We had two adorable middle-school girls visit us from Yurihama, our sister city, as part of an exchange program. I was away at a blogging conference so my husband had to take charge of everything for three days before I came back.He and my children did a great job helping the middle-school Japanese girls feel at home in our home.Did you read Melinda M.’s blog post about The Tour–her version of the best places to take visiting guests.The Yurihama visitors visited the Hawaii National Volcano Park, Mauna Kea Observatory visitor center, Rainbow Falls, Hilo Intermediate, Richardson’s Beach Park.

They ate at Cafe 100, Ken’s House of Pancakes, Wilsons, and Cafe Pesto. The loved the loco moco from Cafe 100.

There just wasn’t enough time for the girls to do everything we wanted.Even though they stayed for just a few days, it was hard to say goodbye.

Just a couple of weeks after the Yurihama visitors left, we had another exchange student, this time from Miyako-Machi near Fukuoka.  I was here in Hilo to help my husband this time around. Ami-chan joined us for four nights. We only had one free day for us to hang out. She wanted to eat pancakes–so of course, we took her to Hawaiian Style Cafe–where she could eat pancakes larger than her face!

This is the before and after photo of her attempt to eat the pancakes.

We then made our way to Punaluu Beach where the sand is sparkly and black and we looked for turtles.  We saw a few turtles swimming around in the water, but there were none lounging on the sand on this afternoon.After the beach, we visited Kau Coffee Mill and  bought some coffee and mac nuts for her to take home to Japan. After that, we went to lunch at Volcano House and then took her on a whirlwind tour of the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.Visitor Center, Jagger Museum, Steam Vents, Thurston Lava Tube were on the itinerary.We ended the tour of the day with a little shopping at Target and KTA and then had an all-you-can-eat pizza buffet at Pizza Hut. What a nice time we had sharing our beloved Hilo with our visitors from Japan.  Living Hilo Style.