Did Someone Say Wednesday?

I know, I know, it’s Thursday, but it wasn’t Thursday on Wednesday… or something like that 🙂

Get caught up here:
Post 1 – Friday night
Post 2 – Saturday
Post 3 – Saturday
Post 4 – Sunday
Post 5 – Sunday  
Post 6 – Sunday 
Post 7 – Monday 
Post 8 – Pineapple Selection
Post 9 – Tuesday (Vow Renewal) 
Post 10 – Tuesday

On Wednesday when we woke up, we thought we’d hop the City bus and head to Pearl Harbor.  Instead, we grabbed a cab down at the hotel lobby, THAT was one expensive cab ride!  The cab driver I still really think was taking advantage of us! but I can’t prove it :(.

We hopped on the H1 and headed to Pearl Harbor.

You can click on the photo to make it bigger if you want to see the writing/typing

The Arizona Memorial from land

Hubby with one of the torpedo’s

They had 3 survivors of December 7, 1941, Pear Harbor Attacks (“A date which will live in Infamy”) there signing anything you wanted signed really so I got my photo with one.  One was off wheeling around, cute as a button and another was off being interviewed.  I heard them say this guy here was 93 years old.  He was cute as a button too!  I didn’t ever see the one-off being interviewed, but I’m sure he was cute too!  The people in front of me were from California and when this guy asked them where they were from, he said the last time he was there was 1941.  Then he asked me where I was from and I said Missouri and he said oh Misery!  I said yup, pretty much… LOL 🙂

Once we were on the boat over there, they said you couldn’t take photos of the memorial when you got off the boat, save that for after but after there wasn’t time either so this is the best close up I got…

This marker and the one below are the Markers of where the front and the back of the Arizona are/were.

They said that the Arizona is still leaking oil in the amounts of a couple of gallons (2-3) per day.  The survivors say that she will continue to leak oil until the last of the survivors die and are placed back with crew members.

Part of the Arizona that is still above water.

Looking down one of the tubes that still is above water.

All of those who were lost that awful day, 1,177 died that day of a crew of 1,400.  Of those who are still alive, it was because they were home on leave or other occasions.  The survivors as they pass away, are able to have their ashes laid to rest with their fallen comrades, their families contact Pearl Harbor, they check to make sure they were part of the ship’s crew, and then divers go place their ashes into a crack of the ship.  No one has ever been in the ship since she has fallen.  They say there is a slit where they can place the ashes of the crew through that slit.

The USS Missouri (Mighty Mo) was the sight of the Japanese Surrender which ended WWII.  USS Missouri served in WWII, The Korean War & The Persian Gulf wars, and was decommissioned in 1992.  We just looked at her from afar.  They placed her where the USS Oklahoma was stationed during the attack on Pearl Harbor.  They placed her hull facing the Arizona as a tribute to say she is looking after the remains of the USS Arizona so those who went down with the Arizona may rest in peace.

Then we left such a deep piece of American history and headed back into Honolulu.  We wound up going to Aloha towers which was the tallest building for Four Decades and was a lighthouse and greeting center for many immigrants coming into Honolulu & Hawaii.

While at Aloha Towers we ate at a Restaurant called Bikini Cantina where we all had some form of Nachos except grandma who had loaded potato boats.

Since Aloha Towers is located at Pier 9 we actually got to watch a tug boat moving a large barge around while we ate lunch.

Then we headed off for China Town.  In all the cities I’ve traveled to, I’ve never been to a China Town.  It was impressive!  I don’t have any photos from there (although this post is already getting picture heavy, sorry!)

From China Town, we hopped the City bus and went to the only palace in the US which was the palace for Hawaiian King, King Kamehameha, or Kamehameha the Great, conqueror of the Hawaiian Islands.

Statue of Kamehameha across the street in front of the Service Building.

Then, we headed for Cold Stone Creamery for Ice Cream!  After that, walked to our hotel and then went and jumped in the ocean.  That was our last chance to go play in the ocean :(.

For Dinner Hubby and I slipped off by ourselves.  I wanted to see one last Hawaiian Sunset which I actually teared up, partially because it was SO BEAUTIFUL and partially because I wasn’t ready to come back to the real world!

I also saw this on the beach.

The other side said Smile.  I’ve heard of these things but this was my first experience with them.

After the beautiful sunset, we headed out to find dinner and wound up at a restaurant called Senor Frogs.

One of the staff members was going around making people Balloon Hats.  Yes, we got a balloon hat.

Hubs’ is a monkey on a palm tree, mine was a flower

But this was cool too!

Then they found out we were there on our anniversary, as well as some other couples, so they came around with what we think was a Blue Hawaiian and we all got shots for it being our anniversaries.

Now try walking down the main street in Waikiki Beach with Balloon hats on… you will get some strange looks.  In fact, one lady was staring and hubby finally said, “Want to pet my monkey?”  She shook her head and quickly scurried off.  I laughed my butt off.  Going through our hotel lobby though, the ceiling was low and hubby accidentally popped on of the palm leaves and it sounded like a cap gun going off and EVERYONE looked.  We took our hats off then :).

To end the evening, we went back to our hotel room and I packed our suitcase so if we needed to find additional bags to get home with we could, then we grabbed the Point and shoot camera and ran down and played in the water on the beach for a little over an hour.  My thoughts, I can’t do this in Missouri and when’s the next time I’ll be to Hawaii!