I adventured out on the bus to see the Iolani palace and the legislature building and maybe to do a little geocaching, I had a late breakfast, showered and was on my way by late morning. I was able to get there by bus with very little problem. (I did get turned around and went the wrong way to find my bus stop and ended up catching a bus from a different stop)
After walking the grounds a little and spending some time at the burial mound and stone alter, I went and got my ticket to do an audio tour of Iolani Palace. I had just enough time to go take photos of the legislature building before showing up for my tour time.
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| Iolani Palace |
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| Stone Alter |
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| Burial Mound |
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| Beside Iolani Palace |
Hawaii State legislature building
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| Unique architecture of the legislature, an open roof over a central courtyard |
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| Staircase in the Iolani palace |
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| Throne room, also used for formal balls and funerals |
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| Music room in Iolani Palace |
I took tons of photos inside, and found my new Samsung camera to be excellent for indoor shots in low lighting. I'm very, very impressed. It is performing almost as well as my NEX and way, way better than the expensive Panasonic camera it is replacing. Only the canon SLR could have bested it in those conditions, and that not by much.
After the tour I selected a complicated geocache that had me walking all over the grounds trying to find the offset spot without the magnetic compass recommended in the description. I think I finally figured it out, but not precisely, and though I looked in many of the spots that matched the clue (places along the fence) I wasn't able to find it. I finally headed to a bus stop and made my way home.
I got back around 5:00 and thought I'd have time before Harry got back to go down and take photos of the sunset. I hadn't remembered it, but Tuesday is also the evening they have free music and sometimes Hula at the beach nearest our hotel. They had the sound system up and were playing Hawaiian music. It was idyllic sitting there on a rock near the small breaking waves that were washing up against the rocks and sandy shore, with the sun going down, the surfers out riding the water and the waves, and a few boats sailing against the setting sun. I tried to soak it all in and appreciate it. All too soon this scene would be out of my reach, almost certainly forever.
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| Warming up and tuning instruments |
I found a spot to one side of the walkway and stood there waiting for the program to start, thinking at least if I couldn't sit down I was in a spot where no one would obstruct my view. Then a woman with a child came and stood in the sidewalk right in front of me and started moving back and forth taking photos with her cell phone so that my photos were difficult to frame. The torch lighter in his festive Hawaiian costume came and lit the torches behind me. When the music started I took a little video of the first song and then headed back, taking a few Photos of the torches against the fading sunset sky.
When I got back to the hotel Harry was just getting ready to go up the elevator. He brought Garlic shrimp from the BBQ guy on post for dinner. It was very good, but I wanted to see how it compared to the famous Macky's shrimp truck in Haliewa on the North Shore, so I made a plan for that the next night.
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