My brother came home to visit Hilo recently.  Since my mom passed away and my father moved to Oahu, my youngest brother doesn’t come home to Hilo that often.However, my son was running with the Hilo High Vikings in the state cross-country meet held at HPA and so my brother came home to visit and to cheer him on. I picked up my brother at the Hilo Airport before 6 a.m. and we drove straight out to HPA and arrived in time to get good parking and watch both the girls and the boys race.  It was so exciting to see these amazing young athletes fly past the spectators cheering them on. As the runners crossed the finish line, I saw a multitude of emotions.  Some were ecstatic for their finish, some disappointed–regardless, all gave it everything they had for this final race of the 2016 cross country season.My 10th-grade son finished in 20th place with these top athletes and earned a medal. We are so proud of him and his performance.

After the cross-country meet, we drove back to Hilo and straight to Moon and Turtle, a fabulous Hilo restaurant owned by my brother’s high school classmate, Mark Pomaski and his wife Soni.

We enjoyed every dish we inhaled that day. My favorites are the smokey sashimi and the crisp-roasted Brussels sprouts. If you have never tasted these incredible dishes, go now. It is worth the effort you will make to get there.After lunch, we drove home and enjoyed the rain and some quiet time before we went out to dinner.

A group of over 20 people gathered for dinner.  Another classmate of my brother (who now lives in Seattle) coincidentally, was visiting Hilo.

We organized a gathering at Cheng’s where the two out-of-town guys met up with two other classmates and they could all feast on fried rice, oyster chicken, lemon chicken as they reminisced and talked about old times.These guys have not been together since, I think, they graduated high school.It was such a nice gathering and Cheng’s was the perfect, casual place to have it.  Nostalgic flavors with BYOB option.

The next day, my family went out to breakfast with my brother at Kuhio Grille. What a great way to start the full day that we all had ahead of us.To end the day, before dropping my brother off at the airport on Sunday night (with smoked meat and menpachi to take home) we stopped at Nori’s for dinner.  All this happened in just two days.  Living Hilo Style.