~~~
~~~
Around Honolulu
Click on the pictures to enlarge
I left New Zealand on a Friday morning, spent 12 hours on two planes, and arrived in Honolulu Thursday evening. Unfortunatly, I then had to leave Honolulu Friday afternoon to get to the wedding, but that was enough time to say hi to Brigitte, have a walk down Waikiki beach, take lunch at a great Hawai'ian restaurant, visit Pearl Harbor, and have a stroll around the State Capitol.
 |
The Hawai'i State Capitol is certainly the most interesting I've ever seen. The building is an open breezeway on the ground level with the House chambers on one side and the Senate on the other. Offices are upstairs on the second and third level, and a reflecting pool rings much of the perimiter. |
 |
'Iolani Palace was the residence of King Kalakaua & Queen Lili`uokalani from its construction in 1882 until the monarchy was deposed in 1893. Nowadays, the palace is open until 2:15 in the afternoon; we arrived at 2:20... [more info...] |
|
|
The King and Queen each have statues outside the Palace. Hawai'i is the only place in the US ever to have a royal family, so Hawai'i is pretty much the only place in the States that one will find a Palace. |
 |
The Southern-looking official mansion of the Governor, Ben Cayatano. |
 |
This is as close as we got to the USS Arizona memorial in Pearl Harbor. It's rather difficult to find thanks to some confusing signage, presumably placed there to confuse any Japanese seeking to make a sequel to the first Pearl Harbor. We twice found ourselves staring at guards asking "what business do you have on base today?", but the second guard gave us a map... guess he's sick of trying to tell everyone the way. At last, we found the memorial staging area... it was packed with tourists and had an hour-long wait. So I took a picture and we left. |
 |
One of Honolulu's large public parks near the beach. |
 |
The famous Waikiki beach was owned by the geriatrics when I went at 10AM. "I love parent-teacher conference day. The birds are out, the sun is shining... old people walk the streets with impunity!" --Bart Simpson |
>> Next Page: Paris >> |
|
