The Hawaii Tourist Hits Bishop's Museum

On Monday Tim had a doctor's appointment in Honolulu. Then he decided we would stay in town until supper and go to my favorite Red Lobster. With a few hours to kill he decided that he had not yet seen Bishop's Museum. This was my third time but it is always fun to go again.

We spent some time in the science museum where a gigantic globe acts as a screen with a show af various planets. The globe can look like Jupiter, Mars, or any of them and you can see the 360 degree appearance. Then the globe can show you earth and change the time so that you can see the splitting of the continents from one land mass. Also it can show the clouds and weather patterns currently existing on the whole planet. It is updated every 15 minutes and so it is really quite interesting. Of course they also show what is happening on earth with the global warming and what is expected to happen in the future. All very fascinating.

Next we went to the temporary exhibit of Animation. Here you can make cartoons yourself, put sound effects into ones already created, and every other conceivable variation that falls under this heading. Children would love all the buttons to push and nobs to turn here and the ability to see their own creations on T.V.

Back to the science building, next we went to the Planetarium for a presentation based on the Hawaiian skies as seen from Mauna Kea on the Big Island. Mauna Kea is actually the highest mountain on earth if measured from it's base under the ocean. It rises into a starry sky where not man-made lights disturb the viewing. We stuldied the starryo night in a land where you can see the Southern Cross.

With only a limited amount of time left we toured the volcano exhibit. Here a gigantic volcano erupts every twenty minutes and you can see it from three levels. At the top lava bubbles and steam blows, in the middle you can touch various kinds of volcanic rocks and learn what happens to make them different, and on the bottom you travel through a cave with florescent drawing by early Hawaiians on the walls to see under the vast volcano.

We were unable to spend time in the historic and s;endid Hawaiian traditions and artifacts hall and many of the other things but the Bishop's Museum is a wonderful way to spend an afternoon.