Fish Market in Hilo, Hawaii
I think the photo works. Hilo’s street lights cast an orange pallor over the scene. The red neon from Suisan’s sign is a little drowned out, so possibly it could be recovered and bumped up in post-production.
The composition isn’t quite what I was going for, but that’s because I’d forgotten about the street lights in the area. You work with what you have, though!
Singing Bridge, Hilo, Hawaii
Posted by Brad in Hawaii, Photography on 12 January 2009
When leaving Hilo northbound along Highway 19, the first bridge you cross is the Singing Bridge over the Wailuku River. Just past it on the right is Bayshore Towers, where I lived for my first year or so in Hilo.
The other night I had some time to kill downtown, and since it was getting dark I thought I’d try my hand at some long-exposure photos. This photo was one of the results.
Singing Bridge in Hilo, Hawaii
It probably would have turned out better had I been 15 feet taller. Oh well.
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