We went today, as we said we would, to the ‘Iolani Palace where we would follow a tour and where there would be some festivities in honor of king Kalakaua’s birthday celebration.

King David Laamea Kamanakapu’u Mahinulani Naloia’ehuokalani Lumialani Kalakaua, as his full name was, was born in Honolulu on November 16, 1836 and ascended the throne of the Kingdom of Hawaii on February 12, 1874. His reign ended with his sudden death on January 20, 1891 in San Francisco.

King Kalakaua is also called the “Merrie Monarch”, this is thanks to his love for festivities, the hula and such. The hula dance was, for example, forbidden in early 19th century, even if it was an important element of the Hawaiian culture, and thanks to king David Kalakaua the ban was lifted.

But ok, I assume we don’t want to get a history lesson but that we want to see some pictures instead? Unfortunately, we were unable to make pictures of the inside of ‘Iolani Palace since this was not allowed (I think it is understandable) but we took lots of pictures of the festivities outside and these are just as nice and interesting so you will find these below. We also bought a couple of postcards of the inside of the palace, so these are things we also saw, and you will find these below also.

I will try not to write too much text and to keep it mainly at a photo blogpost. When you hover with your mouse over the photo’s, or when you see the photo’s zoomed in, then you will find a short description of that picture.

Have fun watching the photos

Since I talk about prince David Laamea Klaren Kaumuali’i Kawananakoa in the last photo in the range above,I want to make a short notice: Hawaii has, of course, no official royal family anymore, that means, it is officially no kingdom anymore and therefore there can be no royal family. Of course there are descendents of the royal family and there are now several families who try to make a claim on the throne. It will be a bit too much to explain the whole story and I don’t feel much for that Anyways, to make a long story short, the prince that I named above is one of the people who is a possible heir to the throne if Hawaii ever becomes a kingdom (and that is something I seriously doubt since I do not think that the US will give up Hawaii).

But ok, we were going to view some photos, so let’s continue with that:

Now that the happenings with the change and the inspection of the guard are over, it was time for the people of the Waianae homeless center to do a performance. According to the announcer this is something that usually didn’t happen and with that it made it twice as special. The performance existed from a chant, gift giving to the royal house and was followed by a hula dance by multiple persons, all of course in honor of king Kalakaua’s birthday:

After this performance they switched the festivities a bit towards the coronation pavilion. This part of the festivities, the concert, was opened by a reverend and had lots of music from the time of king Kalakaua.

We went towards our car during this concert since we got quite thirsty, we were in the sun for a few hours after all and had the water still in the car. And after we drank some water and came back to our senses, it was our time for the tour through the palace.

Unfortunately, like we expected, it was not allowed to make any photo’s. I was able to make some photo’s of the ceiling on the “lanai” (balcony) of the palace, we also bought a few postcards from the palace museum which we scanned ourselves so we could still show you something

We made a short walk after this all to the Washington Place”, the previous residence of Queen Lili’uokalani and which is currently the mansion of the governer of Hawaii. Next to this building is the St. Andrews Cathedral, where we also went for a look:

The day came almost to an end after this all, personally I think it was very beautiful and nice to be able to see and experience this all. We also learned a lot from the tour through the palace, a lot has been said about the history.

Michelle and I went into town after this to grab a bite and on the roof of a building where we had dinner, we watched the sun setting. I also took a picture of it which, I think, is nice:

From Michelle and me I thank “the friends of ‘Iolani Palace” gratefully for the nice birthday celebration of King Kalakaua at ‘Iolani Palace, we were happy to be a part of it!