Cannonballs & Temples

Not far from Chinatown, across a busy main road, (thank goodness for pedestrian crossings!) there is a beautiful Buddhist Temple

 

Inside the temple

 

And just past that is the entrance to Foster Botanical Gardens. The 14 acre gardens are home to some giant trees planted in the 1850’s on land leased from Queen Emma. The gardens are also home to some exotic and endangered species from around the world.

Royal Palms

There is a lovely little gazebo near the Royal Palms

 

I think this is a Queen Emma lily.

 

These red powder puff flowers are really cute.

 

This is the intriguingly named Sausage Tree, although I’m not at all sure I’d want to eat it.

And this is a cannon ball from the cannon ball tree, they weigh a ton, well maybe not literally, but you definitely wouldn’t want to be underneath when one fell from the tree.  The flowers are very pretty though.

Cannon balls cover the trunk of the tree and broken ones litter the ground underneath, needless to say there are lots of warning signs around here.

The fruit on the Buddha’s-Hand Citron tree is a really unusual shape although it’s a citron I’m not sure if you can actually eat it.

It was a lovely day the day we visited and we almost went to the beach rather than heading into Honolulu, but we’re glad we did as it’s a lovely place and we really enjoyed our visit.

 

Have fun, we are!