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Friday 23 October 2015

Hawaii: Iolani Palace

Iolani Palace at downtown Honolulu is the only royal heritage building in the United States of America. It was built in 1882 and had electricity and telephones even before the White House. King David Kalakaua obtained the inspiration of building this palace after his tour of Europe and it served as his royal palace with Queen Kapiolani, whom the name of the palace was derived.

After the fall of the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1895, the palace building was used to imprison Queen Liliuokalani, the last reigning monarch of the Kingdom of Hawaii whom the government was overthrown. The palace was then used as the capitol building for the territory when Hawaii was State of Hawaii to the United States of America in 1959.

The palace was restored in 1969 to become the museum of the Kingdom of Hawaii era. Guided tours and self-guided tours are conducted daily but I missed the time of the tour during my visit. Therefore, I took home only the pictures of the palace building.

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Wednesday 21 October 2015

Honolulu Chinatown: Temples

In Chinatown, there are always places to worship gods as the majority of Chinese are Buddhist and Taoist. The Buddhist temple at Honolulu Chinatown is the Kuan Yin Temple dedicated to the Kuan Yin the god of mercy. This ornate temple is the oldest Buddhist temple in Honolulu. The smell of burning incense filled the main hall full or carvings. I was only allowed to take one photo of the interior, so this is my only photo of the main hall with the statue of Kuan Yin at the centre altar.

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The Taoist temple at Honolulu Chinatown is the Tin Hau Temple set up by the Lum Sai Ho Tong Society which was founded in 1899. The temple is dedicated to the goddess Tin Hau or Ma Chu who is the guardian of the seafarers. She is deified figure of a legendary child who saved her father from drowning.

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Across the river of the Tin Hau Temple is a Shinto shrine, Izumo Taisha. This shrine was built by the Japanese immigrants in 1906. It was not returned to the Japanese community until the 1960s after being confiscated by the city during the 2nd World War.

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