We just returned from the winebar Vino, run by Rob’s old chum Chuck Furuya. May I say, that if you are in Honolulu and want to have a nice range of wines and a pleasant evening, go to Vino. We’re hoping to take Rob’s folks back to the main restaurant, Hiroshi’s on Saturday.
We also went to the Honolulu Academy of the Arts today, which is always gratifying. They had an exhibit on Wearing Propaganda which dealt with the textiles surrounding WWII in Japan, Britain and the US. Very interesting stuff which will doubtless turn up in a story at some point. I mean, I don’t think I’d ever thought about how the textile designs of a region would be affected in a time of war.
It was particularly intersting because we had gone to see the USS Arizona Memorial yesterday. We can see the memorial from Rob’s folks’ window, but I knew embarrasingly little about it. I knew it was a memorial to a battleship that went down during the attack on Pearl Harbor, but I didn’t realize that it was the final resting place for over 1000 people. Learning this during a film right before going out to the ship was, um, a little unsettling. My expectations had been based on my previous experience with touring a battleship in Wilmington. To say the least that visiting a battleship which has been decommisioned is nothing like visiting one that sank under fire with her crew. I was not prepared. Nor was I prepared for the film with footage of the ship exploding. Definitely go when you visit Oahu, but just know that you are visiting a graveyard.
I think that catches you up on the past two days.
Tags: art, design, fire, Hawaii, Journal, Rob, wine
There’s a little display of the U.S.S. Arizona in the Arizona State Capitol, including some parts of the ship (the bell, if I recall), a scale model, and a lot of photos. I’m still waiting to see the real thing.