Today Mike looked so relieved when I told him that Diane Buffalin, our friend who is also a psychologist and world traveler asked how she would keep up with Me on our trip.
Mike agreed that I would inject, Liz here to let the reader know that I was talking and that I would not add to Mike's text. This morning I just added to Mike's text on the PCC (Polynesian Cultural Center) and said things he would not have said and really did not want ascribed to him. For example I added on how it was run by Brigham Young and he'd preferred to skip that part.
Another thought I had on Polynesian Culture is that when a couple is married they do not say "Yes" or "I do". Polynesians answer "No". Their question is not, "Will you take this partner?" but "Will you ever leave this partner?".
You may wonder or not wonder where I've been all this time since Mike started the Blog the week before we retired in Aug. which is almost 8 weeks ago. Mike asks me to read the blog before he hits the publish button. Really I was so relieved that Mike had started a narrative and the pictures he adds are a huge plus. Our friends liked Mike's writing style and light humor. My mother is so pleased with Mike's appreciation and respect towards me. Hopefully I won't disappoint or just skip Liz here. We want it entertaining.
Meanwhile I scrambled to tie up loose ends to empty out apartment and to find an appropriate place for everything. No call to Salvation Army by me when I might hand things to a person in person. My mother's maiden name is Housman so not having a house is an unusual and temporary state albeit a state that may go on for 5 years or more. I do rent out a house in Kentucky that has needed some business attention as of late so we are not exactly homeless but owning a home and having a home with our stuff in it are 2 different states.
While in Las Vegas 3 nights we were at The Luxor and 2 unexpected things occured. We bought a time share and I caught a cold. I have traded my timeshare that was gifted to me by a dear friend every year for 16 years. One year I skipped and then got 2 units the following year. Mike agreed this
looked like a pretty good deal. We bought one under construction that came with 2 extra sets of points. We will convert our timeshare into points too. we fell for the advantage of flexibility. We really will look into booking in Asia in 2012 since the best deals are 2 - 45 days in advance. We bought more points at a time when we are heavy into travel. In 2017 we will go to Europe, the Middle East and South Africa. We can bank points for that trip and also borrow from future years. Mike encouraged the purchase as a tribute to my trip booking efforts at a time when a lot of our stays were very fuzzy.
I am writing now with a lot more confidence. Our trip is moving along smoothly and affordably. We booked our Hawaiian inter-island flights so that created the structure for all our other hawaiian bookings.
So I caught a cold. I unpacked our Airbourne tablets in Hawaii after it was too late; my nose was stuffed up. The Luxor gave us a 1st floor smoking room which Mike relished as he wrote blog. Where else but in Las Vegas are you allowed to smoke in your room? Arriving in Las Vegas was a low point since Grand View Resorts Check-in desk was closed so I was not sure we would be compensated for our room after all. I was not sure that we had a room but Mike forged ahead and got us in. Meanwhile I was not sure our trip to Las Vegas was worth the arbitrary stop over, my idea of a good way to break up extreme jet lag. But Mike and I love Zion Canyon. Seeing that place reassures him of our future in a motor home beginning next May. I will execute his dream life in a motor home and share it happily same as he is living my dream trip to go to these far away places in the Pacific while we are younger and fitter than we'll ever be. But I caught a cold and was ashamed to admit it to our hosts, Brian and Merv. I really don't want to infect others. And really drinking enough water in Hawaii is a real mission. Mike understands that and carries a "Camelback" full of water everywhere we go. But Mike couldn't help but wonder what part of my drinking problem is psychological. We played golf with an African American urologist at Rackham in Hunting Woods just before we left and I asked him about it. He said, "You got 2 hours for a talk? " He said he restricts water intake on certain patients and that one can drink too much water. Anyway eventualy I drank almost a whole bottle of liquid Mucinex and took lots of Advil and got over the cold.
Now we have the flights we need except inside New Zealand. It is hard to not want to get to Queenstown to see their uniquely beautiful Fjords. We booked hostels in Australia for Alice Springs and during Christmas when we're in Cairnes. Rooms to book are still New Years Week in New Zealand. But that is far enough away that I am not anxious.
Tomorrow is Saturday and a big day for "Occupy Wallstreet". What better place to support the cause than downtown Honolulu?
Friday, October 14, 2011
Polynesian Culture Center and USS Arizona
The Polysesian Cultural Center. Spent a pretty expensive day and ended up with mixed feelings. We both enjoyed the bus ride there, despite traveling the same highway we'd covered the day before. The Center provided transportation all the way up to Laie. On the pretty plush bus was a cheerleader of sorts, Leon. He entertained us for the entire hour and a quarter. He told us how Texans took cabs back to their hotels but only remembered that their hotels were next to ABC stores. ABC stores are liquor stores on every block. Imagine a city dependent on tourists and Texans like Arabs are the high rollers. He told us the 3 leading industries in Hawaii, tourism, military ( 13 bases) and then #3 starts with A, (agriculture not ABC stores). Eat a half a papaya a day (instead of an apple) to keep the doctor a away. A whole one will keep you in toilet all day.
Leon worked us over to understand that this show supports a school; the staff are mostly students. The school is a work study program. It supports students from throughout Polynesia. The Kettering of Polynesia. When they leave this Brigham Young school they leave without student loans.
Finally we got there after hearing a little sales pitch for a lunch and personally guided tour for a mere $25 each. No thanks, not til we see the layout. Besides, Liz had taken the precaution of packing a lunch, having noted the absence in the brochure. Smart girl.
I guess I was expecting a sort of Colonial Williamsburg in Polynesia. We were welcomed with leis made from orchids, no aroma but pretty. I modified expectations to something like a Reniassance Festival after seeing the large number of souvenir shops. Less expensive souvenirs mostly made in China - I checked. Still not so bad. Our first stop, I witnessed a very charming and funny Samoan who husked and split a coconut in 7 seconds flat, using a large sharp stick propped upright and a hand-sized stone. About ten seconds later he'd shredded the meat inside and squeezed the milk from it. Impressive. Even more so, he then actually did the boy scout thing by (sort of) rubbing two sticks together. Actually, he used a medium sized seasoned hemlock log and a very strong seasoned hemlock stick (wood choice is a large part of the secret), along with a very dry coconut husk , shredded for tinder. Again, he took just a few second. Very cool. And we saw a cooking demo where they baked cocoanut bread in a pit. Lots of drumming. That's nearly the full extent of Polynesian crafts I saw that day.
The Center is divided up into seven or so areas, each devoted to its own part of Polynesia. Okay, maybe more like Disney World's Epcot. As we progressed through half hour shows in Hawaii, Tahiti, Fiji, Tonga, Marquesas, and Aotearoa (New Zealand - Maori) it became more and more obvious there was mostly music, song and dance. Okay, fair enough. Just not quite what I expected or was interested in seeing more of, prompted by several museum trips in the past several days. I.E. How is that stone tool polishing done, why not knapping of obsidian into sharp flakes like the neolithic people of Europe and elsewhere? Can I see someone weave a fish net? Okay, there was a totally impressive big double canoe, made by local volunteer labor, probably very close to the craft these people used to explore the Pacific. Really clever system of flexible woven masts. On the other hand, the music and dancing was quite entertaining, especially the Maori expressions of fierceness.
Black vampire-like lipstick that drips down to chin. We saw New Zealand's secondary school champions perform.
The Samoan theme of "happy wife, happy life" rings true; the men in Samoa do all the cooking. The women shop. The Fiji show had us rolling with laughter. He called up 3 men from audience, a Californian, an African American, and a Japapanese and had them imitate his howls, yelps, growls and drumbeats. Apparently fierceness is innate; men do not have to be Polynesian to be warriors. The Virginian was African American and added on "Who let the Dogs out". The Samoan reminded him whose show this was.
The luau was buffet. Okay. The food was tasty, exotic and nothing like Sweden House. Stuff like pickled raw salmon, poi, sweet potatoes, taro biscuits, marinated raw beef. Yes, poi is a little like library paste in consistence but not quite the same flavor of library paste that I remember from kindergarten. You really, really need to mix it with something with a strong flavor. Onion slivers work fine. There was entertainment all through the feast, ukuleles and hula predominating. I kept expecting Dorothy Lamour and the Andrews Sisters to show up. It is real family entertainment.
Now comes the main event, the big show. Ha, the breath of life. Essentially, a child, Mana, is born, grows to adulthood and becomes a father. Dance numbers choreographed in sections reflecting different island styles. Truly a big production. More that vaguely remeniscent of Lion King with a huge nod to Andrew Lloyd Webber. Note that I didn't say I didn't enjoy it! This is one really big, spectacular show. Big production dance numbers, lots of drums.The lighted torch twirling at the end is a dazzling demonstration of skill. Sorry, no pictures of the show, all photography during the show prohibited.
Then a long,late ride home, alleviated by an in-flight (ride?) movie describing the settling of Polynesia. Was it worth a couple of hundred bucks? Not twice. Further than that, I will not say.
Next day, let's do something easy. I know, we can just pop over to Pearl Harbor and do our touristly duty at the USS Arizona memorial. Check the map. All right, the bus ride's less than an hour, no big deal. Get in line, walk through, go home. Maybe throw a lei on the water, take a few pictures. Not quite. It is indeed free to see the Arizona. Most of the other stuff is also free or quite inexpensive. The wait to get on a launch out to the memorial is about an hour and a half and the staff is anxious to make sure our time isn't wasted. I plunked for the Bowfin and the Naval Air museum. The USS Bowfin is a real WW2 hunter-killer sub with an enviable record. The whole experience was fascinating! 80 people lived aboard that cramped thing. Heads bowed to avoid the overhead equipment and squirming through hatches the size of an attic window. For months at a time! Only about a third of the crew could sleep in the available space at a time while work went on all around them. Eating out of a galley the size of the average suburban closet. This and not a great chance of survival. The Submariners of WW2 had the highest casualty rate of any service. 8th Air Force bombers included.
Then the obligatory movie dealing with the historical causes leading up to the attack. I wonder what any American of the time would feel about the matter-of-fact explanations of the necessity of Japan's actions. Finally onto the ferry. It was amazing watching the boat handling of these pilots. They do dozens of runs each day and have perfected turning the boat and skidding it perfectly alongside the pier. Why yes, it was moving and saddening. How else could it be? 70 years have dimmed the passion but it's still a sharp break in America's and the world's history.
That done, we got on the bus for the Naval Air museum. Okay, if you didn't already realize it, I get a huge kick out of WW2 machinery. Simple, not exactly crude but certainly without frills, generally rugged, designed by (usually) good engineers, done quickly. What's not to like for a former journeyman toolmaker. Hell, just look at the photos.
.
Leon worked us over to understand that this show supports a school; the staff are mostly students. The school is a work study program. It supports students from throughout Polynesia. The Kettering of Polynesia. When they leave this Brigham Young school they leave without student loans.
Finally we got there after hearing a little sales pitch for a lunch and personally guided tour for a mere $25 each. No thanks, not til we see the layout. Besides, Liz had taken the precaution of packing a lunch, having noted the absence in the brochure. Smart girl.
I guess I was expecting a sort of Colonial Williamsburg in Polynesia. We were welcomed with leis made from orchids, no aroma but pretty. I modified expectations to something like a Reniassance Festival after seeing the large number of souvenir shops. Less expensive souvenirs mostly made in China - I checked. Still not so bad. Our first stop, I witnessed a very charming and funny Samoan who husked and split a coconut in 7 seconds flat, using a large sharp stick propped upright and a hand-sized stone. About ten seconds later he'd shredded the meat inside and squeezed the milk from it. Impressive. Even more so, he then actually did the boy scout thing by (sort of) rubbing two sticks together. Actually, he used a medium sized seasoned hemlock log and a very strong seasoned hemlock stick (wood choice is a large part of the secret), along with a very dry coconut husk , shredded for tinder. Again, he took just a few second. Very cool. And we saw a cooking demo where they baked cocoanut bread in a pit. Lots of drumming. That's nearly the full extent of Polynesian crafts I saw that day.
The Center is divided up into seven or so areas, each devoted to its own part of Polynesia. Okay, maybe more like Disney World's Epcot. As we progressed through half hour shows in Hawaii, Tahiti, Fiji, Tonga, Marquesas, and Aotearoa (New Zealand - Maori) it became more and more obvious there was mostly music, song and dance. Okay, fair enough. Just not quite what I expected or was interested in seeing more of, prompted by several museum trips in the past several days. I.E. How is that stone tool polishing done, why not knapping of obsidian into sharp flakes like the neolithic people of Europe and elsewhere? Can I see someone weave a fish net? Okay, there was a totally impressive big double canoe, made by local volunteer labor, probably very close to the craft these people used to explore the Pacific. Really clever system of flexible woven masts. On the other hand, the music and dancing was quite entertaining, especially the Maori expressions of fierceness.
Black vampire-like lipstick that drips down to chin. We saw New Zealand's secondary school champions perform.
The Samoan theme of "happy wife, happy life" rings true; the men in Samoa do all the cooking. The women shop. The Fiji show had us rolling with laughter. He called up 3 men from audience, a Californian, an African American, and a Japapanese and had them imitate his howls, yelps, growls and drumbeats. Apparently fierceness is innate; men do not have to be Polynesian to be warriors. The Virginian was African American and added on "Who let the Dogs out". The Samoan reminded him whose show this was.
The luau was buffet. Okay. The food was tasty, exotic and nothing like Sweden House. Stuff like pickled raw salmon, poi, sweet potatoes, taro biscuits, marinated raw beef. Yes, poi is a little like library paste in consistence but not quite the same flavor of library paste that I remember from kindergarten. You really, really need to mix it with something with a strong flavor. Onion slivers work fine. There was entertainment all through the feast, ukuleles and hula predominating. I kept expecting Dorothy Lamour and the Andrews Sisters to show up. It is real family entertainment.
Now comes the main event, the big show. Ha, the breath of life. Essentially, a child, Mana, is born, grows to adulthood and becomes a father. Dance numbers choreographed in sections reflecting different island styles. Truly a big production. More that vaguely remeniscent of Lion King with a huge nod to Andrew Lloyd Webber. Note that I didn't say I didn't enjoy it! This is one really big, spectacular show. Big production dance numbers, lots of drums.The lighted torch twirling at the end is a dazzling demonstration of skill. Sorry, no pictures of the show, all photography during the show prohibited.
Then a long,late ride home, alleviated by an in-flight (ride?) movie describing the settling of Polynesia. Was it worth a couple of hundred bucks? Not twice. Further than that, I will not say.
Next day, let's do something easy. I know, we can just pop over to Pearl Harbor and do our touristly duty at the USS Arizona memorial. Check the map. All right, the bus ride's less than an hour, no big deal. Get in line, walk through, go home. Maybe throw a lei on the water, take a few pictures. Not quite. It is indeed free to see the Arizona. Most of the other stuff is also free or quite inexpensive. The wait to get on a launch out to the memorial is about an hour and a half and the staff is anxious to make sure our time isn't wasted. I plunked for the Bowfin and the Naval Air museum. The USS Bowfin is a real WW2 hunter-killer sub with an enviable record. The whole experience was fascinating! 80 people lived aboard that cramped thing. Heads bowed to avoid the overhead equipment and squirming through hatches the size of an attic window. For months at a time! Only about a third of the crew could sleep in the available space at a time while work went on all around them. Eating out of a galley the size of the average suburban closet. This and not a great chance of survival. The Submariners of WW2 had the highest casualty rate of any service. 8th Air Force bombers included.
 |
| Bunk area - share your bed wit 2 other people |
 |
| Crew mess - 70 people ate here in shifts |
 |
Sub used 4 huge GM V16 Diesels - more than a locomotive uses 5 inch deck gun |
Then the obligatory movie dealing with the historical causes leading up to the attack. I wonder what any American of the time would feel about the matter-of-fact explanations of the necessity of Japan's actions. Finally onto the ferry. It was amazing watching the boat handling of these pilots. They do dozens of runs each day and have perfected turning the boat and skidding it perfectly alongside the pier. Why yes, it was moving and saddening. How else could it be? 70 years have dimmed the passion but it's still a sharp break in America's and the world's history.
 |
| USS Missouri - moored alongside Arizona memorial |
 |
| Mooring slip. I seem to have forgotten to get pictires of the memorial itself. |
 |
| Turret mount? note oil still leakiing after 70 years |
That done, we got on the bus for the Naval Air museum. Okay, if you didn't already realize it, I get a huge kick out of WW2 machinery. Simple, not exactly crude but certainly without frills, generally rugged, designed by (usually) good engineers, done quickly. What's not to like for a former journeyman toolmaker. Hell, just look at the photos.
 |
Japanese torpedo bomber - I thenk.  |
.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Circle Island Bus
The Circle Island Bus, the cheap tourist's best friend. For just two and a half bucks, you can ride around the entire island of Oahu, seeing the farms, mountains, jungles fly by. If you have a bus pass, you can get off whenever you like, spend a half hour or so, get on the next bus in the procession and continue on. The actual ride takes about four hours. We saw the ocean on the south, east and north sides (the west is inaccessible) and actually traversed a major city in the time it takes to watch a football game. In short, on the scale we are accustomed to, Oahu is tiny! Not that it seems so when you're standing right here. The mountains are damn well mountains, the seashore stretches out as far as you can see, it's just that you can get to all of that with indecent speed. San Diego and Denver within a mile and Florida all around.
Drawbacks to the bus are that it's almost impossible to get a good picture out the windows (see below). The driver isn't about to slow down to give you a chance to take a picture, and the windows could use a good wash. If you do step off the bus, you're stuck for a half hour or more. You have to follow the map closely to figure out where you are. Your only guides are your fellow passengers and tourists. Good and bad there. We struck up a conversation with a local, a self-proclaimed surf bum (one of many we met) who entertained us with stories about surfing and working in the islands before he got off to go to his second job. (Working 2 jobs is commonplace here too.)
The bus changes at Turtle Bay, a wildly luxurious and expensive resort with lots of helicopters landing and taking off. Bus 55 goes back the way it came and Bus 52 continues west then south. Past North Shore. Okay, I know nothing about surfing, but I have heard of this surfer's paradise. Literally miles of rolling surf. Enough surfboards to floor a factory. If you take off your glasses it looks like the ocean has measles, the surfers are so thick. We struck up a conversation with one of them who decided the surf wasn't up to his standards that day and there were enough people out there to make it too hazardous. After 50 years on the pipeline (yes literally -he started at 7), he could pick and choose. Very interesting, so much so that I clean forgot to get his name or a picture. Damn! His proudest possession is a picture (he showed us on his cell phone - the original is at his place) of him riding out from under a huge wave that was on the cover of a 1975 Surfer Magazine cover.
Turtle Bay
And now, North Shore
The pictures I didn't get are of miles of farmland with exotic stuff like coffee trees, pineapple, sweet corn (!), lots of horse pasture (still can't figure that out.), other stuff I flatly couldn't identify on the fly. Still, Oahu must be about half urban and a quarter military base with just a little left over for agriculture and the mountains left mostly natural.
Drawbacks to the bus are that it's almost impossible to get a good picture out the windows (see below). The driver isn't about to slow down to give you a chance to take a picture, and the windows could use a good wash. If you do step off the bus, you're stuck for a half hour or more. You have to follow the map closely to figure out where you are. Your only guides are your fellow passengers and tourists. Good and bad there. We struck up a conversation with a local, a self-proclaimed surf bum (one of many we met) who entertained us with stories about surfing and working in the islands before he got off to go to his second job. (Working 2 jobs is commonplace here too.)
The bus changes at Turtle Bay, a wildly luxurious and expensive resort with lots of helicopters landing and taking off. Bus 55 goes back the way it came and Bus 52 continues west then south. Past North Shore. Okay, I know nothing about surfing, but I have heard of this surfer's paradise. Literally miles of rolling surf. Enough surfboards to floor a factory. If you take off your glasses it looks like the ocean has measles, the surfers are so thick. We struck up a conversation with one of them who decided the surf wasn't up to his standards that day and there were enough people out there to make it too hazardous. After 50 years on the pipeline (yes literally -he started at 7), he could pick and choose. Very interesting, so much so that I clean forgot to get his name or a picture. Damn! His proudest possession is a picture (he showed us on his cell phone - the original is at his place) of him riding out from under a huge wave that was on the cover of a 1975 Surfer Magazine cover.
 |
| Best of many out the bus window |
And now, North Shore
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Diamond Head
Saturday we moved from our AIRBNB hosts, Brian and Merv's lovely condo to our weeklong timeshare in Waikiki. Since checkin wasn't until 4 p.m. we had a half day to kill. Brian kindly offered to drive us to Diamond Head. I'd seen this hill in the distance out their condo window and asked what the climb was like. "No problem - 80 year olds do it." Actually, I did see some folks approaching 80. An amazingly fit 80. With lungs like leather bellows. Of course that was on the way down. They might have begun in their early 30s.
Brian slipped us into the park on his annual pass (They go there a lot, lucky dogs) and dropped us off at the trailhead. It really didn't look too bad, maybe a couple of hundred yards up and lots of switchbacks visible along the hillside. Did I say hillside? More like mountainside. My sense of scale had severely malfunctioned. In truth it only took about an hour. The worst slope was softened by stairs no longer than the ones up the Washington monument. Somehow I didn't get many pictures on the way up but the panorama fron the top was breathtaking.
As with any other ordeal in life, we met and befriended some fellow sufferers, A retired Navy Commander, Jeff and his wife Mary. Also a charming pair of Canadians Dan and Carolann. These were a pair of seasoned travelers. She has a travel blog of her own - http://www.maturetraveler.blogspot.com/
Well worth checking out and a whole lot more professional than this amateur effort.
Once the item was checked off our bucket list, we hiked down into town and looked for sustenance. Sushi again. A delicious, inexpensive lunch! The fish couldn't be any fresher and the service friendlier. A pox on McDonalds.
After lunch we once again did battle with the Oahu bus system. This is a wonderful transit system. Wherever you look, these conveyances are visible, often several at a time. Not terribly cheap - $2.50 a ride, $12.00 for 4 days or $60.00 a month. Since this will be our main transportation for 14 days we plunked for the big ticket.The main problem lies in figuring which bus goes where. There is even a web site to aid you. Here, try it out for yourself - http://www.thebus.org/ . When I first saw this thing I felt like a third grader looking over a basic calculus textbook. Fortunately, the bus drivers couldn't be friendlier and more helpful. Just give them a vague idea of where you want to go, then listen VERY carefully. Eventually we located a master map (in a McDonald's of all places) and it all started to make sense. On the other hand, I've seen the Army Museum and the Zoo from every possible angle several times, ususlly going in the wrong direction.
We finally stumbled upon our timeshare, Aqua Island Resort. Getting on in years, a little shabby, that little bit far away from the beach, yet completely serviceable. The 43rd floor, the very top. Hell of a view!
Even watched a High School football game across the canal.
Once we were settled in and Brian delivered our bags (Did I mention He and Merv go way beyond the call of duty making a visitor feel welcome?) we called it a night. More later.
Friday, October 7, 2011
History Day
Today we hit the history thing hard. Since we are lodging just a few blocks from the Iolani Palace and the Missionary area, it was easy. We found out that 4 out of 5 Hawaiians died from Western diseases. With so many deaths no wonder the Hawaiians accepted the missionaries and their doctrine.
The trustworthiness and integrity of our great United States during the era of Manifest Destiny is another issue. The US annexed Hawaii. Their Queen was imprisoned. Won't go deeper than that, just let you decide for yourself. Start here : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overthrow_of_the_Hawaiian_Kingdom. Amazing what a few wealthy corrupt self-serving people can do to screw up a fine country just to make themselves richer. I'm sure glad we're now a more mature country and above such things.
Enough of that. On with the pictures.
Our self-guided tour began with the Missionary Compound, started in the 1820's. The missionaries mostly from New England taught the Hawaiians to read, write and run a printing press. They translated Hawaiian into a written language. The Missionaries translated The Bible into Hawaiian.
On to the Church, made of coral blocks, removed from the reefs - underwater - by hand, by divers.
We briefly and discreetly spied a wedding in progress. (Almost as exciting as watching filming of Hawaii 5-O the day before.) Obviously the church is not just a historical site.
From there to Iolani Palace.
From there we went to Queen Emma's Summer Palace. The exterior has lush plant life. We met a most enthusiastic and qualified guide and teacher, U'ilani Kalopono.
The trustworthiness and integrity of our great United States during the era of Manifest Destiny is another issue. The US annexed Hawaii. Their Queen was imprisoned. Won't go deeper than that, just let you decide for yourself. Start here : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overthrow_of_the_Hawaiian_Kingdom. Amazing what a few wealthy corrupt self-serving people can do to screw up a fine country just to make themselves richer. I'm sure glad we're now a more mature country and above such things.
Enough of that. On with the pictures.
Our self-guided tour began with the Missionary Compound, started in the 1820's. The missionaries mostly from New England taught the Hawaiians to read, write and run a printing press. They translated Hawaiian into a written language. The Missionaries translated The Bible into Hawaiian.
On to the Church, made of coral blocks, removed from the reefs - underwater - by hand, by divers.
We briefly and discreetly spied a wedding in progress. (Almost as exciting as watching filming of Hawaii 5-O the day before.) Obviously the church is not just a historical site.
From there to Iolani Palace.
Guide in period costume.
Statue of King Kamehameha.
Another great statue, a fisherman mending his net.
And to top it off, some of that foliage. Judy, get a load of the Bird of Paradise. See what "Big Bird" might turn into!
Green wherever you look, year round. In fact, two ladies in the Summer Palace gift shop assured us that Hawaii sweet corn is the best anywhere, ever, and available yer around. Heresy to a Michigan boy. This corn I'm going to try as soon as we see a Farmer's Market! The ladies, members of Daughters of Hawaii disparaged James Michener and told us to read Sarah Vowell. They were the second women to recommend author Vowell.
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