Hawaii Day Two

Day two our tour guide picked us up at 6:00 AM to visit Pearl Harbor.  We wanted to see as much of Pearl Harbor as possible, so we choose the “Day at Pearl Harbor” package. 

First we saw the Arizona Memorial, which was smaller and more unimpressive as I would have thought, but still pretty cool to see.  It was sad seeing all the names, and knowing many were still on the ship below us.

We then toured the USS Bowfin Submarine.  It was pretty cool, but I have toured other submarines, and it wasn’t much different. 

Then we toured the USS Missouri Battleship.  I have also toured many navel ships, so this one wasn’t much different.  We had a great tour guide that pointed out a dent in the side of the ship that was caused by a Japanese Kamikaze plane.  The dent was the only damage to the ship, but the dead Japanese pilot was left laying on the ship.  The thing that was cool was they gave him a proper burial at sea.  Although he was the enemy, he died fighting for his country and deserved a proper burial.  It felt weird standing in the spot where so much chaos happened so many years ago.  I felt that way the whole time we were in Pearl Harbor.

We then toured the Pacific Aviation Museum.  There they are restoring many planes, mostly by volunteers.  We saw many that were done, and then went into another building as saw some in the process of being restored.  The building still has bullet holes, and shot out windows from World War II.  Some of the planes were used as props in the movie, and we saw the lookout tower that’s in the movie.  I probably should see the movie now.

After all that our tour guide brought us back to our hotel, but we hit terrible rush hour traffic.  All the stopping and going was getting me car sick.  I rarely get car sick, but after the long day, I was.  I was lucky enough to make it back to our hotel before I throwing up.  I felt much better after that, but wanted a decent meal, that I knew would be good, so we ate at Margaritaville.  We wanted to avoid chains, but we have never ate at one before, and we knew the food would be good, and it was — best tuna steak I have ever had.