Weekend Welaxation

YAY! I love the weekend!! I slept in on Saturday and today, and woke up both mornings to the sound of rain falling outside. Rain showers tend to last maybe half an hour here, and can be a mere 10 minute of heavy downpour, so by the time I had eating my pancakes and papaya the sky was already brightening.

Yesterday I went to the farmer’s market, per usual, and restocked on papaya. I also got some bak choi and tomatoes – can’t beat the produce!! There’s actually a public orchard near my house, where you can get a free permit to pick all the fruit you want. I’m going to go after work if I get off early, because word on the street is they have Lichee trees and other tropical fruits in season! Yummm.

I also stopped by this awesome organic food store in downtown. I missed it the first few times I walked through because the entrance isn’t very conspicuous, but the inside is awesome. A women outside was giving out samples of fresh organic fudge made with coconut oil – a combination I wouldn’t have tried, but which ended up being delicious! Inside they had all the typical organic food products, as well as some awesome stickers and a huge variety of drinks. I may have to stop by and grab some of their more exotic fruit drinks. Amanda, you would LOVE this place!!!

The farmer’s market is the best combination of art fair, fresh food stalls, jewelry, clothing, and Hawaiian culture. It makes me feel better about missing Tapestry Arts in San Jose.

Sunday involved switching out my phone with my grandma’s and now I can see my whole screen! So exciting! I no longer have to forward texts to myself to be able to read them. I also bought some ice cream, which seemed like a good idea except I had to bike back with it. I hope it resolidifies… when I took it out of my backpack, it was goopy and melty. Therefore I HAD to eat the top layer, so it didn’t get too messy, but I put the rest back and am crossing my fingers that it will return to normal form. It’s a chocolate chip cookie dough, with the Nestle cookie dough… SO DELICIOUS!!! I now feel completely settled in.

Tad arrived today and I think it’s going to work out really well. He also has a car, meaning that I won’t have to worry about melty ice cream as long as he’s around! And it will be easier to get to the beach, since the best ones are about 5 miles down the road. Jake is already scuba certified but I won’t be until August, so I have to stick to snorkeling. Look forward to some cool underwater photos in the next few weeks, because my camera is waterproof to 10 feet. Hopefully it’ll work! I may have to play around with the settings – I love that it’s shockproof and waterproof (both are TOTALLY necessary given my line of work and the way that I beat it up), but it’s not very smart. Meaning that I have to manually adjust the lighting, etc… pretty often, but I’m getting the hang out it!

Hope all is well with you!

Rainy Rainy Day!

Day two dawned early, but it definitely wasn’t bright. It was raining pretty hard in Hilo, and although we hoped that the air would clear as we moved up the mountain, the mist continued all the way up to the kipuka. Luckily my rain jacket is a trooper and kept me nice and dry for the hike to the forest. The lava rock was all a’a rock, meaning that it was super brittle, broken, jagged, and rough. I think we’re getting gloves for hiking over the a’a because it really hurts to put your hands down. Thank goodness for hiking boots – I can’t imagine doing this job without them! And we brought the crossbow.

When we got to the kipuka, we set up more edge litterfall traps and rigged more trees. The edge plots are easy to make at this point, and we worked a lot faster today than yesterday. I’ve figured out how to work the metal for making the litterfall trap stakes. And I also shot the crossbow!! WOOOOOO!!!!! IT WAS AMAZING!!! So much power, and so much accuracy! We had to use it for the really tall trees.

We basically shoot a weighted arrow over the desired tree branch, and then retrieve the weight. We replace the weight with a rope, and pull the thick rope over the tree. That will allow Devin and Bernice to climb the trees later and collect samples of the upper canopy. Woot! We figured out a new process for getting the weight to fall correctly, since the arrow usually flies over 4 or 5 trees and we only want it to fall over the first one. It involves lots of easing, cajoling, and sweet-talking of the weight. We’re working on it! (P.S. LOOK HOW AWESOME THE CROSSBOW IS!!!!)

My stuff is still a bit soggy, but luckily it doesn’t get cold. Even up the mountain, the air is warm enough that getting a bit wet isn’t a bit deal. I think I have half a tree stuck in my braid, because we had to fight so much through the brush. Bandanas are wonderful, I used one for a headband and it kept my hair from collecting too much shrubbery. I think I’m going to have to wash my hair more often here than I’m used to… could be a good habit to get into, the whole personal hygiene thing.

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Today we had a half-day because Jake and I had to be at the apartment between 12:30-4 so someone could set up our internet. We got started at 8 and made a bunch more litterfall traps, then had our driving test. I may or may not have gone a wee bit fast (tee hee), but it wasn’t a big deal, and Jake and I are good to go for driving in 4 wheel drive and regularly on the road. The USFS (US Forest Service) is super stringent about any scratches on the car, which will probably end badly because we’re putting so much gear in the truck bed.

The internet is now set up and I feel so FREE!!!! The whole world is at my fingertips!! And Jake, in his extravagance, bought a sweet motorized scooter that can go up to 30 mph, so we should be able to get to Walmart, Safeway, Farmer’s market, etc… and bring back many spoils of war (especially a wireless router). I’ll be the last one at work every day, because I’m biking, but such is life. And maybe it will encourage me to get into shape. The fastest way to work is through the University of Hilo campus, so I’ll probably get somewhat familiar with the school by the end of the summer.

I think I’ve fallen into a sleepy vortex, in which all I want to do is read “Lord of the Rings” and intermittently nap. Maybe my body is just trying to catch up on the minimal amounts of sleep I’ve gotten during the last… oh, 3 years or so. I’ve also been eating lots of delicious chocolate chip pancakes with peanut butter and syrup, tasty egg concoctions, and stir fry. I love cooking!! YAY!!!

First Day In The Field

I have the best job. Ever!!!

We rolled out around 8 AM this morning to go to the kipuka. Devin picked Jake and I up in the blue Ranger (as yet unnamed, but we’re working on it), and we drove about one hour to get to the site. The first 40 minutes were paved road, no big deal, but the last 20-25 minutes was BRUTAL. The road was jagged lava rocks and we bottomed out about 5 times even though we never surpassed about 2 miles per hour. Suuuper slow going. We were mainly hiking on pahoehoe (Chris, ring any bells?) which was pretty easy since it wasn’t too broken up.

We finally made it to the first set of kipuka and learned how to set up our litterfall traps on the center and edge of the kipuka (it’s slightly different based on location). We also had to mark trees for climbing so we can sample the canopy, which involved a sweet slingshot. I wasn’t half bad! Although, to be fair, I wasn’t half good either. Devin just sat back and watched Jake and I fail miserably for awhile before he ended our misery and set up the last few trees. It works by slingshotting large metal nut over a tree branch using fishing wire and the slingshot, lowering the nut, and then replacing it with a thicker climbing rope and pulling the whole mess back over the branch and tying that down.

I learned how to program sites into the GPS, which is critical because all the lava rock looks the same when you leave a kipuka and all the trees look the same when you enter. We mark each litterfall location and the different edge locations on the GPS so we can search later to get back to them. We visited 4 kipuka today, which is pretty good, and tomorrow we’re going to set up 3 more. There are some tasty berry plants in the kipuka and Jake and I nibbled as we worked. Apparently they taste like Huckleberry, although I’m not a good judge of that since I haven’t actually had Huckleberry before.

The weather was WONDERFUL up the mountain – we were at about 7,000 ft and the air wasn’t muggy at all. It got pretty warm around 2, but there was a cool breeze and the kipuka were nicely shaded. It’s definitely pretty wild in there though, and we had to fight with a number of trees, shrubs, and branches to get where we needed to be. We also avoided rain because clouds usually don’t make it that far up the mountain. Granted, I’m sure we’ll have to deal with our fair share before the summer is over, but it was a pretty perfect first day. The locations were so nice!

And Julia, thank you for the hand sanitizer – I’m not usually a big fan, but apparently there are number of rat diseases that can cause discomfort, fevers, and neurological damage (no big deal, right?), so disinfecting hands before eating is recommended. Devin didn’t seem too concerned, but I think I’m going to make use of the Purell since I have it!

After work I biked to the café and as soon as I left it started misting. It was probably the nicest bike ride ever!! The mist here isn’t warm, but the air is still so warm that it feels great.

I've taken tons of photos and I hope you like the ones I've uploaded!

Yesterday I woke up early, per usual – I’m still getting used to the time difference. I ventured back to my café and Skyped a bit with Angie, which was really fun!! I went back to downtown Hilo and explored the shops again, and stopped to look at another little inland lake (see photo). There are a couple used bookstores, and I ended up getting the Lord of the Rings trilogy in all its glory, because those books will keep me busy for awhile at least. And I also found a Tom Clancy, John Grisham, and Murder She Wrote book for 35 cents each, so I should be set in terms of reading material. I lay out by the beach and read for a bit, soaking in Frodo’s discovery that he owns the One Ring. Pretty epic! There were also some cute bracelets at the farmer’s market, which is apparently set up every day (although Saturday is the biggest day), so I picked out a sea turtle one and plan on getting a fabulous bracelet tan to match my watch tan!

Jake arrived around 5:30ish and we ventured to Walmart yet again. I discovered a Taco Bell, so I plan on visiting and seeing if it’s up to snuff sometime in the near future.

On Saturday, I met a geriatric man named Gary at Long’s because he needed help reading a label. We got to talking, and he mentioned that he usually hires University of Hilo (UH) students to do gardening at his house. I said that I already had a full-time job, so I couldn’t help him out – but it also came up that he had a bunch of extra microwaves from University of Hilo students who had worked for him, moved away, and left their microwaves for him to deal with. So Jake, Devin, and I drove over to his house and saw that he did, in fact, have 3 microwaves and he let us take one! YAY!! (Dad, I just want you to know that I realized the potential sketchiness of this situation, which is why I brought my two burly man-friends).

Gary also showed us around his garden, which should more accurately be described as an oasis. I wish I’d taken pictures… he has his own river running through his backyard, and a koi pond (they were at least 2 feet long), and a goldfish pond, and a guppy pond, and an aviary with incredible tropical parrots, and two of the CUTEST DOGS EVERR (besides Beanie, of course). They’re a mix of border collie and some sort of sheep dog – their faces look exactly like Beanie, and they were a little sleeker and ADORABLE and wonderful. Anyways, it was a crazy experience to come out of just talking to someone at Long’s, and we got a microwave and an awesome tour of a sweet garden!

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Today was my first day of work, and it involved lots of paperwork/training. Jake and I had to watch a 2 hour video about driving safety from the U.S. Forest Service, which was a lot of scare tactics mixed with terrible 90s fashion. There were 3 mullets, lots of high-waisted jeans, and some awesomely huge glasses.

We also made 33 litter-fall traps, which (as the name implies) are used to catch the debris that falls from the forest canopy. These will be used as proxies for the forest productivity in each kipuka. I took a picture of Jake using his $45,000-per-year education to do some extremely academic work (har har) and it wasn’t nearly as annoying as expected. We basically attach mesh to plastic frames using gauge wire, which is a bit hard on the hands but not too bad, and we’ll collect them 1 week after setting them up to see what the forest turnover is. It’s really cool!! We also had some awesome Hawaiian slack guitar playing in the background, and then some reggae, so we were entertained.

To define my terms:

“Kipuka” is the term for forest fragments, and we’ll be placing traps in 32 kipuka on the slopes of Mauna Kea.

“Malaise traps” are used in the canopy to trap insects, which we’ll later sort and have classified to see how species density and diversity change (see the attached photo).


I also have an access code for the Forest Service building!! AHHHHH THE POWER!! Tomorrow we’re actually going into the kipuka, so I’m going to try to take some good photos, and Devin has informed me that the crossbow will be accompanying us. Exciting!!

Yesterday was pretty relaxing, I went back to the café and biked a bit more around Hilo. I stopped by this lake that is primarily used for fishing, and apparently there are specific types of spears that are legal to use for fishing. I didn’t realize that spear-fishing was the cool thing to do… but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Crazy!

I snoozed on and off all afternoon, alternating between snacking on pretzels, reading, and sleeping. I left my Gameboy at home, thinking that I was going to be mature and grown-up and not revert back to my Pokemon-master ways, but I already miss it *sigh* But I firmly believe that this deprivation will make me stronger!!

I discovered this amazing program called “Comic Life” on my Mac and spent about 2 hours playing around with it. I ended up making a 14-page comic of Spring Break with Angie, Duchi, and Shravan, it’s pretty epic! I love fun programs like this and will probably spend lots more time playing around with the extra features. Here's the first picture... if you want to see more, just let me know!

I also made my first stir-fry of the summer. Thank goodness for garlic, I used like 3 little cloves of it just for my chicken and more for green beans. Yayayayyyy!! And I made scrambled eggs with baked beans and cheese. Angie, you would love it =)

Exploring!

Downtown Hilo is very friendly, and very small. There’s one main street, called Bayfront, which faces the beach and contains a good number of shops and restaurants. It also boasts a fabulous Banyan tree, of which I took several photos in a very tourist-y fashion, and I attached one here. I also saw a really bizarre-looking fruit/flower (see the second photo) and I’m not sure what it is, so I’ll ask Devin next time I see him. I biked to the end of downtown and stopped to look at the beach. It’s all fairly rocky here, with small sections of black sand
beaches, so it's a bit different than the stereotypical Hawaiian shores on postcards. It was super stormy-looking, with huge billowing clouds, and beautiful. I love the weather!


I started at the far end of the street and worked my way back towards my apartment. There are some great used bookstores, and I picked up “The Lighthouse” by P.D. James. Shockingly enough, it’s a murder mystery and sufficiently creepy to make me wish that I had roommates moved in already. And I got a helmet, so I can be a safe and conscientious bike-rider. There’s also a small museum on the coral reef ecosystem, so I read up on some cool information about the Hawaiian reefs. I signed up to get SCUBA certified starting in July, and should be done before I leave Hilo! They take us on 5 dives, which is probably more than I would’ve been able to do in Hawaii if I’d been certified before I got here, so I think it will work out nicely and get me lots of reef time.

I also discovered that every Saturday there’s a wonderful farmer’s market in downtown Hilo. Papayas were 8 for $1!!! AHHHHHH!!! So of course, I had to buy 8, and have included a picture of the 7 remaining ones after I got home and gorged on a fresh, juicy, sweet papaya. There was also Spam sushi (see photo), freshly made and still warm, which is super tasty and salty, and there were stalls for clothes and other produce. In other news, I was mistaken for a native by one of the vendors! Of course, a native would have known that she would need a huge backpack for carrying around her papayas, whereas I didn’t prepare properly and ended up biking back to my apartment with a hugely heavy bag of fruit banging against my bike. I guess that means I’ll have to eat my fruit quickly before it bruises too much. Oh well, if I must then I must!


I’ve spent most of my remaining time wishing I had steady access to the internet, reading my book, and eating papaya. Woooo weekends! It started raining around 9 PM and the accompanying breeze was fantastic.

Also, Angie, thank you ever so much for the Jazz music!! I’ve been listening practically non-stop and it’s great!

The Eagle Has Landed

I MADE IT!!

The flight over involved lots of snoozes, so I missed much of the widely varying ocean beneath the plane. Oh well, life goes on... it's been about 80 degrees since I arrived and it's been consistently overcast, which is gorgeous. Here's a photo I took from the plane window of Mauno Kea (where we'll be working)! Hopefully we'll be working at a high enough elevation that it won't be too cloudy, because I'm not looking forward to daily showers. But at the same time, the rain makes everything so beautiful. Hilo is SO GREEN. Everything is oozing with different shades of green and the flowers are at least 10x brighter than anything at Stanford. It's such a beach town, and all the houses have slightly faded paint jobs and the shingles are stained with salt. It's wonderful. I got a pink bike, some groceries, and found a nice little cafe that has free wi-fi since my apartment doesn't have it set up yet.

Hawaiian hospitality is so great! Devin, the graduate researcher, picked me up from the airport and babysat me as I struggled through Walmart, finding a microwave, dish rack, pots and pans, etc... for the apartment, then went grocery shopping. We stopped at a little restaurant to get burritos, and mine came with PAPAYA salsa. YES HAWAII!! Haha it was a little odd, and entirely delicious. I've set up a lot of the apartment and unpacked my stuff - I attached a photo of our kitchen. The apartment is so nice!! It's a new building, so no one's lived in in yet and the some of the chairs still have plastic wrap over the seats. None of my apartment-mates have arrived so it's a little lonely though. I loved living in a quad and having people around (although I will admit to enjoying the privacy for a brief period), so I'm looking forward to Jake, the other Stanford student, arriving on Monday.

I also found out that I'm going to learn to shoot a CROSS-BOW!!!! Because that's what we use for setting up bug traps. HOW AWESOME IS THAT?! I will definitely include a picture as soon as I get one. I was getting into Devin's car and noticed my seat was occupied by a large spear-like contraption, which I will soon be master of. I am so excited!!

This weekend I plan on biking around Hilo and getting to know where stuff is. I have a rain jacket and a plastic bag for my computer, so hopefully I'll be prepared if it starts to downpour. Yesterday we were eating and then it was pouring outside, and then it stopped. Just like that. Yay tropical weather!

And with that, I leave you to venture to the great green yonder!