2017-06-16 - Friday - Pearl Harbor

Friday we took a bus tour to Pearl Harbor. It was a very moving experience, especially the USS Arizona memorial.

The U.S. Parks service only sells 1300 tickets per day for the USS Arizona memorial so you have to line up early. Our bus picked us up at 5:00 am and our driver, Tiho, who is from Bulgaria, stopped by a Leonard's, a Portuguese bakery and picked up some malasadas. While we were standing in line at around 6:00 am, he handed out the still-warm malasadas, saying, "Do you see all these other people standing here in line? They don't have donuts --but you do!". He was definitely a character.

The anchor.

Our ticket for the 7:45 tour.

On the boat to the USS Arizona memorial,
passing a docked aircraft carrier.

Pulling up to the memorial.

Gun turret number 3.

The wall of names of those lost on the Arizona.

From the deck of the memorial we could see the USS Missouri,
where the treaty was signed that ended the war with Japan.
We were able to see the ships that represented
the beginning and ending of the war at one time.

After Pearl Harbor, Tiho took us to several areas around Honolulu, including seeing the rain forest in one of the many reserves including a nice view of Honolulu.

We visited Aliiolani Hale where we saw the statue of King Kamehameha that seemed to be a staple of 60's television shows.

We stopped by the docks and fed the tropical fish. These are fish I'd only seen in aquariums before that day and here they were being hand-fed in the wild.

Back at the hotel we attended the Brian Wilson concert on the green. It was good, but without the rest of the original members and their harmonies it sounded more like a Beach Boys tribute band. If you'd like to see an amazing visualization of the Beach Boys harmonies, check this out.

Later still, we were off to the Ocean House for a great meal right next to the surf at Waikiki. Oh, and another Coconut Hiwa Porter.

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