Brian hadn’t been here before and it’s cheap enough to enter so I thought I’d take him. Disappointingly cloudy, but overall an adventure for him to knock off the list.
That night I was invited to go to an officer spouse social with just the incoming and outgoing governing board (I’ll be communications next year) to check out the Queen Kapiolani Hotel. The military liaison is trying to build relationships with the military network, so we were wined and dined. They have a beautiful view of Diamonhead you can kinda see in the back. It was a great time; they fed us a lot of appetizers (my favorite were chicken wings!) Behind us is a pool. We got a tour of the hotel- the theme is retro Hawaiian which is fun. The rooms were small for families but it’s locationally a great area. We had champagne and valeted our cars. They were very nice to us!
There were gifts for our outgoing president-will miss her!
Megan has been a great companion to have for the last couple weeks. She’s as adventurous as I am and willing to do just about anything. We had free time one afternoon so we adventured to Byodo-In Temple.
The Byodo-In Temple is located at the foot of the Ko’olau Mountains in Valley of the Temples Memorial Park. It was established on June 7, 1968, to commemorate the 100 year anniversary of the first Japanese immigrants to Hawaii. The Byodo-In Temple in O’ahu is a smaller-scale replica of the over 950-year-old Byodo-in Temple, a United Nations World Heritage Site in Uji, Japan.
It’s really really beautiful. It also acts as burial grounds and accepts all walks of faith; there was a specific area for Catholics. It was really crowded for a Friday afternoon at 2pm. It was $5 to get in. The first thing you do is walk the bridge over the coy pond, which had HUGE coy. Like, could feed a man for a week huge. Didn’t get a picture I guess.
Then you get to a gong. Ringing it is supposed to bring you inner peace and clear your mind before you go into the temple. About 25 ft away was a meditation gazebo. I can tell you not much meditating was happening there.
You then get to walk inside, but have to remove your shoes and carry them through. Amida Budda is inside, and you can light a small stick of incense to place inside an offering pot I guess? This made me uncomfortable in the “thou shalt not have other Gods before me” way so I passed.
On the back side the coy pond continues and there’s more to the temple. There’s a small garden and places to sit. I was trying to get a good picture of a black swan and this budda, but it was in a high traffic area so I couldn’t get the framing right.
Then you wrap around the front and get a gorgeous view of the whole thing.
We spent maybe a half hour there? And went to visit this very pretty garden with ocean view they were advertising, but it was basically just more cemetery plot space.
For $5 it was ok to experience one time. I’ll probably go back with Brian because he has been to Japan and might find it interesting. I generally thought it was over crowded. Very beautiful.
