Facebook helps to make it a small world after all!

Today I had an opportunity to meet with one of my facebook friends. Takeshi Sumita brought his family to Hawaii from Japan. He brought me a beautiful gift of a silk kimono that had belonged to his grandmother. We exchanged gifts and as I was trying to give directions to him to the local coffee farms, I suddenly decided that there was nothing on my "to-do" list that could be more important than to help show this young family our beautiful island. I knew that the Hula Daddy coffee farm would be closing within an hour so I called ahead and told Debbie, one of the employees at the visitor's center, that we were on our way. Even though the owners were away on vacation, their employees did them proud by showing aloha and island hospitality to my guests. They showed the Sumita family the coffee trees, the roaster and even the resident Jackson chameleon who is residing in one of the coffee trees.

While they were purchasing coffee, I called ahead to the Heavenly Hawaiian farm and Trudy Bateman, the owner, was such a doll, as usual. She assured me that we could drive up there and I could show them around the coffee drying floor and the beautiful view. While we were there, Trudy put together a bag of fresh avocado, papaya, apple bananas, and a bag of freshly roasted Heavenly Hawaiian coffee. What a treat! Just to add to the experience, a couple of wild turkeys made their way towards us and the Sumita's young son got to pet the elderly dogs.

I bid my new friends a warm aloha and look forward to seeing them again. In the meantime, we will see each other on facebook!