Leslie Lang | Talk Story Press

It’s Merrie Monarch week and it’s absolutely the best week of the year here in Hilo. 
We went down to the Hilo Hawaiian Hotel this afternoon and watched the free hula performance by Puanani Crumb’s Halau Hula O Hilo Hanakahi.

It was wonderful. The music, the hula, the crowd. Hula Legend Uncle George Na‘ope was there, wheelchair-bound now, wearing a green running suit, white Crocs and then of course his hat and his wide gold bracelets running up his arm. 
I just love it all. The tiny kids who dance. The older ones who dance …

It’s almost Merrie Monarch week here on the Big Island. I love this week, when Hilo town shimmers and comes alive with people and flowers and hula everywhere.
Over at Big Island On The Cheap, we are going to be hitting Merrie Monarch hard. We’ll have a bunch of features — where to eat, half- and full-day trips to take around Hilo, all the exciting things going on with Merrie Monarch itself, some great local coupon deals that are exclusive to our readers (whether residents or visitors),  and some other surprises, …

Does anybody have extra Merrie Monarch tickets I could buy from them (at cost)?
One year my friend was on a mission to get Merrie Monarch tickets and asked a stranger in line at Starbucks, and said stranger indeed had extra tickets.
I haven’t asked at Starbucks yet, but how about you, online world? Surely you’re more effective than hitting up strangers at Starbucks!
I’d throw in a signed copy of my Exploring Historic Hilo book, if it helped.
Please ask around, tell your friends, all that. Let me know! I would really appreciate any help.

Macario is publishing a new online magazine and you should have a look. Wow. It’s eye-popping.

His photography is always great, and in this new magazine, called Macario’s Big Island, he combines his photos, interviews and commentary to illuminate some of the Big Island’s most interesting people in the world of arts, food, music and more.
He just put up what is only his third post there. It’s a feature on the Waimea architect Clemson Lam, and in a stunning turn of events – I’ve just now been able to get my jaw …

We went to Hilo Bay Cafe for dinner the other night while my mom was here visiting. That is such a great restaurant – inside it’s really got the ambience happening, in spite of its unlikely location in a strip mall adjacent to Wal-Mart, and the food is always so fresh and good.
While there, I talked with them about getting some recipes for an author I’m working with. Stephen Grogan, a Las Vegas author of a previous book called Vegas Die, is, interestingly enough, writing a culinary/mystery novel set here on the …

We are about to announce the winners at our On The Cheap websites. We had several contests — 14 in all — to celebrate our big launch. Did you enter?
Andy Bumatai is choosing names out of a hat for the Honolulu On The Cheap contests, and he’s doing it live and on the air today. Watch it at 1 p.m. HST; it will also be posted on The Andy Bumatai Show’s website after it airs.
Tomorrow our good friends at Hilo’s ‘Imiloa Astronomy Center are going to pick winners for our Big …

This blog is now part of a brand-new network of blogs, all from the Big Island and called FBI Blogs — get it? From Big Island?
It’s the brainchild of prolific blogger Damon Tucker, and a terrific idea. I have to say, I learn more about what’s going on this island over at FBI Blogs than I do anyplace else.
Twenty-something bloggers, all with different interests and access to different information — it’s an incredible resource to learn what’s happening on the Big Island, and also to “meet” some Big Island characters. 
I …

Leslie: “Oh, nothing much; what’s new with you?”
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACTS:
Leslie Lang
hawaiionthecheap@gmail.com
808 964-1494
Twitter: @LeslieLang  
Kris Bordessa
hawaiionthecheap@gmail.com
530 295-0887
Twitter: @KBordessa
“On The Cheap” Websites Highlight Best Bargains on the Big Island and in Honolulu
Hilo, HI – March 6, 2009 – Tuesday, March 10th is the official launch of two new online sites – Big Island On The Cheap and Honolulu On The Cheap – which are dedicated to bringing Big Island and O‘ahu residents and visitors up-to-the-minute information on free, discount and cheap things to do and other local deals.
Motivated by the current coupon-clipping climate, Big Island …

I have a good friend coming to visit here on the Big Island next week, a history buff like me, and I’ll have to find out if she’s ever read Isabella Bird.

I love reading an interesting book about a place while exploring it, and I highly recommend Isabella Bird’s book if you’re planning to visit (or if you live in) Hawai‘i.
I can remember reading Sarum when visiting Salisbury Cathedral, and Jane Austen in, of course, Bath. And Michener’s Iberia (or parts of it anyway; I remember a great section on gazpacho that …

Another place I sent my mom and her friend recently, while they were here touring the Big Island, was Ahalanui Park. It’s next to the ocean down in Pahoa and has a lovely, thermally heated pond.

The pond used to be part of someone’s estate down there in volcano country. Long ago owners enclosed the ocean end of the natural pond with rocks. They left a channel between the rocks, so the tide still moves in and out throughout the day. Now the pond is part of a county park.
The water …