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Published: August 31st 2009
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This morning I booked a couple of tours for Thursday and Friday. Doing a Grand Island Circle Tour on Thurs and the Polynesian Cultural Center with a luau and show on Friday. Super excited for that.
After that I hopped on a bus to Pearl Harbor. It's about an hour away by bus and I got there at 9:15am and already there were lots of people around. You have to go and pick up a ticket to tell you what time your tour will start. I had to wait about a half an hour for my tour. They have a gift shop and a small museum there so I walked around and had a look.
The first part of the tour you watch a 23 minute video about the day of the attacks. Dec 7, 1941. It was a pretty sombering video to watch. I learnt all about how the Japanese prepared for the attack and the reason behind it. An army ranger does a little talk to everyone and then we all climb aboard a US army boat that takes us out to the USS Arizona Memorial. The battleship sunk within 9 minutes of being hit and is
the resting place for more than 1000 soldiers. The water it sunk in is quite shallow and the boat can still be seen from the surface. Inside the memorial are the names of all the soldiers who lost their lives that day on the boat. You can see some oil that is still leaking out from the boat very slowly on the surface of the water.
The boat takes you back to the visitor centre after about 10 minutes. It was interesting to see the place where this huge historical event took place. All the other battleships they have there and a submarine you can tour all cost money so I didn't go and see any of them.
I caught the bus to Aloha stadium for the big flea market they set up. You walk around the whole stadium and they have all kinds of souvenirs and things to buy. My first purchase was an ice cold coconut that a cute little old man chopped a hole in for me to drink out of. Fresh coconut juice was really refreshing and good. Then I took it back to the man and he chops it in half with a
huge machete knife and then digs out the coconut meat. So yummy!!! Laurene was in heaven!
I bought a couple of flowers for my hair and a necklace before heading back to the hostel. On the bus home it was packed and I swear the biggest guy in Hawaii decides to sit next to me....but there's not a lot of room so he basically squished me and then like half sat on me. For an hour I was squished like this and he taps me on my arm and says "I hope i'm not squishing you too much." Hahahahaha seriously. It was not much fun!
WHen I got back to the hostel I changed and headed for the beach to watch the sunset which wasn't that great since there were a few clouds but it was still nice. Had a pretty quiet night.
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anonymous
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very cool at Pearl Harbour, very sobering (literally; I'm a little bit pished)...freaky to think that the soldiers killed that day are still down there with the boat. And the bird of paradise flower is common in Australia, so you'll see that a lot! I wasn't sure what it was called, now I know. whee!