Honolulu Hale for the City Lights

So last week, my brother came from North Carolina and my mom came from Saipan for Winter break while my aunt came from Saipan because she planned to work here.  We haven't had much time for me to really take them around, so I squeezed in visiting Honolulu Hale on Christmas Even before they shut it down (even though I don't celebrate Christmas).  We walked to Honolulu Hale from Kinau, which was surprisingly not too bad of a walk since my sister was still at church and Beb took the car to church as well...

They had several large outdoor Christmas decorations like Rodolph, Santa's sleigh, and the elves (which you can't really see in this pic; my digital camera totally sucked for night pics! grrr....!).  I was glad it wasn't raining because it has been raining a lot lately (with several flash flood warnings) so it would have sucked if we went there and got drenched...

This was a cute one...  It made me wish I went to the Big Island (Hawaii) to snowboard or just to see how weird it it to see snow on an island... (Didn't know it had snow?! I know!  Hopefully, by next year I can post some pics of this... I heard it's melting already...)

It never fails to amaze me how cool this part is.  I pass by this after picking up Beb from work and I just love how huge this is and how cute they are....  I also love how the turtle is carrying a plate of Hawaiian food and some of the penguins have drinks... It's soooo cute!

This is not that clear but they had huge horses with a lighted carriage like Cinderella's pumpkin (not pictured here) and several of these regular carriages walking around the block.  I hate them because they cause traffic, but I want to try riding this at least once in my life.  Though I'm still iffy about it because I would hate to be downhill to the smell of the poop pouch right under its butt... Gross...

Besides the huge Christmas tree right outside next to the huge Santa couple (I took several pics of it, but, again, my camera sucked... I had a real problem trying to get flash and when I did get it, the pics were usually blurry... so junk!), there were several Christmas trees inside because they have some kind of Christmas tree contest. I LOVED the Hello Kitty Christmas tree that one year I saw it, but I didn't see it again... how sad.... But this was pretty interesting with its life-size Chinese person and dragon for a Chinese themed Christmas tree... Not sure how it worked, but it was pretty cool to look at!

Honolulu Hale was almost like a big toy house with huge toys: soldiers, houses, a huge but cute teddy bear, and this blue and white thing (is it big foot?  It's too cute to be big foot! lol!).. I wish I could've hugged it and taken a pic with it but a lot of the stuff had gates around it...  They did, however, had a picture-taking corner with Santa (you have to use your own camera) and some corner where kids get Christmas tattoos (fake, of course, but still weird!).

This was the smallest but most interesting Christmas tree that I saw this year... They really took it out of the box...  I wonder how much of our taxdollars are going into their electric bill this year for this... lol...

I got this at first glance... Did you?  I thought it was great that many of the wreaths that that have in the wreath contest this year were made out of a lot of recyclable products.  There were also a LOT of non-traditional wreaths... In fact, there were few traditional wreaths this year.  The wreath display is located in the back near the restrooms.

This was a really interesting wreath... It reminded me a lot of something... maybe the movie Monster's, Inc.? lol... It's missing some eye colors like black, green, and gold... tsk tsk... discriminating... lol...

Honolulu Hale is a great place to bring visitors. They can take pictures of all the Christmas lights, see all of the themed Christmas trees, and view the winning Christmas Wreaths. Although I don't celebrate Christmas, I know my family does, so this is about the only Christmasy thing I can give them.

LOCATION: Downtown Honolulu; the corner of S. King St. and Punchbowl St.

COST: Free

DURATION: 30 mins-1.5 hours depending on picture-taking and "oooh"ing and "aww"ings...

FOOD: Didn't see any food vendors but they might've had some...

BATHROOMS: available in the building; just ask someone who works there

PARKING: street/metered parking can be found across the street in front of Iolani Palace or the Post Office or in the underground parking structure by the police station

RATINGS: 5 cherries for its price value because parking and admission is free and 4 for its entertainment value because they had a lot of non-traditional and traditional (I didn't take pics of the Nativity scenes because we were hungry for dinner) Christmas stuff, there's a lot to see and do, and it's a great place to bring your family.  However, I did give it a 4 because the state didn't think about those who don't celebrate Christmas religiously or personally... Where's the seperation of church and state??

NOTE: Only occurs during December; bring cash for kiddy rides and for some glow in the dark stuff for the kids; bring camera for pictures!