Holualoa Village

This past week, coffee growers in Kailua-Kona celebrated the 38th annual Kona Coffee Cultural Festival. There were events and workshops throughout the week, including a Miss Kona Coffee Pageant, barista and roasting classes, a parade, and yesterday, the Holualoa Village Kona Coffee (tasting) and Art Stroll. When we heard about it, we thought "let's do it!".

We jumped in the car and headed toward Kona...

We had a difficult and interesting time finding a place to park. Events aren't done quite the same in Hawaii (at least here) as on the mainland. We finally made our own spot way uphill behind the elementary school in a weed-field next to someone's long, make-shift driveway...

Holualoa is a small art community in the heart of Kona Coffee Country, up mauka (mountain) from Kona Town. All of the art galleries (there are quite a few, especially for it being such a small town) were open and pop-up tents (and other creative structures) protecting all the different coffee growers' tasting spots lined the main road.






We tasted some good coffee (our favorites were Blue Sky Coffee, and the Kona Coffee Growers Association, whose booth I'm standing next to in the above photo), and saw some good and bad and interesting art... All-in-all it was a very good day, and a fun chance to do something new to us that is very Kona.

We also took the opportunity to explore a bit on some side-streets and found this cool road leading to the Holualoa Inn...

The plants on the right are big, lush coffee plants. Here is a closer view...

And cute Michael in front of them...See the little red "berries?"

And here's Michael standing in the middle of the cool road...

We happened to glance this car on a side-road...So cute! Looks like fun! The license plate said "Ghia" :) (For those of you who don't know, the car is a VW Carmengia.)

We found some biiig bamboo plants growing in the land between two houses/properties.
Here's me looking up at them...

And standing in front...those leaves in front of the bamboo are my favorite...I think they look almost fake or something!We also took pictures of some of the cool looking buildings on the side of the road, and then just other random shots of us in front of plants and other pretty things...

In case you can't read the sign on the building, this is the public library.

This one's for you, Keri! It is abandoned now, but what a cute little, and I mean little, shop!

I don't know exactly what that stone structure is behind me (maybe part of this old historic theatre in town?), but it's cool-looking, and you can see some more of my favorite leaves!This is actually the bathroom out back of a little hotel/inn...never seen this before! What a view while you, well, you know...

We really like these lava-rock walls...you see them all over here. And why not? Lava rock is definitely in abundance!!

Me again...I must have been slacking on the picture-taking part. There seem to be an awful lot of pictures of me...

Cute little old church...

And more of me...

What a cute town! We are looking forward to going back on a normal, not-so-many-people-every-direction-you-look, day ;) We heard of this great little restaurant tucked back from the main road, and can't wait to try it out!