It’s all Hawaii all the time, two weeks of wonderful photos.
We spent some time at the Byodo-In Temple. What a peaceful place! We had rented a car and driven through the Valley of the Temples. Coming out from among the other cemeteries we saw this.
We stopped and rang the bell, filling the valley with its full tones, before moving toward the temple. FYI, it temple contains no nails. As the rest of my family meandered ahead, my sister and I explored a little out of the way gazebo before we joined the rest of the group again. It was a mystical place the encouraged one to linger over every detail. We saw an “autograph tree” were people had etched their names into the leaves…supposedly the leaves can last for years before falling off. We also saw bamboo as big around as those triple wick candles (huge!). And the cutest frog water fountain. We spent an hour there, at least, and I wanted more. I could have laid out a blanket and dozed the day away there.
The ponds surrounding the temple were filled with koi of all different sizes. Day and I stopped inside the gift shop and bought some fishfood. The woman told us to feed the koi on the other side of the temple as they never got fed and the ones on her side of the temple were chubby. On our way over we snapped some photos of the chubby koi and some plumeria that had floated down from the tree above.
On Monday we took a trip to the Big Island to check out the volcanoes. We stopped at Rainbow Falls, the Jagger Museum, the Thurston Lava Tube, the lava fields, Big Island Candies, and a veritable poke buffet at a Sack and Save of all places!!!
At Rainbow Falls I saw a blooming banana tree. The colors were so intense I couldn’t not take a picture of it and I’m glad I did.
Later we stopped along Banyan Tree Drive, it was a street lined by Banyan Trees that had been planted by famous people like: Trader Vic, Richard Nixon (back before he was President), and Amelia Earhart. I looked up and saw an amazing bird nest thing…not really sure what it is but it’s cool.
