The Way I See It

Kayla in the Governor's Chair

Kayla Shumate, age 10, traveling with grandmother, posting from Honolulu, Hawaii –G mom and I went to the capitol building. It was raining mist. We rode the trolley all the way there. We ran in to stay dry. When we walked in I saw rain falling from a hole in the center. G mom and I both took pictures of the opening from floor 1.It is open so people can see the sky. We went to the nearest elevator and G mom wanted to go to the highest point which was floor 5. We stopped along the way for other people to get on. The people asked where we visited from and we said Seattle. And they always said you brought the rain with you! We finally reached floor 5. I took more pictures of the opening at that floor. G mom and I saw the lieutenant governor’s office. We went in there first. There were some pictures in the lobby. We went to the other side which was the governor’s office. There were artifacts there. But best of all I got to sit in a very special seat.

I got to sit in the Governor’s chair! It was amazing! I felt powerful and wise. Then we went down one floor and went to room 415. There was a lady and four other people. The four other people had already finished the 50 capitols. They left with a smile on their face. We got a stamp from the lady at the front desk. Her name was Monica. She gave me a postcard, a bumper sticker, a pin, a poster, a handbook about the flag and the seal, a coloring sheet, and finally sticky notes. She was very nice. I liked her. She told us about the Hawaiian flag. It has the British flag inside the Hawaiian flag and has 8 red, white and blue stripes on it. The 8 stripes represent the 8 main islands. The lady also explained the state seal. It has King Kamehameha on the left and Goddess of Liberty holding the Hawaiian flag on the right. A phoenix is shown below, surrounded by taro leaves, banana foliage and maidenhair ferns. “1959” was the year Hawaii became the 50^th state.

After that we headed down floor by floor and reached floor 1.There was a big blue tiled circle in the middle. It had many different types of blues. Light blue, dark blue, and 600,000 pieces of tile. It reminded me of the ocean that I can see from the window of my hotel. They built it in 1988, but the weather damaged it so they redid it in 2009. After looking at that, we circled around the building but right in the middle of that G mom’s camera ran out of memory. So we went through the building and went to the front for our trolley. It took a long time for the trolley to come but it finally came to pick us up and take us home. I had so much enjoyment at the capitol building.