Thursday, May 26, 2005
Day 6 - Hilo
Woke up very sick today. My throat was extremely sore. Not only that but I'd been asleep for like... 20 hours or something. Tracey does some investigating and determines that I have to see the doctor so at least we can cancel my shore excursions. The volcano one is scheduled for today and SCUBA tomorrow - ack!
The doctor is nice and ($75 later) dispenses some pills, some tussin and some losenges. The pills are "Diclofenac Sodium". I was too sick to discuss anything with him or ask what this medicine was. According to Google it's a "non-steroid anti-inflamitory". According to the $75 invoice he left in my room I have URI, which I am guessing means upper respiratory infection. I'm really bummed out about the volcano and scuba.
The cruise line partly made up for it. At 10PM Hawaiian time (which is like... 9AM Eastern or something - there's a 5 or 6 hour time difference depending on daylight savings) we drove by the lava flows. Wow. What an awesome sight. There's no way to get good pictures or video of this, you have to be there. These volcanoes add hundereds of acres of land every year.
I didn't really get to see Hilo too much. I did venture out a little bit to go to the Mauna Loa factory and gift shop. Macadameas are the best. I will eat 1 million. They don't seem to be any cheaper here unfortunately.
In the back of my mind I kept thinking about how Bill T says that Hilo is his fav and he wants to move there. The taxi driver that took me to the factory says that Hilo is the cheapest on Hawaii, even compared to Kona which is on the other side of the big island. Houses average about $300,000 which is not outside the realm of possibility. The problem would be finding a computer job. Plus, these islands are a little vulnerable to things like hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes and in the case of the big island, volcano eruptions. Hawaiian women might make up for it all though. I wish I could see this the way Bill might have but I'm too sick.
The doctor is nice and ($75 later) dispenses some pills, some tussin and some losenges. The pills are "Diclofenac Sodium". I was too sick to discuss anything with him or ask what this medicine was. According to Google it's a "non-steroid anti-inflamitory". According to the $75 invoice he left in my room I have URI, which I am guessing means upper respiratory infection. I'm really bummed out about the volcano and scuba.
The cruise line partly made up for it. At 10PM Hawaiian time (which is like... 9AM Eastern or something - there's a 5 or 6 hour time difference depending on daylight savings) we drove by the lava flows. Wow. What an awesome sight. There's no way to get good pictures or video of this, you have to be there. These volcanoes add hundereds of acres of land every year.
I didn't really get to see Hilo too much. I did venture out a little bit to go to the Mauna Loa factory and gift shop. Macadameas are the best. I will eat 1 million. They don't seem to be any cheaper here unfortunately.
In the back of my mind I kept thinking about how Bill T says that Hilo is his fav and he wants to move there. The taxi driver that took me to the factory says that Hilo is the cheapest on Hawaii, even compared to Kona which is on the other side of the big island. Houses average about $300,000 which is not outside the realm of possibility. The problem would be finding a computer job. Plus, these islands are a little vulnerable to things like hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes and in the case of the big island, volcano eruptions. Hawaiian women might make up for it all though. I wish I could see this the way Bill might have but I'm too sick.
# posted by James Tatum @ 11:27 PM 
