February 2008

UPDATE ON GAS PRICES IN HILO

Here is an update on Hilo cost of living for today, Feb 28, 2008.

Here is a great deal on breakfast from I-Hop located at the Hilo Mall (Prince Kuhio Plaza). To get the deals, you have to get there really early.

GAME STOP IN HILO

At the mall today (Prince Kuhio Plaze) we were happy to see that Game Stop had taken over the space that Suncoast had emptied. It really ranks with a teenager. (note: For some reason, later they moved back into their original space in the mall).

THE ONGOING VOG IN HILO

We are glad to see the Hawaii County Civil Defense finally issued a warning about the Vog. I have been seeing people jogging in this stuff - completely oblivious of the detrimental impact of Sulfur dioxide (SO2) being sucked into their lungs. The State of Hawaii air quality site shows that Kona is getting the worst of the SO2 now.

Today our neighbor came over to tell us that one of our banana trees was ready to be harvested. It is very cool to have bananas in the backyard. But the reality of fighting the ants and spiders and climbing up a ladder to cut them down, is another thing all together.

What you don't get to see is the fall off the ladder part right after this picture was taken. We gave the bananas to our wonderful neighbor, but shared in the the booty with a couple of "hands" of bananas.

After the banana harvesting, it finally started to rain completely cleansing the air.

SCIENCE FAIR IN HILO

We visited 'Imiloa Astronomy Center on Sunday and were treated to an awesome collection of student project displays for the science fair.

The projects were very well presented and we were sorry not to be able to read every one of them. The thing that most struck us about them was how closely they were related to things that impact us daily in Hawaii. There was a project to create a solar oven , to desalinate sea water with solar energy, to trap coqui frogs, to use mulch instead of herbecide. I wanted to take notes! My take away from the couple of hours we spent reading their charts and findings was, the kids around here are very impressive.

HAZE IN HILO CONTINUES

The hazy conditions and daily earthquakes have returned with vengence. We can't see Hilo Bay most of the day. Until the tradewinds pick up or it rains, this Hawaii vog (volcanic fog) will continue.

Even paradise has its reminders or our fragility.

ANOTHER DAY IN HILO

Today another cruise ship arrived; an NCL. The skyline had a thick layer of Volcanoic gas circulating around the island from the very active Kilauea volcano.

Even the sun rises are a strange redish hue due to the ash in the air.

While we were downtown, we received a leaflet about a protest being organized by the Malu' Aina for tomorrow, Saturday Feb 23, at the Pohakuloa Training Area located above Hilo on Mauna Kea off Saddle Road. The US Military uses the 133,000 acre site for live-fire training, dropping bombs and shelling the area resulting in radiation contamination from depleted uraniun and potentially impacting the health of folks living in Hilo.

A big event tomorrow in Hilo is the East Hawaii Dance festival and in Captain Cook, near Kona. the 4th annual Grow Hawaiian festival.

A GREAT DAY IN HILO

We woke up this morning, had our Kona coffee on the couch and noticed a big cruise ship pulling heading toward the harbor - the Diamond Princess. Those folks are coming from Los Angeles and have been out to sea for 4 days! They are going to be eager to disembark and fill the town on this glorious day.

A ship in town means that the locals head downtown to open their shops, cook up extra food, and pull out the red carpet. It means that the daily Farmer's market will be larger than normal to provide fruits and veggies for downtown eateries and flowers and baked goods for the cruise passengers. We headed for the car, to get to the farmers market before the tourists disembarked.

The captain gave the passengers the slow tour of the bay, giving us plenty of time to get downtown, in time to take some pictures of the ship going by. Downtown was still empty.

Soon all the parking spots will be full, traffic will be bumper to bumper, buses will unload at the visitors center and everything will be alive with tourists. But, we had the pick of the day on papayas, lettuce, tomatoes, onions and flowers at the market.

STARTING A BUSINESS IN HILO

If you are thinking about starting a business in Hilo, Hawaii supports new enterprises with great incentives and Hilo has several organizations dedicated to supporting startups. The Hawaii Innovation Center at Hilo is an 8000-square foot facility owned by the University of Hawaii at Hilo and operated in partnership with the High Technology Development Corporation. The facility is designated as a small business incubator with a conference room, janitorial services, and copy machine and offers startups clients a combination of subsidized facility rates and business support services.

The Hawaii Small Business Development Center Network is also located in Hilo. They run seminars on starting a small business in Hawaii. The next class is scheduled for March 12 from 9am to noon at the Hawaii Community college and has a fee of only $20.

The Hawaii Venture Capital Association is actively working to support entrepreneurs in Hawaii for networking, information and organizing support for state legislation regarding businesses. The Hawaii Angels is group of high net worth individuals that coach and support startups in Hawaii.

Hilo has a lot of advantages for a new business. It has a shipping port which is close to Asia and the west coast of North Amercia, an international airport with two runways, and trucking facilities for getting products to all parts of the island. A 31 acre parcel adjacent to the Hilo airport, zoned for commercial and light industrial uses, is designated as a Foreign Trade Zone 9 allowing small businesses to avoid customs if the product is not sold locally and numerous other advantages. It was approved in 1992 but has never been used by any companies in Hilo. Hilo has high speed internet, computer repair stores, office supply stores, an excellent University,and a large work force near town. And final plug for Hilo is it is located in paradise.

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COST OF LIVING AND HEALTH PLANS IN HILO

Since we're settled into Hilo, we've turned our focus to further downsizing our cost of living. We created a budget before moving to Hilo based on living here for a month last year. We learned a lot about rents, neighborhoods, food shopping, gasoline and stuff like that. But a lot of our budget was speculation based on our optimistic estimates of health care costs, insurance, auto costs, entertainment, etc. The good thing for us, is coming from Northern California everything in Hilo is way cheaper.

A budget is a great planning tool, but achieving it is another matter. Just moving to Hilo has resulted in immediate improvements in our quality of life while at the same time downsizing our monthly expenses. We rented a 3 bedroom house with a garage and incredible view of Hilo Bay for less than 1/3 of the rent we paid for an old (1960's) 3 bedroom, upstairs apartment in Cupertino wedged between 280 and 85. The foods we like are much cheaper in Hilo as well. For example, we paid $5 for one organic Hawaiian papaya at Whole Foods in Cupertino; in Hilo a $1 gets you 6 Hawaiian papayas (since they are grown here in neaby Puna). Fresh line caught fish and Big Island grass fed beef are other examples of foods that are really expensive in California versus Hilo where they are caught and raised (see Healthy Hilo for more).

Our latest cost reduction victory is health insurance. We urgently needed to get off of COBRA which is outrageously expensive for a family and mostly useless to us in Hawaii. Having any interruption in health insurance is a huge ding against you when trying to get new health care insurance, so as appealing as it sounded, we couldn't just ditch COBRA. There are really only two choices for health plan insurance on the Big Island: HSMA and Kaiser. HSMA is Blue Cross/Blue Shield for Hawaii, and although expensive, it seems to be the popular choice for Hawaii businesses and government. There is a shortage of health professionals on the Big Island and some urgent care facilites don't accept Blue Cross/Blue Shield so its usability is a question. We investigated just getting HSMA's more affordable catastrophic insurance but it has Hawaii residency requirements which we don't meet. Kaiser on the other hand has its own care facilities and hospitals in Hawaii guaranteeing that some health professional will actually see you if you are desperate enough. The monthly costs for Kaiser's family coverage are less than half the cost of COBRA. Yet another step toward reducing our cost of living.

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UPDATE ON OUR VOLCANO

Today, Feb 18, Hilo is absolutely gorgeous. The tradewinds have finally picked up, blowing the SO2 to some other unfortunates. Mauna Kea is snow capped and a beautiful sight to see.

The daily update from the USGS notes that "As expected from the recent breakdown in trade winds, SO2 concentrations have increased over east Hawai`i. At the summit, values peaked in mid-morning at 4,000 ppb (4 ppm) at Jaggar Museum. In Hilo, several people reported sulfur smell and hazy air yesterday morning. The tradewinds are currently back but weak." A 4 ppm reading of sulfur dioxide is serious stuff. Earthquake activity is continuing as well. Looks like the volcano is reving up for some major activity.

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CHINESE NEW YEAR FESTIVAL IN HILO

The air is still hazy from the Volcano in Hilo,

but clear enough for us to go to the Chinese New Year festival at Kalakaua park in downtown Hilo. The festival was very well attended with lots of food booths, dancing and things to buy.

East Hawaii Culture Center (next to the park), was open and had a great display of good wishes caligraphy by Linus Chao.

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THE VOLCANO OUTPUT IN HILO

This morning, Feb 16, our Hilo Bay view looked like the Los Angeles basin due to the SO2 (sulfuric dioxide) gas from Kilauea. Our eyes are burning and our throats hurt.

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The Kilauea Volcano is really acting up right now. There isn't a lot of updates for us. Since the Volcanoes National Park visitor alert for hazardous fumes on 2/8 we have only had cryptic daily updates from the USGS which mentions that the sulfur dioxide concentrations at the summit are increasing and the Pu'u 'O'o vent is dangerous. The CAM of the Pu'u O'o vent shows near zero visibility presumably due to the gases and ash being spewed. The Big Island earthquake activity has picked up as well. And finally, there is some fairly significant activity with the Tiltmeter for the northwest rim of Kilauea's caldera and the Pu'u 'O'o cone on the northwest flank of the active vent.

In Hilo today, we are finding our throats sore and near the mall is smells like rotten eggs. All these signs may point to an impending eruption.

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We got our Kaiser Medical cards in the mail today. It will be a relief (and incredible savings) to get off of COBRA. I am happy to see Kaiser is making a profit, compared to HSMA (Hawaii's Blue Cross/Blue Shield). Hopefully, that will mean health care will exist in some form in Hawaii for the money we are paying each month.

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ANTI-GMO SENTIMENT IN HAWAII

Hawaii State Sen. Mike Gabbard introduced a bill requiring all genetically modified whole foods sold in Hawaii be labeled and another requiring companies to reveal their test plots of genetically engineered crops. Gabbard and his staff say the bills are the first of their kind in Hawaii, although similar legislation has been introduced on the mainland. There was support for the bill in downtown Hilo today (Feb 14).

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MORNING AT 'IMILOA ASTRONOMY CENTER IN HILO

Here's a photo tour of our morning at 'Imiloa Astronomy Center in Hilo. We love spending time there and go regularly. Check out what we had for breakfast.

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RAINBOW FALLS AFTER FLOODING IN HILO

Here's a video that we took this month of Rainbow Falls in Hilo with heavy water flow due to all theflooding. We were covered with mist from the tremendous amount of water crashing over the rocks.

COST OF LIVING IN HILO

I have had some emails from folks asking about cost of living in Hilo. Evaluting cost of living is colored by where a person is coming from; we moved from Cupertino/Sunnyvale area of Nothern California, so Hilo is inexpensive from our perspective. To evaluate Hilo's cost of living with yours, use the McDonald burger comparison. Below are prices from the local McDonald's in Hilo today. I haven't been to McDonalds in a long while, but I have to say their coffee really is good and a heck of lot cheaper than Starbucks.

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DAILY WALKS IN HILO

Check out our picture tour of walks through Liliuokalani Gardens in Hilo. We look forward to walking there every day.

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FLOWERS ON THE BIG ISLAND

In addition to fruit and veggies at Hilo's Farmer's Market, there are gorgeous flowers available, including the amazing Anthuriums.
We bought this bunch of Anthuriums today, Feb 11, for $4.

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HEALTH FOOD STORES IN HILO

Today we made our monthly pilgrimage to Abundant Life in downtown Hilo. Though we eat local as much as possible, there are a few items we have only found in health food stores.

The things we head to the health food store are: Veganaise, non-hydrogenated margarine, nutritional yeast, and real maple syrup.

Abundant Life has shelves filled with all the health food items that we grew accustomed to in California. In order to keep to our tight budget, we keep our purchases to a minimum.

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HILO TRAFFIC AND AROUND TOWN

There is traffic in Hilo. On weekdays there are folks rushing to work in the morning and a 4:30pm afternoon crush of cars and trucks flooding out of Hilo to Puna and beyond. Here's a view of the downtown traffic this morning, Saturday, Feb 9, busy due to Saturday market and a cruise ship in Hilo Bay.

Here are some Hilo gas prices on Feb 9, 2008.

We checked up on Rainbow falls today, Feb 9, to see what the water flow looks like after all this rain. Wow - there is a ton of water!

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DRIVING SADDLE ROAD FROM HILO TO KONA

Check out our picture tour of driving from Hilo to Kona via Saddle Road (Hwy 11). The road was worse than we expected, particularily for a Ford sedan. Even the Hilo side of Saddle road, which is still under construction, needs a 4WD to make safely.

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The rain has been endless this February. This is a picture from our porch of the heavy rain. The banging on our metal roof keeps us up at night and has been so loud that we can't hear the TV or talk. Hilo rain statistics show that November is suppose to be the rainy month - this may be yet another sign of a global weather change.

The water runoff below our house is a river.

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The telescopes above Hilo on Mauna Kea are having a really rough time this winter. They have an abundance of ice and snow and haven't been able to open their telescope windows for weeks. No one can drive up to the observatories from the visitor's center. A good view of their latest weather can be seen from this Mauna Kea CAM.

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JANUARY 2008 LOG

Rainbow over Hilo

There was an amazing rainbow over Hilo today, Jan 25. It was so big we couldn't capture its entire span with the camera.

Visit to University of Hawaii at Hilo

We visited the University of Hawaii at Hilo campus today. We checked out the bookstore and library. They have an excellent collection of books on Hawaiian history room in the library. The campus is very laid back, almost muted. They don't have a lot of places to just hang out. Here are photographs of the campus center. Classes had started up a week earlier.

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Oh the stress of living in Hilo...........

Rainbow Falls in Hilo

Went to visit Rainbow Falls near downtown Hilo on Jan 24. We still can't catch the rainbow.

There is a beautiful walk up to the top of the falls.

Hilo Sea Wall

The waves are crashing over the Hilo seawall (Jan 15). At night, when the town is quiet, we can hear the waves crashing, even at our great distance away from the Hilo Bay.

'Imiloa Astronomy Center in Hilo

We joined the 'Imiloa Astronomy Center. The $100 family membership will quickly pay for itself since it is the type of place we will want to go repeatedly and it is expensive by the trip ($17.50 per adult). The membership allows us to bring 2 people with us and unlimited access to everything. The Center is on the University of Hawaii, Hilo campus.

In addition to trying out the cafeteria, there are numerous displays and movies. A 3D globe with an Earth movie created via 4 projectors is quite impressive.

You can walk around the globe as they project and spin the earth.

Paddling in Hilo Bay

We caught the paddling teams heading out for practice in Hilo Bay on Jan 8. Paddling is a big deal in Hilo and Puna with lots of clubs and most of them competitive.

Coffee at Kope Kope in Hilo

We like having coffee at Kope Kope in the Hilo Shopping Center. This is a local hang out for those looking for caffinated wireless access.

Cruise Ship leaving Hilo

Here is a cruise ship leaving Hilo Bay in the evening. They usually come in in the morning and head out at dusk with their lights on.

Beautiful Mauna Kea from Hilo

The weather cleared to show the new snow on Mauna Kea. This was taken Jan 5, 2008 and is clear enough to see the telescopes on top of the Mauna Kea.

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Copyright 2008