#1 of 30 Things To Do in Honolulu
University of Hawaii at Manoa
Honolulu HI
~0.37 miles from Honolulu city center
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#2 of 30 Things To Do in Honolulu
Abhasa Waikiki Spa
2259 Kalakaua Ave # 1A Honolulu HI - 808-922-8200
~0.92 miles from Honolulu city center
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Abhasa is noted for being the only spa on Oahu that offers luxurious spa treatments in a serene tropical garden setting, while being located in the heart of Waikiki; inside the world famous Royal Hawaiian Hotel.
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#3 of 30 Things To Do in Honolulu
Waikiki Beach
Honolulu HI
~1.01 miles from Honolulu city center
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#4 of 30 Things To Do in Honolulu
International Market Place
Oahu Island HI
~1.05 miles from Honolulu city center
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#5 of 30 Things To Do in Honolulu
Waikiki
Oahu Island HI
~1.17 miles from Honolulu city center
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#6 of 30 Things To Do in Honolulu
Waikiki Aquarium
2777 Kalakaua Ave Honolulu HI - 808-923-9741
~1.40 miles from Honolulu city center
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http://waquarium.otted.hawaii.edu/
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#7 of 30 Things To Do in Honolulu
Honolulu Zoo
151 Kapahulu Avenue Honolulu HI
~1.40 miles from Honolulu city center
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Founded in 1969 as the Zoo Hui, the Honolulu Zoo Society of today is governed by a volunteer Board of Directors and employs a permanent staff of ten. Membership consists of over 8,000 people representing families and individuals from across the State of Hawaii and the continental U.S.
http://www.honoluluzoo.org/
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#8 of 30 Things To Do in Honolulu
Contemporary Museum
Oahu Island HI
~1.57 miles from Honolulu city center
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Looking for a respite from the sand, sea and palm trees? The Contemporary Museum on Oahu is a Hidden Place where you can happily spend an hour or a day.
Located on Honolulu’s scenic Makiki Heights, The Contemporary Museum combines exhibitions of contemporary art with terraced gardens and spectacular views. The museum’s satellite gallery, The Contemporary Museum at First Hawaiian Center in downtown Honolulu, features rotating exhibitions of the work of Hawaii artists.
The Contemporary Museum (TCM) is the only museum in the state of Hawaii devoted exclusively to contemporary art in a beautifully preserved structure that maintains a subtle blending of Asian and island features. The collections present contemporary art from the 1940s in rotating exhibits. Artists represented include Josef Albers, Jennifer Bartlett, Jasper Johns, Robert Motherwell, Louise Nevelson, Masami Teraoka, and Andy Warhol. There are permanent, temporary and traveling exhibitions, one-man and group shows, gallery talks by artists and curators, performances, and daily docent tours. Exhibitions offer interaction with art and artists in a unique island environment. The Makiki Heights location also includes a a garden café that presents several changing exhibitions each year‚ an eclectic museum shop, and a library.
The gardens at TCM's Makiki Heights are a destination in themselves. Completed between 1928 and 1941 by Reverend K.H. Inagaki, a local minister with a love for landscape architecture, the gardens were designed to provide a place to retreat, meditate and experience the harmony of nature. The gardens include wide expanses of lawn, reflecting pools, a sun-drenched tropical terrace garden, views of Diamond Head, walking paths, and places to sit. The garden is open to the public during museum hours and is a natural setting for viewing art works as well as a quiet place for contemplation and renewal.
The Contemporary Museum also has a site in the corporate headquarters of First Hawaiian Bank in downtown Honolulu. The venue provides a convenient downtown location to view art by resident artists, former residents of Hawaii, or artists who have created a body of work in the Islands. Flanked by a dramatic art-glass wall consisting of 185 prisms, the galleries are located in the main banking hall and on the second floor of First Hawaiian Center.
The Contemporary Museum
2411 Makiki Heights Drive
Honolulu, HI 96822
Museum/Shop Hours:
Tuesday – Saturday
10 am – 4 p.m.
Sunday noon – 4 p.m.
Café Hours:
Tuesday – Saturday
11:30 am – 2:30 p.m.
Sunday noon – 2:30 p.m.
Closed Mondays & major holidays:
New Year’s Day, Easter Sunday, Independence Day, Thanksgiving Day & Christmas Day
Admission: Adults $5; Seniors & Students w/ valid ID $3
Free to children 12 & under
Free to the public on the third Thursday of each month
Free admission to The Contemporary Museum Café & The Museum Shop
Public transportation: take the #15 to Makiki Heights Drive.
Local: (808) 526-1322, Toll free: (866) 991-2835, or fax: (808) 536-5973.
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#9 of 30 Things To Do in Honolulu
Ala Moana Beach Park
Oahu Island HI
~1.62 miles from Honolulu city center
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#10 of 30 Things To Do in Honolulu
Kapiolani Park/Zoo
Honolulu HI
~1.64 miles from Honolulu city center
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#11 of 30 Things To Do in Honolulu
Honolulu Convention Center
Honolulu HI
~1.74 miles from Honolulu city center
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The Honolulu Convention Center is located in downtown Honolulu, Hawaii. The Convention Center offers a variety of banquet halls and meeting rooms perfect for any occasion.
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#12 of 30 Things To Do in Honolulu
Honolulu Academy of Arts
Oahu Island HI
~1.94 miles from Honolulu city center
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#13 of 30 Things To Do in Honolulu
Hawaii Opera Theater
Oahu Island HI
~2.00 miles from Honolulu city center
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#14 of 30 Things To Do in Honolulu
Neal S. Blaisdell Center
Oahu Island HI
~2.01 miles from Honolulu city center
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#15 of 30 Things To Do in Honolulu
National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific
Oahu Island HI
~2.03 miles from Honolulu city center
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#16 of 30 Things To Do in Honolulu
Diamond Head
Honolulu HI
~2.23 miles from Honolulu city center
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#17 of 30 Things To Do in Honolulu
Diamond Head State Monument
Oahu Island HI
~2.27 miles from Honolulu city center
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#18 of 30 Things To Do in Honolulu
Hawaii State Capitol
Oahu Island HI
~2.53 miles from Honolulu city center
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#19 of 30 Things To Do in Honolulu
Iolani Palace
Oahu Island HI
~2.60 miles from Honolulu city center
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#20 of 30 Things To Do in Honolulu
Downtown Honolulu (Neighborhood)
Honolulu HI
~2.65 miles from Honolulu city center
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#21 of 30 Things To Do in Honolulu
Hawaii State Art Museum
Oahu Island HI
~2.66 miles from Honolulu city center
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#22 of 30 Things To Do in Honolulu
Kahala
Oahu Island HI
~2.67 miles from Honolulu city center
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#23 of 30 Things To Do in Honolulu
Hawaii Theater
Oahu Island HI
~2.84 miles from Honolulu city center
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#24 of 30 Things To Do in Honolulu
Foster Botanical Gardens
Oahu Island HI
~2.86 miles from Honolulu city center
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#25 of 30 Things To Do in Honolulu
Chinatown Cultural Plaza Center
100 N Beretania St # 304 Honolulu HI - 808-521-4934
~3.20 miles from Honolulu city center
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The arrival of the Chinese in Honolulu can be traced to two ships, the Felice and Iphigenia, which set sail from southern China in 1788, and arrived in Hawaii December 6, 1788, and departed March 15, 1789. In the three months these ships were in Hawaii, it is assumed that all crewmen came ashore at one time or another. It is this period, 1789, which Hawaii Chinese historians commemorate as the official arrival of the first Chinese in Hawaii.In the 1800s, Chinatown became a community of family stores where the Chinese sold their wares.
First Contract Laborers
It wasn’t until 1852 that the Chinese became the first contract laborers to arrive in the islands. With the growth of the sugar industry, the need for plantation laborers became imperative, and China was selected as the best source of immediate cheap labor due to proximity and the interest of the Chinese in coming to Hawaii to work. Captain John Cass of the British ship Thetis brought 293 Chinese men under contract for five years at $3.00 per month to work in the plantations. Working conditions on the plantations would undoubtedly be considered harsh by today’s standards, but for many were better than what they had known in their home villages in China.
Between 1852 and 1876, 3,908 Chinese were imported as contract laborers, compared with only 148 Japanese and 223 South Sea Islanders. Around 1882, the Chinese in Hawaii formed nearly 49% of the total plantation working force, and for a time outnumbered Caucasians in the islands.
By 1884, the Chinese population in Honolulu reached 5,000, and the number of Chinese doing plantation work declined. The Chinese were very enterprising, and preferred to become self-employed. As a group they became very important in business in Hawaii, and 75% of them were concentrated in the 25 acres of downtown called Chinatown where they built their clubhouses, herb shops, restaurants, temples and retail stores. In 1896, there were 153 Chinese stores in Honolulu, of which 72 were in Chinatown.
Chinatown Fires
In 1886, calamity struck Chinatown when a fire raged out of control and destroyed the homes of 7,000 Chinese and 350 Native Hawaiians and most of Chinatown. The fire lasted three days and destroyed over eight blocks of Chinatown. The Legislative Assembly enacted laws to regulate the re-building of Chinatown in accordance with fire precautions, but many new buildings were put up in violation of government rules. This contributed to the even larger conflagration of 1900 which came about as a result of deliberate fires set by the Board of Health in an effort to wipe out the bubonic plague which was spreading through Chinatown.
The Chinese Store – A Slice of Old Chinatown Life
The Chinese store was an important social institution to the immigrants. The storekeepers loaned money, acted as a bank and post office, and wrote and read letters for the illiterate immigrants. The Chinese store also offered a place to stay and a meal, usually for people who came from the same village back home. The stores operated this way even into the 1930s. In less than 10 years after the arrival of the first large group of Chinese laborers, 60% of the wholesale and retail establishments of the islands were operated by Chinese. By 1880, they held 24% of the wholesale, 62% of the retail and 85% of the restaurant licenses issued.
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#26 of 30 Things To Do in Honolulu
Lyon Arboretum
Oahu Island HI
~3.20 miles from Honolulu city center
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#27 of 30 Things To Do in Honolulu
Bishop Museum
Oahu Island HI
~4.19 miles from Honolulu city center
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The Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, designated the Hawai?i State Museum of Natural and Cultural History, is a museum of history and science in the historic Kalihi district of Honolulu on the Hawaiian island of O'ahu. Founded in 1889, it is the largest museum in Hawai'i and is home to the world's largest collection of Polynesian cultural and scientific artifacts. Besides the comprehensive exhibits of Hawaiiana, the Bishop Museum has an extensive entomological collection of over 13.5 million specimens, the third largest collection in the United States. The museum is accessible on public transit: TheBus Routes A, B, 1, 2, 7, 10.
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#28 of 30 Things To Do in Honolulu
Hoomaluhia Botanical Gardens
Oahu Island HI
~6.47 miles from Honolulu city center
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#29 of 30 Things To Do in Honolulu
Hanauma Bay Nature Preserve
Oahu Island HI
~8.00 miles from Honolulu city center
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#30 of 30 Things To Do in Honolulu
Hanauma Beach
Oahu Island HI
~8.27 miles from Honolulu city center
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