Hawaii Part 2

fri DAY 3 [Pearl Harbor]

We planned more for this day than just going to Pearl Harbor, but there was so much to do that we ended up spending a whole day there! It reminded me of what sacrifices people made for our country and why they should be remembered.

I also really wanted to read my grandpa's book (which is still in progress) of his experience in WWII. (My parents have a copy of one of his drafts--I am going to read it when I go visit.) He was living on Oahu when Pearl Harbor was attacked and served with the 442 infantry/regimental combat team made up of all Japanese-Americans; it became the most highly decorated infantries in all American history (I had to read this in a textbook before I realized how important it was).

aviation museum Michael was so excited to see that they had an aviation museum, so we had to go. It was really interesting to learn not just the plain basic histories, but personal stories from the war.

Now I am regreting not taking a pictures of the signs that had info on them, but this is a little tractor thing that was used on an island that only a few families lived on. They were to dig trenches all over because it was predicted that the Japanese would attack and use it for landing. Trenches, logically, would make it difficult to land. They got this tractor to speed up the process--in total 5000 miles of trenches were dug.

One Japanese plane ran out of fuel and was told the island with all the trenches was uninhabited. He found that it wasn't and that it wasn't fit for landing, but had no choice since he had no fuel. This is what was left of his plane. And supposedly, a Japanese-American was helping out the Japanese (including the man who died in this plane crash). He ended up commiting suicide.

They had planes on display that both Americans and Japanese used. They also had an outline of the waves of Japanese planes and how they planned the attack. Really interesting stuff.

Outside the museum was this tower that is always in the movies about Pearl Harbor, suchas Pearl Harbor =). However, it wasn't even built until a year after! Imagine that. The white building was there though.

uss arizona memorial The USS Arizona sank in the Harbor with about 2000 men aboard the morning of the attack. It sounds like a lot of people, but when you get to the memorial it seems like a whole lot more. Seeing the individual names carved into the wall really personalizes what happened--they were real people with families, not just a number that sank and disappeared into the ocean.

The memorial was built over the sunken ship, and you could see parts of it sticking out of the water. Over 60 years later, oil was still bubbling up. You could watch it surface and then float on down the harbor. I was wondering if it was coming from somewhere else, but Michael said it smelled really old...and it really did.

uss bowfin The Bowfin was a submarine that we got to take an audio tour of. Again, really interesting stuff. First hand account said that as they were approaching Japan (in the Bowfin) they could hear metal scraping against metal--not a good sign. They were dragging a mine! Lucky for them it never went off.

This is the last picture I got before our camera died! Michael sure was a good navigator!

I wish I would have gotten a picture of where they slept! Oh, man...talk about itty bitty living space. Plus, not everyone had a bed! So all spaces were always occupied. They called the beds (that looked more like hanging cots) "hot beds", because once one guy got off duty he would go wake someone up to use their bed and they would then go on duty. (I hope that makes sense.) I think I would pass.

We finished this day by eating in Chinatown. We figured they would have some good grub without making us sleep in the poor house, and indeed it was GOOD! Seriously, the best beef and broccoli I have ever eaten. Orange chicken tasted like it was made with real oranges. Mmmm. If you ever happen to find yourself in Chinatown in Hawaii--Mini Garden is the place to go.

satur DAY 4 [jam packed fun]

punchbowl crater cemetary If I could choose to be buried here, I would, but alas I am not a veteran. Michael and I were joking that Hawaii would be a nice place to be resurrected. Plus, from the crater there's a great view! (Below is a picture of Diamond Head, which we hiked after this stop).

This is a volcanic crater with burial plots and a monument that outlines all the attacks/battles in chronological order with the purposes and everything. We didn't have much time to read all the maps so I took pictures of them. How the maps were constructed were pretty amazing. I thought they were printed (looking at them from far away), but they were really made out of crushed glass and rock. Here's just one example.

This was the monument (the maps were up the stairs and circled behind the lady at the top). All those little white walls looked like decoration at first, but as we got closer names were inscribed top to bottom, back and front. It's quite humbling to find how many people have served our country and passed on. Below is a close up of the trees that lined the stairs. All the trees were cut to form circles if you looked up. We didn't notice these either until we were leaving.

diamond head hike When the sign says that this 0.8 mile hike is no shaded walk in the park--they mean it! I consider myself in okay shape (I'm not a couch potato, but I am not prepared to climb everest either), and this about pooped me out. With how humid it was, I was sweating a waterfall; but of course, Michael has no fat, works out as much as I do, but hardly ever breaks a sweat. I felt like a cow next to him. But nonetheless we made it to the top, which used to be an old look out. Here's a few pictures of what we had to go through to get to the top (99 stairs + the round staircase, tunnels, etc.) and what we found at the top.

As a little more oomf for my statement that this was no easy hike...some guy passed out at the top while we were there (at the top). We beat him down to the parking lot that is in the crater of Diamond Head, but he rode a helicopter down...
hanauma bay This was by far the best snorkeling we found. We didn't see any nemo clown fish or squid like we did in Pupukea, but we saw FOUR turtles! They were so dang cute. You could swim near them and they would just chill and eat.

The first one Michael found I didn't even know what he was looking at! I was feeling a little sea sick and wanted to go back, but he just floated there in the water. He pointed at some fish and I thought he was just enamored with being able to swim with them or something. I didn't know he was pointed at a turtle! So I go under once I know what's down there and I turn around into another sea turtle! We almost bumped like 2 people walking towards each other looking opposite ways. So neat. I wish we had a waterproof case for our camera. The ones we saw were similar to this guy...

Here's just some pictures of the beach...

It was quite a hike down to the beach...you can see my nice battle wound from our camping trip on my right calf. We went up Logan Canyon with the Humpherys side of the family the Saturday before we left (so a week prior to this picture). Going up to a plane crash site was on the agenda so Michael and I planned to take Brandon's dirtbike (sorry I still can't get myself to say "motorbike"). I don't really know what happened, but I was sitting on the back when it started tipping over...on top of me. The peg went right into my calf and immediately swelled up like a goose egg (I knew it wasn't broken but it sure looked like it). The bruising has gone down, but the middle is still numb and feels like it's going to give birth to a rock. Anyway...

smorgy's This was a buffet down the street from our hotel and where we finished our night. The food was good...I was surprised to find that the even had kimchee! I don't like kimchee, I just thought it was odd. Michael loved the fruit...and the coconut jello stuff (we even took some home, shh! Then, Michael ate it for breakfast the next morning while I was still sleeping and craved it the rest of the week.)
After writing about all we did this day, no wonder we were so tired! Just writing all of it is exhausting. Still more to come...4 more days worth. Hope you don't get sick of this. =)

ps Hope everyone had a great Independence Day!