Hawaii- Day 6

We started our day early to go on a tour of Pearl Harbor. We ended up picking a great day for a tour since it was the only cloudy morning we had the whole week. It was an early morning since the tour bus picked up up at the hotel at 6am! They said if you wait and leave later in the day you can be waiting in 3-4 hr lines. So off we headed. You start at the area you pick up the tickets at. It has a memorial to all of the submarines and crews we lost during the attack.

You then go over to a second area where you can tour a museum, then once your designated ticket time comes up you are ushered into a theater to watch a 30 min film on the history of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Once the film is done you get to board a ferry to take you to the actual memorial. The memorial is quite something. It is built over the sunken USS Arizona which was one of our biggest losses. There were almost 1000 lives lost just on that ship.

Here you can see the USS Arizona underwater. You can also see the oil that continues to leak from the ship even many years later.

This is what is left of one of the original gun barrels.

After the memorial we went to see the USS Missouri. This ship was commissioned slightly after the attack on Pearl Harbor and the decks of this ship were actually the place where Japan surrendered in the waters outside of Tokyo. It was recommissioned later and also played a major role in Operation Desert Storm.

These are the documents signed by all the nations signaling the end of World War II.

More scenic pictures from the road.

Some of our good friends from Ohio actually spent the two weeks before we arrived in Hawaii. Shelby gave me some awesome tips on things to do, places to see, and good spots to eat! She recommended we eat lunch at Cheeseburger in Paradise and get the onion rings. This was my favorite meal of the whole vacation! The onion rings were great and I had the best grilled cheese sandwich ever! Shelby, the pic below is for you!

More exotic birds of Hawaii- this time flamingos!

Our hotel was full of Koi ponds with HUGE Koi in them!

Brad posing with his new friend.

Kimber in front of some more birds... look closely... yup they are penguins. I had no idea that they had tropical penguins but I guess even these birds think Hawaii is paradise!

A walk down the beach.

And through the park.

Then on to the Luau! We found a great deal on a Luau next door at the Hale Koa. It is a hotel just for the military and we found ourselves there a lot with all the things the hotel had to offer during the week. This pic is of them taking the roasted pig out of the ground.

Then they demonstrated how to climb a palm tree. Pretty impressive! Look closely at the pic... there is a person up there!

Then of course singing and dancing!

Blowing the conch shells

What a great end to the week! We fly out to morrow afternoon so this was our last full day. We really got to both relax and do everything we wanted to do!