'n Hilo

Hello! It's me again, Jera. In this blog post I am going to show you a few interesting things we did in Hilo.
I FINALLY got to have some passionfruit!
If you didn't know passionfruit (or passion fruit) or lilikoi, which is the Hawaiian name, is my favourite fruit of all times!

As you see below I am enjoying it a lot!

 Everyday in  Hilo, Hawaii you will find a gecko on your deck. They're very common and usually  appear when crumbs are laying around.  

We also went to the famous Thurston Lava Tube in Hawaii's National Park. It's an old lava tube where magma would have rushed from Mauna Loa to the ocean. Unfortunately, over half the tube has collapsed due to heavy rain fall.

   On the way back, we visited the Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut Factory, where they make the best, over priced, macadamia nuts. My fav are the chocolate covered ones.
We were able to see how they make, sort, and package the nuts! 

A Visit to Mauna Loa

What are Sienna and I looking at?

This...

This is Mauna Loa where the lava tube once joined up to.
Do u see that red smoke? That is where the boiling hot magma is!
The island of Hawai'i is still growing because of this active volcano.

      Here is a better view of it.

A Visit to Mauna Kea

Climbing above the clouds.

Sienna with our friends Zoe and Nanook and me.
It was so cold the top, Mauna Kea had snow.
Imagine snow in Hawai'i!

Here a view of the snow on Mauna Kea from Hilo.
Some of the local Hawaiian were filling the back of their trucks with snow and taking it down the mountain to have snowball fights on the beach.



The 4,200 meter high summit of Mauna Kea has the world's largest observatory for optical, infrared, and submillimeter astronomy.

Being at this outstanding height, astronomers have a crystal clear image of the night sky. At 4,200 meters high, there isn't a cloud in the sky. With the latest technology, scientists have developed the largest telescope in the world. At a cost of 1.4 billion, it will be 5 times larger than any telescope before! This scope will be the newest edition to the Mauna Kea family.

We had a chance to catch a glimpse of our solar system too! There were telescopes aimed at some of our neighboring planets and space bodies such as Jupiter and the Earth's moon.

Thank you for reading my blog report! C ya soon!