Ioloni Palace Honolulu

Hi Dear Folk,

We found a bakery on the edge of China Town, a young man was running it and was so very nice.  We bought the most delicious ready made turkey hoagie, which is a long fresh bread roll, $6.00 we asked him to cut the two sections in half and it was enough for both Barb and I for lunch.  We didn't know what to expect, but it was delicious, with turkey, lettuce, tomato, black olives, pickles and cheese.  I think it was our best value meal in Hawaii.

This is where we sat and ate it in the grounds of the palace.  Here is the dragon fruit, very easy to peel and split in two.  I would say the texture is like a Kiwi fruit, taste similar, but not the same.  I will definitely try them again.

The front of the Ioloni Palace, it's considered American Florentine style I think.  The history of Hawaii is a sad one you should read up on it, very interesting and of course there is a film Princess Kaiulani.  In fact the palace was taken over and used as government offices for many years.

When the Royal Hawaiian family were ousted from their position all the furniture was sold off and dispersed across the world.  Over a period of years the trust has gradually been getting things back.  At the time the palace was built it had electric, even before The White House.  It's another sad chapter in American history.

Many Royal dignitaries of Europe were entertained in this dining room.  In fact the Hawaiian King did a tour of Europe and other countries, including the court of Queen Victoria.  The flag of Hawaii has a Union Jack in the corner, the stripes would have been red, white and blue but the flag maker put the stripes in the incorrect order so they made it white, red and blue and it has stayed that way ever since.

I like to see the old photographs of how it used to look.

The respectable American business men of Hawaii had the cheek to sentence the Queen to five years hard labour.  In the end they imprisoned her in one of the palaces smaller bedrooms, where she made the above quilt and wrote many songs.

If you're interested in the history of Hawaii you should read the book by James A. Michener called Hawaii.  Probably best remembered for his book South Pacific on which they loosely based the musical. 

We very much enjoyed the audio tour here and felt that understanding more of the history of Hawaii helped us understand the Hawaiian people far better.

So I will sign off, with my name in Hawaiian.  Literally translated Follower of Christ, pronounced Ukali o ke akua although I was given another translation which is more a phonetical translation from Christine, Kilikina

Ukaliokeakua
 

Rug Quest

Hello Dear Folk,

I am on a rug quest, a rug for my sitting room.  For a long while I have just used throw rugs as Miss Tink, no longer with us, had a problem as she got older.  She liked a nice piece of rug rather than the litter box.  Consequently my lovely red Chinese Rug which I've had for almost thirty years, went out to the garage and the mice got into it.  She had already rather ruined the corner.

Of course when you are not looking you see all sorts of rugs you would like, and then you start looking and see nothing.  So Friday I drove to Ollie's in Hatboro and also Home Goods, but did not see anything that truly caught my fancy, also has to be at the right price.  Mr B. says what are you looking for and I say I will know it when I see it.  So far the only thing I like is very plain from IKEA and I was thinking of more vibrancy.

Mr B. and I drove up to Ollie's in Pottstown, because my friend found a really nice rug here, but it's a very hit and miss place, more like an Aladdin's Cave.  We also hit Home Goods out that way and ended up at IKEA, by which time Mr. B. was famished, not a good thing.  So we stopped off at the IKEA canteen and he had ribs and mashed potatoes, followed by chocolate cake, I had coffee and chocolate, very healthy, so that kept us going.

Still gradually filtering things away from my trip to Hawaii, why does it take so long?

Did sort the bottom of my tiny closet out, where I found a Canadian wool blanket that I had bought at the thrift, fabric, and two sweatshirts which I had long given up on finding. 

It never ends does it?

Christy

China Town Honolulu

Hi Dear Folk,

Here we are Monday morning and we have decided to visit the Ioloni Palace, but somehow we missed our stop on the bus and landed up in China Town, which actually worked out as we decided to visit China Town first, walking back through China Town to the Ioloni Palace.

I love wandering around Chinese food markets all sorts of interesting things for sale.

Fancy some Bull Frogs?

Or how about a Dragon Fruit?  Actually we bought one of these for lunch and it is delicious.

Something I'm a little more familiar with Dungeness Crabs.  I thought they came from the UK, but maybe not see here Dungeness Crabs.  They look a lot like the crabs we used to get in Whitby, Yorkshire, where you could also buy a delicious crab sandwich, at least that's what I remember from my childhood.

The food court eating area.

Spent some delightful time walking around this store.  I bought some Jade earrings and my friends bought a dark golden large fresh water pearl that the lady is making into a necklace for her.  You can see the pearls on the black tray.

We also spent some time in the old department store, doesn't the architecture look deco?  With the rounded windows at the corner.

We got to talking to the two Chinese ladies who were cousins and the one cousin had lived in Montreal and had to send her children to English speaking school and the other cousin had worked in a bank in Philly.  But after the Bank was held up at gunpoint and she was asked to be a witness, she decided not to identify the suspect as they bought him around to her house and she was afraid he would come back and get her.  That was when she decided to return back to Hawaii, where all her family was.  I think I might have returned to Hawaii too.

I bought two pairs of crystal and Palmieri flower earrings, very dainty.

So just a fun wander through China Town doing girl things.

Christy

Around Honolulu

Hi Dear Folk,

The forecast is rain.  It rained most of last week and so far has rained this week.  So back to sunny Hawaii.

Well here we are up bright and early on Sunday morning to make it in time for the 9:30AM Branch Meeting.  By flying out that weekend we missed attending it at our own congregation, so found out it was being streamed at the Diamond Head congregation in Honolulu, so we made it up there, navigating the very good Honolulu bus system.

Here are some friends from that congregation.

Joy and her mum.  We later saw Joy who had volunteered at our hotel to help at the JW International Delegate desk which was in the lobby of our hotel, as they were in all the hotels where delegates stayed.

And I couldn't believe it that we ran into friends from the very area The Boy and I visited Summer 2013 from Apalachacolo, Florida, remember how much I loved that name and how much we loved the beach at St. Joseph's, sand like confectioners sugar and almost white, long beaches backed by dunes on the Gulf.

This take out at Diamond Head is very good because the owner has a restaurant in town, but trains his staff here, so the quality of take out food is very good.  Here we all are lining up to place our orders.

We were going to catch the bus back into town, but a sister in the congregation, insisted on taking us back, and then as a last minute thought she said would you like to visit a craft show.  Now this was the same craft show that a lady who we sat at the bus stop had said that she was visiting.  She also mentioned the Japanese restaurant in our hotel as being very good and authentic, but that is another story.

Here we are at the craft show.

 

I bought a pair of these for The Boy, on the line, third from the left.  They are shorts made out of Rice Sacks.  The grandfather started this business during the depression and they have carried on with it.  I can say that Rob really loved them, so I was right to walk back and buy them.  It was the only place I ever saw them.

 



 
My friend Barb bought several handmade items from these lovely ladies.

 

Here we are back at the hotel and the same time that we were dropped off by Terine, so sweet spending all day running people round, the friends from Argentina were arriving.

 



This is Terine saying goodbye.

Group of friends from Argentina and a local sister.  It seems luggage from Argentina gets poly wrapped

Unfortunately I do not speak Spanish and most of the friends from South America only speak Spanish.  Is on my list of to do, must learn Spanish.  This was a sweet girl, so very bubbly, still we understood the joy being shared.

Christy

Awake In The Wee Hours

Hi Dear Folk,

What does one do when you are wide awake at 3:00AM?  Well you make yourself a cup of tea, I will admit to taking a supply of my own tea bags and a good job to because the hotel only had coffee, can you believe that?  Sit outside on the balcony and take photos.  So here are some of my nocturnal photos.

View of the pool and marina by night.

View of a full moon, looking up the side of our hotel and as you can see no balconies except on our level.

Listening to Hawaiian music played in the distance.

Up bright and early to catch the 8:00AM bus to Diamond Head.  Here we both are in the leis we received at the airport.

Hawaii Prince Hotel lobby.

I bought a good coffee and a doughnut made out of Poi see here so the inside of the donut is purple and very good they are too.

Christy

Honolulu Here We Are

This is our hotel the Hawaiian Prince by the marina.  All rooms in this hotel have a view of the ocean, it's actually made up of two interconnected towers, we were in the tower you see above.  Our room was not that high up, on the fifth level, and we wanted to be higher, but as it turned out, we had one of only a few rooms, just fifth level that had balconies, and these rooms were on the same level as the pool and jacuzzi, just around the corner from us, so we were very happy when we realized this.  Nice for an early morning dip, which it had to be as our schedule turned out to be so very full.  The balcony was great for an early morning cup of tea, and I mean very early morning as our internal clocks were so messed up.  Hawaii is five hours behind us.

Here I am we are taking an evening walk after checking in.  This is the marina, and we walked past here down to Waikiki Beach.  I'm wearing my new Firmoo Sun Glasses.

Here's my friend Barb in the water at Waikiki Beach, in the background the mountain you see is Diamond Head, it's the actual top edge of the crater.  We did walk to the top of this, that's another post.

In the center of the photo above, you can see the twin towers of our hotel.

These restaurants sit right on the beach.

A Hui Hoi, until we meet again.
Christy

Honolulu Airport Greeting

Hi Dear Folk,

After taking a flight from Philly to Phoenix, Arizona and then Phoenix to Honolulu, here we are at the airport and this is the first greeting sign we saw at the airport.  On our last flight we actually sat in front of delegates coming in from Atlanta, Georgia, so that was fun getting to talk to them, because their convention back in the summer in Atlanta, Georgia had also been a host city for an international convention.

The friends were at the airport waiting to greet brothers off over 800 flights, so you can imaging what a lot of work this was and sometimes things went amiss, as to who was on what flight.  So we landed up being greeted by a group of friends from the Spanish congregation, waiting for friends to come in off a flight from S. America.  What a warm welcome that was as you can see in these photos.

Unfortunately because we were not on any ones list who was there, they could not give us a lei.  These leis were specially made by all the friends at different congregations around Oahu.  This was an orange lei made to look like the special orange flower leis that were made for the Hawaiian Royal Family.  So as we were boarding the shuttle to our hotel, I think one dear brother felt bad about this and said wait a moment, he I'm sure went to the airport shop and bought us flower leis to wear, so that we were greeted in Hawaiian style.  Of course we did get our orange leis later on. 

Christy

Reluctance to Resume

Hello Dear Folk,

It seems that I have a reluctance to resume blogging.  I have been analyzing this and can only say that coming back to the reality of November in Pennsylvania must be it, I landed with a big bump.  I have been on winter vacations before but when I think about it only to the UK which is also winter, so have not had to leave an idyllic weather pattern of 85f  and sunny, for 32f drizzly and dull.  Having said this, we totally ran ourselves ragged on vacation, yes I know, I'm not one to sit and lounge on the beach for too long, I have to be out and about seeing all there is to see.

Also the perfectionist side comes out in me, can I really do this vacation justice, by my mere paltry verbiage.  Our vacation was really split almost into two vacations, the week from Saturday to Monday week spent on Oahu as an International Convention delegate and the Monday to Saturday spent on Maui.

Well everyone should visit Hawaii at least once in a life time and as it was an JW International Convention in both English and Spanish, we met a lot of delegates from South America, Argentina, Peru, Venezuela, Colombia and from Central America, Mexico.  As well as friends from many other countries.  As we were leaving the delegates for the second convention were coming in from Japan, New Zealand and Australia.  It was amazing to see everyone.  We were all greeted at the airport with Orange Leis, but that's a whole other story.  We wore these where ever we went, to identify each other as international delegates. 

When we arrived home we were exhausted and I was so happy that it was a short three day work week, being Thanksgiving Holiday.  The Boy came home for the week, so enjoyed that time together. 

This week I've been working on baby booties for a shower this Sunday.  So here I am two weeks back and no post.  So future posts will be with pics.

Take care, have a wonderful weekend.

Christy

PS:  I did put up a new Hawaii banner, Waikiki Beach, with Diamond Head in the background.