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!

I told you last thursday that we will go to the ‘Iolani Palace this sunday since it is “kama’aina” sunday, which means that the entrance and tour with guide is free for those who live in Hawaii (and that is where my Hawaiian driver license will come in handy hehe).

We will still go to the palace tomorrow, but they decorated the whole palace since it is also the birthday (or better said: the memory of the birthday) of King Kalakaua. There will also be palaceguards and a parade in town itself in honor of the king, so it is the idea to see all that kind of stuff.

We also went to town yesterday and since we were there anyways, we decided to take a look at the palace to see the decorations ourselves. I had seen a small picture on the internet before and it looked quite pretty so now we wanted to see if it was really this nice, and I thought it was. And since we were around anyways, we decided to do a small walk through historic Honolulu. We made some pictures, of course, here they are:

The first two pictures are taken of Kawaiaha’o Church, the first Christian church on Hawaii, build between 1836 and 1842. On the third picture you can see the tomb of King Koning William Charles Lunalilo, the first elected monarch in the history of Hawaii.

Next to the church there is also a water source to be found. You would think in these days that they manually put it there but apparently this is an original spring, and like it also said on the sign, this is indeed to be called unique with such a warm and dry climate as the Hawaiian one. The spring can be found on the next photo:

Also, the church took its name from this source, “Ka Wai a Ha’o” means “the water of Ha’o”.

At the side of the church, at the other side of the road, are the mission houses:

I tried to make a panorama photo from the mission houses, I think it worked out pretty well:

You will have to click the picture to see the result a bit better, of course, haha

After that we crossed another road, one which could you make think about the previous pictures, like “is that the actual surrounding of those old buildings?”

Yep, the old buildings are in the middle of Honolulu, a world city haha.

On the right side of the photo, just outside the picture, you will find “Honolulu Hale” (translated: House of Honolulu) where the mayor has his office, city hall.

I just realized that I didn’t really took the best side of the building to make a picture of but oh well, you can at least get a bit an idea of how the building looks like. It is a bit in the Californian-Spanish style, something which fits pretty well in this place.

The second photo is from a fountain and such. In a few weeks we will make some more pictures there because they place a big statue of Santa and his wife on that spot, both in Aloha style with short sleeves and such. I think it will fit indeed hehe.

The third picture is a photo of the monument for the victims of 9/11, the day America was attacked by terrorists. The sign reads that it is an “eternal flame” but Michelle told me just now that she has seen that there was no flame at all… what the reason was is unkown to us, it could be that the rain or wind made it go out but it could also be that they forgot to pay their gasbill or that the coals were all gone

After that we crossed another road and we came to the Hawaiian State Library::

And next to the library you will find the gardens (and a big one) of ‘Iolani Palace, the Hawaiian royal palace:

In my previous post you could find the Judiciary Historic Center (Ali’iolani Hale) and the statue of King Kamehameha the first, which can be found right across the street::

But ok, ‘Iolani Palace looks a lot better at the moment, if only it was because of all the decorations, so let’s go back to the palace

There are a few more buildings next to the palace as you can see on the following three pictures. On the first you will find the Coronation Pavilion and on the other two photo’s you can find the barracks of the palace.

And when you walk to the back of the palace you will find some strange trees. Maybe not strange for everyone but I thought they were quite different from what I know. Michelle told me these are Banyan trees… doesn’t ring a bell to me, but oh well, see for yourself::

Behind the palace and the gardens, you will find a statue of queen Lili’uokalani, the queen after who the botanical garden has been called where Michelle and I got married. And across that statue you will find the State Capitol of Hawaii.

The first picture is, indeed, from queen Lili’uokalani, the second photo is a picture which shows the seal of the State of Hawaii, only just a very big size hehe. The text on the bottom says “Ua mau ke ea o ka aina i ka pono”, or in English: “The life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness”. And the third picture contains the State Capitol itself.. Michelle explained to me that the pillars depict palmtrees and that there is also a vulcano shown in the building (I think the oval part up front) and some more things from the Hawaiian landscape.

Right, tomorrow we will go back to the palace again, I am unsure how much pictures we can make as I read earlier today that it is not allowed to take photos inside the palace of the interior and such. So we’ll see how much photo’s we can make.. you’ll notice

Also, we made some more photo’s that same day on our way back of the surroundings, I will place them below as the end of our walk through historic Honolulu (even though the next photo’s are not all really historic but oh well)):