03May14 - Day 2 Pearl Harbor

We started today by going to a free breakfast put on by our tour company, "Pleasant Holidays" at the Hard Rock Cafe.

They put on a bit of a show and of course they pushed tours etc for you to buy, but I would not call it high pressure sales.  We were planning on doing the Arizona Memorial anyway, so that is the only tour we booked.

























Our tour guide picked us up at the hotel, where do they get these guys? Ours was Jorge (pronounced Whore-hay, but you can call him George or driver or anything) and he was not only a walking history book but a very entertaining gentleman. He certainly made the trip more educational and entertaining.

The touring of the Arizona is somewhat of a somber experience but something we all should do if we get the chance.  The entrance, museum area and movie has been redone since we last visited in 1991, but the memorial is very much the same. Frankly, I saw many fewer Japanese than in 1991, maybe due to their economy?

We looked around a bit before we took the boat out to the Arizona but did not have time to tour the Bowfin as we did in 1991.

Ed is just a little guy next to the Arizona Anchor

The Arizona is a tomb and there is much concern with what to do about the leaking oil, it still has about 50,000 gallons on board and they are worried that it is going to collapse and create an environmental event.







One bonus of taking the tour is we got a ticket to the Missouri.  The Missouri is the destroyer that was used for the surrender ceremony of the Japanese for WWII. It is an impressive ship.

It saw action in WWII and was modernized during the Reagan years, it will shoot a 16" shell 25 miles.
It is now kept at Pearl Harbor as a symbol of the end of the war as Arizona is the beginning.

It was not all a somber occasion, we toured the ship and did have a little fun along the way.

 From the Missouri we were given a driving tour including the 'Punch Bowl', a cemetery for many of those killed at Pearl Harbor, it is on top of an extinct volcano.

We got back to our hotel around 6PM and headed out for dinner...we ran into the "Spam Jam", I am not kidding...it is huge. They shut down the main drag in Waikiki for this and it is one big party.  There were bands and a variety of foods with spam.  We passed on the spam and found a really good pizza place called "Giovanni Pastrami", good food and good drinks.





All in all it was a good day, we were exhausted and looking forward to an adventure tomorrow around the island.