The King Kamehameha Parade

Friday was a state holiday here in Hawaii - King Kamehameha Day. You can read all about King Kamehameha here on Wikipedia, but the long and short of why he is celebrated is this: Kamehameha was responsible for the unification of the Hawaiian Islands under one ruler. As a result, he is celebrated here with a state holiday on June 11th. For many employers here, it's a day off of work.

On the Saturday (the 12th), the City and County of Honolulu had a parade with which to help celebrate the day as well. 


This was the start of the parade. I'd like to tell you that I know what that means off the top of my head, but I don't. If I were to guess it had something to do with the celebration and the parade.









This was the float carrying the "representation of the Royal family". They build them big here, no doubt on that one. My wife posted this one on Facebook as well, and needless to say it got quite a few comments on it.

This is the Royal Hawaiian Marching Band. They actually sounded pretty good, and I was surprised honestly that there was a Royal Hawaiian Marching Band.

As a part of the parade each year, each island has a "princess", who is usually a notable citizen of some type or other. In many cases, it was a respected member of the local community, although they may not necessarily have been from the island that they represented. Each of them is on horseback, along with a standard-bearer with the information on it.

The parade ends over at the statue of King Kamehameha that is across the street from the Iolani Palace. Every year, there is a ceremony on King Kamehameha day to drape these flower leis on the statue. Apparently since they are 13+ feet long in some cases, it requires a small crane of some sort. There is also a lot of paperwork entailed with being allowed to put a lei on the statue, and during the ceremonies and parade there are members of the Royal Guard patrolling to make sure that no one is allowed to put anything on the statue that isn't authorized.






Overall, it was very interesting to see this parade, because while it was only about an hour long, there were quite a few of the main groups in Hawaii who were represented, including all branches of the military stationed here on Oahu. Not surprisingly, since the parade route went partially on Kalakaua Avenue, which is one of the main entrances to the Waikiki area, traffic for the day was a complete disaster area. All in all, a fun time though still.