Week in Waikiki: Day 2

Saturday 3/26: Architectural Tour, State Art Museum, Biki, HOMA

No more mask mandate! Yay!

We started the morning with a 9am architectural walking tour of downtown Honolulu, hosted by the AIA  Honolulu. We really enjoyed learning more about the history, evolution, and of course architectural development of numerous historical downtown buildings. My favorite was the post office (last set of images below).

I was also rather fond of the fountain in front of the Episcopal Church, the water feature by City Hall, and a couple of impressive trees.

Our fellow tour members were a very varied group of folks from all over, including two current Honolulu residents, a couple from New York by way of Germany, and a couple from Melbourne by way of Montreal. 

Once the tour was over, we paid a quick visit to the floral gift shop where we had found Lunar New Year decorations several years ago and were successful in our quest to find appropriate decorations for the current Year of the Tiger as well as the future Year of the Rabbit. We weren't as successful in our quest to procure an HDMI cable, but Mr. E did find some tasty Hawai'ian coffee and banana bread for a snack. I was a bit hungrier and had a wrap sandwich from Subway to tide me over before we paid a visit to the Hawaii State Art Museum.

We had discovered this [free admission] museum a few years ago during our sabbatical adventure and were looking forward to a repeat visit. This time around, the museum was dedicated to exhibitions as part of the Hawai'i Triennial 2022 (HT2022), so the pieces on display were completely different from what we'd seen before. The only parts that remained the same were the internal courtyard with charming sculptures around the central pool.

By the time we were finished at the museum, it was already mid-afternoon, so we found a nearby Biki station with two available bicycles to make the trip back to Foodland Farms a bit more efficient. Our grocery purchases this time were more focused on what we would need for the week, such as breakfast and lunch items during our work days, along with two lightweight sturdy plastic stemless wineglasses that we plan to use for future travel (until we learned the hard way once we got home that they weren't "dishwasher safe" -- oops!). Now that we knew the suite included a mini fridge and microwave, we had far more food options available for consideration. We also finally found an HDMI cable at Long's Drugs and a new double-USB wall charger (purple!) to replace the old one.

Back at the hotel, we created a DIY bar area and coffee station, including two new mugs from ABC, one of which we plan to fit somehow in our bags to bring home. We already have the turtle one in our stock from a previous visit!

Then yoga for me and a short workout for Mr. E before another Charley Taxi ride, this time to the Honolulu Museum of Art (HOMA), where we had tickets for their evening hours that are special for Friday and Saturday nights. This venue was another site for part of the HT2022, so we primarily focused on visiting those galleries. Then we had drinks and dinner at the lovely outdoor café. 

I had a glass of rose with my yummy Greek panzanella and lentil salad along with a cheese and fruit platter. Mr. E's stomach still wasn't quite right, so he focused on his Perrier, and his kale salad came back to the hotel with us for a future meal. Another taxi back to the hotel to wrap up the evening with adult beverages and more classic TV.