Our first tour of the morning is the Doris Duke Shangri-La. She was the sole heiress to the American Tobacco Company empire. During her lifetime, she loved to collect Islamic art. Over the course of fifty years, she built this house. On her honeymoon, which was a tour of the world, she fell in love with the Islamic style of architecture and art. Her last stop on the tour was Hawaii. She bought five acres around Diamond Head and built a new home. When she was in India, she had a bathroom and bedroom built with the patterns she had seen in the Taj Mahal and other places. The new house was designed around those two rooms. As she collected more items, she would renovate a room and display them.
It was very beautiful inside. We had hoped to tour the bedroom and bath, but they were off limits until restoration was completed. Apparently there is a termite problem and the rooms need to be taken apart. The Turkish room was the best. She had bought the two rooms from a home in Syria and had them reassembled here. The floor and lower wall had to be constructed. It took three years to construct.
When we returned from the visit, we went to the Honolulu Academy of Art. We were tired and had not eaten breakfast, so we toured quickly. We only went through the oriental rooms. It was a nice museum. I wish we had more time.
We were jonesin’ for some Chinese food and we were close to Chinatown. Or so we thought. The people at the museum told us it was about six to eight blocks. They were off by ten or more blocks. We walked about a mile or more. Once in Chinatown, Kim asked someone about a place to get good dumplings. Ever since our trip to China, I love to eat Chinese dumplings. Someone recommend a hole-in-the-wall place that served good food. It was the Happy Garden restaurant. It was a small place with maybe ten tables all packed into room for eight tables. Our waitresses did not speak much English, but I don’t think that was a big deal. We were given some dim sum dishes before we ordered sweet and sour pork. The dim sum comes in small bamboo steam bowls. The first dish had pork, but we were not really sure. We did say we wanted dumplings and some dumplings showed up. All of it was good.
On the way back we stopped and toured the Iolani Palace. It is the only royal palace in the United States. It was beautiful inside. We took the audio tour and they had some descendants of the last queen giving commentary. It was sad to hear about how the monarchy and the kingdom were overthrown to make Hawaii a territory of the US. When the last queen was forced to abdicate, a provincial government was put in place and they took over the palace. The furniture and items from the royal family were put up for auction and spread around the world. There is a group who is still trying to find the auctioned items and bring them back.
After the last queen abdicated, some supporters tried to launch a rebellion. It was quickly put down and the queen was imprisoned in a single room in the palace. For five years, she could not leave the room. It is another sad chapter of US expansionism.
The palace had electricity before the White House or Buckingham Palace. The kings and queens of Hawaii used to meet with heads of state from around the world. The last several kings and queens traveled the world extensively to promote Hawaii.
We decided to walk the entire day, thinking that we would not have that far to go. We must have gone at least eight miles before the day was done. I was in flip-flops and the last few miles were killing my feet.
When we got back to the hotel, we went for a dip in the ocean.
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