On the 27th, we went to Pearl Harbor, which is in Honolulu. First we went to see the USS Arizona Memorial, which is actually over the sunken USS Arizona. It is in the middle of the water, so you have to take a ferry there.
The smaller blocks on the left represent the battleships that were sunk on December 7, 1941.
The inside of the memorial is very simple, containing only a list of the names of those killed.
It was hard to make out much of the USS Arizona, but here are a few photos of what I could see.
Something that I found very interesting is that oil is still leaking from the ship, and they expect it to continue to leak for another 20 years.
After we returned to land, we looked around a little.
This is the Bowfin, a submarine, which we did not go on because neither of us is fond of tight spaces.
We then took a bus over to the USS Missouri. You have to take the bus, because the entrance to the USS Missouri is through the military base, which is still in use.
That is part of the USS Arizona sticking up out of the water in the foreground.
The USS Missouri was recently refurbished and was only returned to Pearl Harbor in January. We actually thought that seeing the USS Missouri was the highlight of Pearl Harbor, but perhaps that was because we had a great guide. One of the interesting things he pointed out is the dent in the side from a kamikaze airman who flew into the ship. He died on impact, but the ship only got this dent. The American soldiers on board gave the kamikaze soldier a military burial at sea, wrapped in a Japanese flag, out of respect, but they only gave him a 20 gun salute instead of the traditional 21.
In case you don't know it, the USS Missouri is where War World II officially came to end after Japan surrendered.
After that, we headed over to the Pacific Aviation Museum. To be honest, this was boring, and it had poor lighting so it was difficult to take good photos.
I actually though that these helicopters that were flying over Pearl Harbor were much more interesting.
In the evening, we went to the luau at Paradise Cove, which was in a pretty area on the south west side of the island.
Before dinner, they had some entertainment, including a game where you tried to catch one of the flowers dropped from the top of a tree. (I didn't get one.)
During dinner, we got to watch the sunset.
Then the show started. I wish I could have taken better photos of the dancers, but the lighting was horrendous, and there were people in front of me. I think these came out okay, though.
The highlight of the show was the fire dancer.
I know that this was an extra long post, but, believe it or not, I didn't include all of my photos from that day. You can see more by going to my Flickr page.
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