Who Said Vacation Was for Sleeping in?

Just now catching some time to write in my blog. So I will share about yesterday now and share a second post about today later tonight.

We decided it would be a cool thing to go the Arizona Memorial and Pearl Harbor on Independence Day, but we knew we would have to get up early to get our tickets since they "sell out" quickly.  I told the boys I wanted to be in line at 7:00 a.m. when they started handing them out, and we accomplished that goal fairly well. Our ticket for the Arizona was at 12:00 p.m., so we decided to go to breakfast and then come back to explore the other exhibits at this National Monument.

After a quick search on Yelp, Joe found us a little hole a strip mall cafe located just a mile or so away. We ate a yummy breakfast at Koa Pancake House. Joe was very excited to discover they had coconut syrup for his banana pancakes and David had a red velvet waffle. After we finished our large portions (well except for the waffle), we headed back to Pearl Harbor and tried to decide what we were willing to spend money on based on the time we had until our time for the Arizona Memorial. We walked through two exhibits on the events prior to  and during the attack. David and I decided to pay for a self-guided tour of the USS Bowfin, a submarine that was launched exactly one year after the attack and was nicknamed, the Pearl Harbor Avenger. We got to walk through the tight spaces and learn a lot about this particular one submarine and submarines in general.

It was finally time for our scheduled appointment which started with a 23-minute film with actual footage of the attack on Pearl Harbor. We then boarded a boat that is owned and operated by the U.S. Navy for a trip out to the memorial. The rangers of the Park Service explained that the Arizona Memorial was a joint project between NPS and the U.S. Navy. There were very specific rules we had to follow and we were not allowed to use our phones except for photos (no texting, phone calls, or emails) out of respect for those who lost their lives. It was a somber experience looking over the side of the platform at remnants of a ship that became a watery tomb. The Arizona is still leaking oil one drop at a time. You can see the oil as it collects on the surface and moves with the current away from the memorial. The thing I found most significant was how the survivors of the attack have responded. Many of them upon their death have had their ashes interred with their shipmates. It was really quite touching and the entire experience made me glad that we don't forget our dead. It is good that we have these memorials to remember those who lost their lives defending our country.


Well, you would think that would have been enough for one day, but we still had the afternoon, so once we finished the Arizona Memorial tour, we headed north to the Polynesian Cultural Center. It was a gorgeous drive along the coast with the lush tropical mountainside on one side and the ocean yards away on the other side. At times the sea would splash over the wall onto the road. The scenery was so beautiful and exactly what I imagine when I think of Hawaii.

We arrived at the Cultural Center at 3:00 p.m. and spent the rest of the day and evening wandering through the six different islands of Polynesia. We learned a little about the culture, watched a few shows, and even learned how to dance like a Tahitian. It was fun and the Tongan show was really funny and involved audience participation. We stayed for the luau and got to see dances from representatives of the different cultures. We watched the pig come out of the ground, tasted poi, and sampled a variety of food both Hawaiian and American. We shared our table with a family from Indiana and we enjoyed getting to know them a bit. The final event of our visit to PCC was the night show, Ha: Breath of Life. We got to see many dancers and the show was well done. The boys were most impressed by the fire throwers. I was a little skeptical that the exhibits and dances we saw were authentic representations of the cultures, but Joe did a little research and it sounds like much of what we saw was fairly accurate albeit a little showy.

The day ended with the hour long drive back to our Airbnb. On the drive home, I announced to the boys that I'd really like to hike Diamond Head in the morning and do it right when the park opens at 6:00 a.m. So after some grumbling about having to wake up at 5:30 two mornings in a row, we settled down to a few hours of blissful sleep.

Read my son David's perspective here: http://favoritesonsspiels.blogspot.com/