Friday evening we returned to the Marriott Hotel, two blocks down the street from the Hyatt. The conference special rate ran out Thursday night so we packed up and moved to a slightly less expensive place. The Marriott was very nice even if we were only on the 22nd floor. We did get a view of the ocean this time, at least.
Saturday we would be leaving Hawaii after spending the day in Honolulu proper. One wrinkle complicated our plans. There was a major demonstration in downtown Honolulu right where and at the same time as we were going. A court decision about the local Kamehameha School allowing non native Hawaiians to attend it angered the Hawaiians who feel that this last vestige of their culture was being taken away from them. 15,000 gathered at the Iolani Palace to march through downtown. The problem was that we had reserved a tour slot at 10am to see the Iolani Palace. We rescheduled our tour to noon.
We drove into downtown having no problems with traffic or parking and elected to walk through Chinatown first instead. We had a long chat with a local lady (who gave us some directions) about the issues of the day while heading into Chinatown. Karol Ann found some jewelry there and we grabbed a light early lunch at the big market and food court. By this time we could head back to the palace. We saw the big parade that had by now left the Palace grounds while we walked towards the Palace. Quite a large march.
We finally arrived at the Iolani Palace, the home of the last of Hawaii's reigning Kings. It is set right in the middle of downtown and is surrounded by a modest sized park.The Kings ruled throughout the 19th century with their rule overthrown in 1893. After an orientation video we gathered for a group tour. We had to put on shoe covers to protect the soft wood flooring. The Palace was impressive if modestly sized and well restored. It does not contain as many furnishings as one might expect as most of them were sold off 100 years ago and only some have been recovered. Part of the goal of the Palace was to lend legitimacy to the Hawaiian Kingdom in the eyes of the Europeans by emulating many of the practices of the European Monarchies. No pictures were allowed inside the Palace however, so all we have to share here are from outside. The first is the overall view of the Palace.
Also on the grounds was the Barracks building which is where the video was shown and where they have a nice gift store. The Barracks were originally for the Palace Guards. This view also shows some of the surrounding city.
One curious thing we noticed while in Hawaii was that many of the trees grew to be wider than they were tall. This tree on the Palace grounds is a good example of that.
Across the street from the Palace was the statue of King Kamehameha I who united the Hawaiian Islands under his rule. The statue is in front of the Hawaiian Supreme Court building.
Across the street in the opposite direction is the current State Capitol.
From there we walked back to our car and drove over to the Foster Botanical Garden. We were still in the middle of Honolulu, but now in a large Park. The Foster Botanical Garden had many very large and unique trees in particular. Not so many flowers although we did find some orchids.
Still the featured items here were the large trees. Here is Rich standing in front of one of them.
Here is Karol Ann in front of another large tree.
We finally drove out to the Airport to head home. While waiting for our late evening plane we were able to explore a Chinese Garden that is set among the airport concourses.
Finally one last look at some flowers before we headed to our plane and the long ride home.
I hope that you have enjoyed this online photo album and that it has allowed you to catch a little of the flavor of our trip to Hawaii.