Two days and several museums

Thursday, April 07, 2011
Waikiki, Hawaii, United States



Wednesday, 6th April .


The weather has turned and we are in for "spotty thunderstorms" which sound rather colourful. So it seemed like a good day to do some museums. First of all the Royal Mausoleum up in Nu'uanu Valley, the only part of the island which is not US territory. From there it was just a short drive up to Queen Emma's Summer Palace. This was a very modest "palace" where King Kamehameha IV and Queen Emma came with their infant son Prince Albert Edward to escape the heat down in Honolulu. Very poignant exhibits such as the little Prince of Hawai’is crib, bath, toys etc. But he died at the age of just 4. The “docent” who showed us round was fairly knowledgeable but did have a bit of a problem with geography, talking vaguely about “Europe” as if it was a single country !

The rest of the day we spent at the excellent Bishop Museum which specialises in Hawaiian history and traditional culture, having been endowed by Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop, the last heiress of the Kamehmeha Dynasty and the wealthiest Hawaiian woman of her time . Lots of interesting things to see and guided tours by very experienced curators. Their greatest treasures are the royal feather cloaks and feather standards used by Hawaiian chief and royalty as symbols of rank. The cloaks consist of red and yellow feathers, the latter came from the 'ōō bird which was mainly black with just a few yellow feathers. To ensure a continuing supply the birds were caught, the yellow feathers plucked and the bird released to grow new ones. Kamehameha I’s all yellow cloak required feathers from over 65,000 birds to make ! The birds which provided the red feathers, the 'i’iwi, was not so lucky and just got plucked and eaten :+(

The Bishop Museum also has a planetarium where we watched a show that told us how the ancient Polynesians navigated the Pacific by the stars. Just as well I wasn’t the navigator or they would still be circling Tahiti. Oh, yes and there is a big exhibition of dinosaurs – all roaring and moving, some with feathers according to the latest theory . Apparently T Rex babies had fluffy down all over them – cute.

Dinner at a Japanese restaurant called Ojiya with my friend Lynette who works at the Unviersity of Hawai’i. The food was great with the biggest sushi you ever did see and green tea-flavoured ice cream so Alan was a very happy bunny.






Thursday 7th April

Last full day in Hawai’i. Can’t believe the two weeks are nearly over, been looking forward to it for so long.

We spent most of the day at the Honolulu Academy of Arts which is an amazing place. The architecture itself is unusual with a series of interconnecting courtyards and 30 galleries . The 60,000+ piece collection covers East and West, with some stunning pieces of Chinese, Japanese and Korean art. The most striking was a Chinese seated statue of the goddess Guanyin(Kannon) dated to 1025. Never seen anything quite like it – almost as if she were about to stand up and walk towards us http://www.honoluluacademy.org/art/11333-guanyin-bodhisattvaa_z. There was a special exhibition of their best ukiyo-e prints to coincide with the Asian Studies conference I attended so it was a great chance to see them. Unfortunately we didn’t get to visit “Shangri La” the fabulous waterside home built by the phenomenally wealthy heiress Doris Duke to house her collection of Islamic art http://www.shangrilahawaii.org/. The tours are heavily oversubscribed so we were out of luck – perhaps I should have mentioned the BL connection since we were bequeathed some of her Thai manuscripts and furniture a few years ago.

Having done so much culture, it was time to do a final bit of retail therapy . Went to Ward Center/Village/Warehouse (all names of different part of a giant retail park.) There were some nice shops there. The shop we most wanted to visit was Native Books and Beautiful Things. They sell books relating to all aspects of Hawai’i and all the articles on sale are made in locally. The wooden bowls and carving were gorgeous, not very heavy, all hand made and would be the ideal mementos. Alas, just a small bowl would cost $350 (sic!). So we left them well alone on the shelves.

Really enjoyed our stay here. It’s a fascinating place full of cultural quirkiness, unbelievable beauty (moving as well as non-moving) and delicious food. We have been very lucky and we hope to come back here again soon.


Comments

Etsuko
2011-04-08

¿Habéis visto (y comprado) unos zapatos o bolsos para mi?

2025-02-08

Comment code: Ask author if the code is blank