Castle building, now part of the Bishop Museum complex. Condemned due to termite damage, so closed. Perhaps work has begun to renovate it?

I picked one artifact from this huge museum, of Hawaii, of the Pacific, of life in Polynesia: a wooden Duke Paoa Kahinu Mokoe Hulikohola Kahanamoku surf board. Duke lived from 1890 to 1968 and was a fast swimmer as well as surfer. May his waves ever curl perfectly. Duke was named after his dad, who was named in honor of the Duke of Edinburgh. Duke seems like a perfect surfer name.

Fascinating garden on the grounds, with coast plants in one area, another zone of highland plants, and a third of canoe plants, that is, the ones the Polynesians brought to feed themselves. They brought food plants, and plants that they grew with the food plants to make mini-ecosystems that worked. These are breadfruit. Polynesians needed nutrients and carbohydrates from plant sources—they got a lot of protein from fish; this dietary situation is similar to what other traditional peoples living by rich coastal waters have had to contend with.

Chinatown. Way cool; and hot/sticky where it wasn’t air-conditioned. Like this market. A few others had AC. I’d try to shop here for fruits/veg at least sometimes if I lived here.

Loved this sign in the restaurant where we ate: Only Good Vibes, and the two gals playing pattycake while waiting for their food.

We did not have dessert, so I never found out what magic crack is.

Wending our way back to the rental, we went by the Aloha Tower. Majestic. It opened in 1926 and is a lighthouse. After the bombing at Pearl Harbor it was painted to disappear in night-darkness.

This restaurant is gone, but its historic sign has carefully been kept. The restaurant was open over seven decades, if I have it right. The building had degraded and “had to” be demolished.

I’d say building preservationists so far have been more successful with the Castle than the restaurant.

This entry was posted in anthropology, architecture, floral, food on Sunday, 4 August 2019 at 12:43 am.
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