American Travel Story: Part 1

This story begins on the second of January this year (technically it begins about halfway through last year, but I doubt you all want to read about filling in paperwork and attending weekend lectures for several months).  The second of January was the day I got onto an aeroplane for the first time since I was two years old.

This plane trip was new and exciting despite about 90 percent of my internal organs attempting to exit my body through the soles of my feet on takeoff.  I had emergency exit seat and was informed "people will kill for these" which struck me as somewhat ironic as people in those seats agree to help save others.

The flight took me to Brisbane airport, which was less exciting, although it did have some reasonably interesting sand sculptures so that was cool.

It's like I was already in Hawai'i

After going through customs for the first time ever and being told that at my age I should have a good understanding of how customs works I was on another plane.  This plane took me away from Australia and toward the international date line and time travel.  I let out my inner nerd and played the Doctor Who theme as I went back roughly 25 hours.  I also had some fairly good luck on this plane trip as I had an empty seat next to me, which the passenger behind me felt compelled to explain was clearly beginners luck and it was all downhill from there, thanks for the Mr Ray-of-Sunshine.

My first view of another country

I arrived in Hawai'i and cleared customs and everything with no fuss whatsoever.  Turns out telling staff that you're a first time flier as you hand over your passport means they are immediately apologetic for previous rudeness (that I hadn't noticed anyway, but I appreciate it all the same) and just want to be as helpful as possible.

I took this picture then saw the sign prohibiting pictures until after customs

One of the things I enjoy doing when travelling within Australia is walking around towns and cities and just enjoying the feeling of the place.  I thought I'd give it a go in Honolulu and I spent an hour just wandering around the Capitol District and the surrounding area.  During this I discovered that Honolulu Hale (which translates as Honolulu House and is the mayoral and local council chambers for Honolulu) which had a rather impressive Christmas display both inside the building and in the surrounding gardens.

Translation: Merry Christmas

After that I headed down to 'Iolani Palace which is famous for being the only state royal residence on American soil.  I took the audio tour which had lots of really interesting information, most of which I forgot by the end of the day, but also included gems such as an audio reenactment of the crowd cheering as the king and queen entered the throne room and physical descriptions of the first two telephones Hawai'i located in the king's study on the top floor and in the basement, which were there to be looked at.

Royal coat of arms on the front gates 

              

                           The throne room                                        The main staircase and my fashionable footwear

Across the street from the palace is Ali'iolani Hale and the statue of Kamehameha I who united
the Hawai'ian islands under his rule and then wrote a national anthem for his new kingdom.  Personally I reckon that's a fairly epic legacy to leave behind.

Next I headed over to the Hawai'i State Art Museum where I looked at lots of art relating to Hawai'i and learned about the Percent for Art law which legislates that 1% of the cost of all state buildings must be put aside for the acquisition and commission of artworks to “beautify and humanise the built environment” which, if you can get past the rather dull language, is rather a nice sentiment.  I was going to include a couple of images of the art that really impressed me, but as I'm not sure about copyright and the like I'm going to play it safe.

At some point during the day I had lunch at the Foot Street Market which, except that it had been recommended to me and there were locals eating there, I almost expected to give me food poisoning.  But no, the food was not only edible but quite tasty.  Then I walked around the city some more, all the way to the Ala Moana Center.

     

A four story open-air shopping mall with no decent cafes, how do you survive the Christmas crowds?

This is the largest open air shopping mall in the world, for those Melbournians among you, it has almost thirty thousand more square metres of retail space but almost 200 fewer shops than Chadstone.  I bought an aloha shirt because what else does one do when one finds themselves in a landmark shopping mall in Hawai'i?

I'm not entirely sure it is tacky enough to properly identify me as a tourist

By this point it was getting late and I hadn't slept at all well on the plane so I headed back to my room and tried in vain to get the internet to work before heading to bed.

Culture shock for the day:  Street signs here say yield instead of give way which makes me think of broadswords.

What they mean.  Source

What I imagine.  Source

Next time: I learn about coral, I climb a volcano and my photography doesn't improve.