It’s been rainy these past few days, like all day instead of passing showers. I told myself that I’d go to museums once this weather hit, so Jess and I chose the Bishop Museum. The Bishop museum is a museum dedicated to Hawaiian culture and history. It was really impressive, I thought it would be a lot smaller.
There are multiple buildings and a big field. The first building we explored was the natural history part. I didn’t take many pictures inside, but the exhibits were centered around this big volcano model and all about the ecology of Hawaii. I didn’t realize that the chain of islands was formed because the tectonic plates would move between volcanic eruptions. I also found out that there will be a new island likely in 100-300k years from now. Buy the real estate now, people!
Then we ventured into the actual Bishop building. It started as a place to train the Hawaiian army and then turned into a boy’s school.
We saw a neat exhibit on Polynesian tattoos and one on the Hawaiian royalty succession. Then we made it to the great hall, which has three floors dedicated to Hawaiian living (the Gods, the farming/fishing, etc)
We also encountered Parley, an organization trying to reuse microplastics. We had a really great conversation with them. They’re trying to melt and give a second life to the plastics washing up in our oceans. We were able to take home a carabiner (he’s injecting the plastic into the mold for these in this next picture) and we want to go back and ask for a plastic slab they made to use for a project (I’ll post about this at a different time if it works out).
They can also make bricks, but right now their quality isn’t great. They’re supposed to snap together, but my guess is the tolerance of the molds and material fluctuation is too high and often they don’t fit together. We think they should use them as planters.
After, we ventured to Kaka’ako for some food at SALT. SALT is similar to Quincy Market or Bow Market in Somerville, it’s like a big restaurant food court. We landed at Moku, and I had delicious ahi tacos. I wasn’t a fan that it’s counter service (you order, take a number, and they bring it to you). The nice thing about SALT is there are a couple garages that do parking validation. Sundays street parking is free and we were able to find a couple spots as well.
Great way to spend a rainy Hawaiian afternoon!
