Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Sights of Honiara




The Solomon Islands are a protectorate of the British Empire.  The people here love the queen and last week they celebrated her birthday in the national soccer stadium.  There were a lot of distinguished guests in attendance.  The governor general gave a grand speech.

 Several groups marched in review.
The governor general inspected everyone while they stood at attention in the hot sun.

The police band played and had some really cool moves.   We cheered and whistled but everyone else just clapped their hands and laughed. 

This is the City Market where we buy fresh vegetables. There isn't much variety, not like what we would get at home. The woman in the picture is looking at bottles of coconut oil, produced here on the island. They have sweet potatoes, huge cucumbers, pineapple, watermelon, onions, itty bitty green peppers and green stuff (we don't know what it is).

Beautiful fat fresh fish

These are little piles of peanuts for sale
This is not an exotic bug.  It's one of the very beautiful flowers that  grow here.


The United States War Memorial is on a hill high above the city.  This is Elder and Sister Mitchell, the couple we are staying with.
We met Sir Thomas Chan, the owner of the Hotel Honiara and spent about an hour chatting with him.  Yes, he is a real knight.  We saw the picture of him with the Queen.  She had a sword on his shoulder.

 

The whole city of Honiara is preparing for the upcoming Pacific Arts Festival in July.  This is the entrance (under construction) to the grounds where the festival will be held.  It's really a big deal here.  The whole town is getting spruced up for all the visitors who will be coming in.  Workers are everywhere--laying sidewalks, painting, pruning and cleaning up.  It really looks good.










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