Honolulu: Day Two!

Honolulu: Day Two!

 

The second day in Honolulu was the best day of the trip so far. (Although it has been less than two weeks) I was going on an FDP for a class I'm not in, so I thought it would be his entire class and then me, randomly in that group. I was completely wrong. There were no students from his class in our group. There ended up being only 6 students and 2 teachers on the trip. And we had a full size bus. It was pretty cool, but also totally threw off our sustainability theme. So the eight of us could have taken up six seats each and there still would be seats left over. It was really nice travelling in such a small group though. We didn't have to wait for tons of people who don't know how to time out 30 minutes and we didn't have to wait all the time for people who "got lost and couldn't find the bus" (that was an excuse on my trip the other day... yep, it is hard to find the 56 passenger bus that has bright pink flowers completely covering the sides... whatever)

 

The first thing we did was drive to Pearl Harbor. It was only about 15 minutes away from Honolulu Harbor and the drive was really pretty because there were high rises on one side of the road and mountains on the other. When we got there our bus driver went in to pick up our tickets. From friends who went the day before, I thought we were giong to have to wait an hour or more because they only allow 150 people on each shuttle. We ended up getting a time for the next showing which was in less than 20 minutes. (Another perk of having only 8 people in our group!) But the ticket itself was really cool because it had a little fact sheet of one of the pilots on the island that day that is credited with downing 2 Japanese planes.

 

The video that we started the tour with was crazy. Like, in a "I can't believe there are videos of this type of stuff and that this is what it looked like almost 69 years ago." It was a joint video made by both Japan and the US, so there were videos of Japanese pilots taking off of their aircraft carriers before the attack and then videos and pictures of the harbor on the day it happened. Interesting fact: the Arizona's band played a concert on the evening of December 6th. There was a picture from that too and it was sad knowing what happened to a lot of the men playing that day.

 

Once the video was over we walked to a boat that took us over to the viewing area, that rests over the Arizona. The view from the boat was really pretty: there were mountains to the right and then the harbor opening to the left. The boat docks on the side of the viewing platform and then you walk up stairs onto the main area. Before you get off they tell you not to take pictures and to walk staight into the main area so that the people who had already spent the 10ish minutes there could get off. The second some people got off though, they started taking pictures. It was really annoying that people can't even listen to a simple instruction like that. The exact same picture could have been taken from the boat on the way in. I wonder what it's like for the guard (I don't remember if he was in the Navy or Marines) to stand there day after day telling people to stop taking pictures, and then not having them listen. It's like the simplest request ever.

 

When I got in I went straight to the back of the platform where there is a list of names from the men who died on the Arizona. They completely cover the wall and its really creepy and sad knowing that the people listed are entombed in the sunken hull of the ship. In the video they also told us that many of the men on the Arizona who survived asked to also be buried in the water with the rest of their shipmates. I think they said 34 men have done it and they have a diver take the urn and place it near all the other men. Which makes being there even sadder.

 

So I also have another major issue with pictures here. Why do people feel the need to take a picture of themself on the viewing platform all smiley and happy? I know I take a ton of pictures, probably not in all the correct places, but taking pictures there just seems so disrespectful. Esepecially with the high amount of Japanese visitors there who were taking tons of pictures and some of them like funny pictures.I don't know. I can't imagine taking a picture like that there and I especially can't imagine taking a picture like that at Hiroshima when I go next week. Maybe I'm just ultra-sensitive to that? It's kind of like the fact that I don't take pictures of individual graves in a cemetary. Same concept, right? So I took probably fifty some pictures at the Pearl Harbor memorial, but not a single one has a person in the image.

 

After the Arizona I went into the gift shop where they was the author of an illustrated book on the history of Pearl Harbor. He was signing them and then there were three Veterans stationed at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7 who had signed the book yesterday. I bought the book, and then was able to get it signed by another Veteran. It's probably the coolest souvenier I'll get from this entire trip, just because I met the man there. I also bought a ton of postcards and a drawing of the Arizona. (I'm trying to stick with the theme of making sure I buy a peice of artwork from each country {I bought a photograph of the lava [that I didn't get to see] from volcanoes national park} I think I'll be able to find something I like from everywhere)  

 

We also got a chance to go to the USS Missouri. Some quick facts:

~It was the last battleship ever used in combat in the entire world. (Desert Storm)

~Truman travelled on this ship with his wife and daughter for 15 days on the way back from South America and ate most of his meals in the dining hall.

~The Japanese surrendered outside of Tokyo on this ship. The coolest thing about the surrender was that after all the allies signed, approximately 1400 planes took off from carriers also in the harbor preparing to level the city if they didn't sign. Obviously they did, but it must have been quite a site to look up and see all the doors open with the bombs pointed at the city.

 

Walking around the ship was fun (Dad would love it... especially because there are lots of places that are restricted access but people got into to look around for a second without any complications, although they didn't hold any top secret stuff or anything =) There was a guided tour that took about 30 minutes and then we were free to look around it on our own. During the tour we saw the spot where a kamikaze hit the ship during the war and they gave him a funeral with military honors (a six fun salute), the place where the Japanese signed the surrender, and the spot where there will now be a women's restroom. (Very important because if you walk from where the bathroom is now and then through every spot on the ship you are allowed to go by the trip is over 1.5 miles) The first thing I did was go to the highest deck we were able to. It was interesting because we were able to look straight down the length of the guns and they were pointed straight at the Arizona Memorial. It was an interesting picture to take. I also went down to see the rooms where everyone stayed. I should honestly never complain about my room being small again, since they didn't even have seperate rooms and were on the ship for many more months then I will be. I took a picture in there in one of the bunk beds and my head is literally four inches away from the top of the next bed. And there was the dining hall, which was funny because some of the pop machines were really old school and then there was one that looked brand new. I guess it was used less than 20 years ago but it was still odd. (Britt: all the rooms reminded me of the cabinet war rooms... and this time I didn't have the swine while walking around them! YAY!)

 

And there was still a lot of construction going on. It has been opened for visitors for almost a decade (I think) but they recently acquired more funds and are able to now fix places they didn't have the money for before.

 

After we were done we went to eat and then saw Punchbowl Cemetary and the Iolani Palace and them came back to the ship.

 

Overview of Hawaii: Really pretty, but probably not the prettiest place I have ever seen (Monaco or maybe Cinque Terre wins there), but also with so many more things to do there. I would go back right away to see the Oklahoma Memorial, walk through Diamond Head, snorkel, go whale-watching, see lava, and see Mauna Loa. Definitely a cool place to go but while walking through the city it was exactly like any other city (or suburb in the case of Hilo). And the weather was hard to handle after not being in any warm climate (SD doesn't really count because we were inside the hotel and car a lot) for over four months. And we didn't see rain, which I guess is really uncommon for Hawaii. A good first port though, because it is just different enough from the mainland to be considered "foreign"

 

Byes!

Courtney

 

(PS: sorry for any spelling errors... there is no spell check on the email where I write them and I'm not paying that close of attention to it!)