Day 9: Sunday, June 10, 2001
Pearl Harbor & exploring Oahu

Today was our one main day to explore Oahu. We wanted to see the Pearl Harbor exhibit and we'd read that it gets very crowded, so we woke at 7am and headed out early. We weren't sure where exactly it was, but we headed toward that area and then followed freeway signs to Pearl Harbor. We got off at the exit and rolled up to a gate, where a uniformed sailor greeted us. I said, "We're here to see Pearl Harbor!" He smiled and explained that this was an active military base, that we probably wanted the USS Arizona Memorial, which was back the other way, four lights and then a left. You got the feeling he says this to stupid tourists many times a day. At least he was cheerful about it, and we got a good laugh at how silly we must have seemed.

We followed his directions and indeed, all the signs point to the USS Arizona Memorial, which just isn't what I'd think of as the name for the place. We parked and got on the line, which was already about 50 yards back from the entrance. It moved pretty quickly, though. I think they open at 7:30 in the summer, so the line might have been from the early birds. I decided to bring the video camera to experiment with our idea of creating travel videos, figuring if ever there was a place where I wouldn't stand out by shooting video, this was one, and indeed it was true. There were dueling video cameras everywhere.

USS Arizona memorial from checkin area

When you get to the front, they give you a ticket with a number on it. (The exhibit is free, but each person has to pick up their own ticket.) Then you're let into a large open area where they have a small exhibit, book store, and crummy snack bar. It was nice that you didn't have to stand in line while you waited. Instead, they take each number in turn, so you can wander around and check out the exhibit until your number is up. There was no easy way to see what number they were on, though, and they didn't announce it when a new number came up, so you had to keep checking in. Still, I was glad we could move about. I tried to shoot a lot of footage to get the feel of the place, not really sure how much I'd want and how well it would come out, but treating the whole thing as a learning experience.

Exhibit at USS Arizona memorial

We looked through the exhibit, where they showed pictures of the layout of the boats in the harbor when the Japanese struck, models of the USS Arizona, and other items. They had a letter from a mother who had heard about the attack but had not yet heard whether her son had been killed, which he had. The exhibit was well done, it gave you a sense of what had happened and its significance. You could also walk out to the water and see across the harbor to the memorial, which is a long tube of a building that straddles the remains of the ship. I was curious to see how much of it you could still see through the water.

USS Arizona memorial, Pearl Harbor

I was hungry so I grabbed a granola bar from the snack bar. It's a shame that they had only crappy packaged goods instead of real food. After about an hour's wait, our number was up, so we got into the line for the theater. First you watch about a 10 minute movie that consists of footage taken around that time. It was well done and gave some context for the events leading up to the attack. There were a lot of Japanese tourists, and we wondered how they reacted to the movie, which essentially said Japanese was attacking China and the US couldn't stand by such acts of aggression. I was actually impressed that the Japanese were so effective at confining the attack to just military targets and not civilians. They even left the base pretty well alone and just hit the ships, a pretty effective effort. Before the film the Park Service employee made a speech emphasizing that the bodies are still buried in the ship, considered buried at sea, and we should keep our voices low and treat the place as a cemetery. She also pointed out how this huge ship sunk in about 9 minutes, about the time it would take to travel out to the ship. That's pretty amazing.

USS Arizona memorial wall listing dead soldiers

After the movie, we all shuffled into a ferry boat, which took us out to the memorial. When we got to the memorial, I was surprised by how little you could see of the remains of the ship. Jutting out from the water was the massive foundation of one of the turrets for the guns, and a couple other hunks of metal, and beyond that you could see only a little of the structure of the ship. There were still small globs of oil forming on the surface of the water, apparently still trapped in the boat, over 50 years later. At one end of the memorial is a large stone wall with the names of all the servicemen who were killed and their ranks carved into the stone. 1177 men on the USS Arizona died that day.

USS Missouri with remains of USS Arizona in foreground

The names of another dozen or so were added later, shipmates who had survived the attack but had been buried with the rest after they had died later. That was interesting.

I found the memorial interesting, but again it was surprising how little you could see. It was good that we'd had time to get context from the exhibit back at the main building to help us appreciate what we were seeing. I found it interesting how they emphasized the men who had died, rather than this event being the start of the US's entry into WWII. Of course it was tragic for those men and their families, but it didn't seem like the crux of the importance of the event.

USS Missouri guns, with USS Arizona memorial in distance

After about 15 minutes we were ready to head back. We missed the boat heading back and got on the next one. When we returned, we walked back to the car, unsure about whether to stay for a visit to the USS Missouri (www.ussmissouri.com), a retired battleship that was parked nearby. I was a little concerned about the time, but earlier Walendo had said he'd always wanted to see a real battleship, so I figured this was something not to let go because of his good nature. I suggested we walk over and take a look at the times and see how much it was. By doing that, of course, we decided to go. It was $14 and would take about 1.5 hours, which is fine. We decided to skip the tour of the nearby submarine, though.

Deck of USS Missouri with big guns

We got on the bus, which went across to the island in the middle of the harbor (Ford Island, I think) and let us off at the ship. Man, that's a big ship. It's 887 feet long, weighing 45,000 tons (58,000 fully loaded). It carries 2.5 million gallons of fuel. The guns mounted on the deck were gigantic and could shoot 23 miles away with accuracy. Incredible. They have a self-guided tour that feeds you through the ship, although some people were on guided tours. I listened in on some, but mostly we explored on our own.

Side of USS Missouri

I thought it was pretty good, it let you go through lots of sections of the ship, though Walendo also wanted to see the engine room below, which wasn't included. We saw some of the sleeping quarters, which were ridiculously tight. The bunks were three high, each one maybe two feet apart from the one above or below it. We saw the captain's quarters, which doubled as their office. I suppose they were downright luxurious compared to the crew, but still pretty minimal. I was surprised at how big some of the rooms were, like the mess hall (where they had a real snack bar). We went outside and up the main tower. They let us into a small gunnery room where you looked through a periscope to aim the guns. They had pictures showing when Japan had signed the surrender treaty aboard the USS Missouri. Apparently, the ship had been retired but they redeployed it for the Gulf War. After wandering through it for about an hour or so, we were ready to head back. It was worth seeing.

Walendo, happy at Kailua McDonalds

We took the bus back, returned to our car and then started on our way toward the eastern coast of the island, which is called the windward coast. I'd read that it's very pretty and had some nice parks. We took the freeway (Rt 81) over to Kailua, which had a real town to it, certainly more than Kauai's towns. There was a smoothie store, so of course I stopped for one. This one was $3.50 and quite good. Walendo was hungry and we'd seen a McDonalds so he convinced me to go, saying he wanted to add to his list of places where he'd eaten at a McD's. He was very happy. After lunch, we tried to head toward the beach on the map, but it was a tourist map and didn't have any detail. Walendo pulled out the emap, but he was low on batteries, another surprising technology glitch. We wound up circling our way back to the main road, where we stopped at a 7-11 for batteries and a map. They had only a big map book for $12, which wasn't worth it, so I studied the area on the map while Walendo bought the batteries. He also happened on a great find - a headset for our Nokia phone for $3!

We found our way toward the beach, which turned out to be a beautiful, white sand beach, so we grabbed a baggie of it to add to our sand exhibit. It was jam packed with people and cars were parked all the way up the street. It seemed like most of the people were local, out at the beach enjoying the weekend, not tourists, which was interesting. We drove along the coastal road, checking out the houses. There were a lot of open houses, and I was curious to visit one, but we didn't. Again, there were some gorgeous houses along the beach, I'm sure available for a pittance.

People frolicking at Kapaluu State Park

We continued along 83, the coastal road, which became more residential and less crowded. Eventually, we picked up the road that circles along the coast. Occasionally we got glimpses of the coastline, which was beautiful. As we drove along, we quickly started to pass small state parks associated with beaches. Lots of people were out, having barbeques and playing, it seemed like a holiday. We pulled into Kapaluu State Park, which was a large park along the beach where lots of families and groups were out. It looked like a good scene, so I convinced Walendo to get out and walk around and check it out. There was a group of people playing football, some people flying kites, lots of kids playing in the sand, and some large groups with elaborate barbeque set ups.

Walendo at Kapaluu State Park

A lot of groups had tents and we saw that this was a camping area. Maybe people had camped there overnight.

Entry to Dole plantation

After that, we drove slowly along the rest of the eastern coast checking it out. Lots more parks and beaches with families. There was a nice little town at the northern edge called Kahuku. After curving west along the north coast we picked up Rt 99, which goes south bisecting the island. Soon we noticed huge fields of what looked like the tops of pineapples, but they were growing right out of the ground, which didn't seem right. We both thought pineapples grow on trees. You also couldn't see the pineapples, as if they grow in the ground like potatoes, which seemed really wrong. Only hard vegetables without a lot of water grow under ground, it just didn't make sense for them to be pineapples. But we soon saw a Dole sign, so what else could they be? The fields went on forever. Soon we came to the Dole Plantation, so we stopped to check it out. There's a store there that sells pineapple everything. We tried the pineapple ice cream, which was horrible, and some pineapple sweet bread, which was pretty good.

Walendo at the Dole shop

I asked the woman at the counter if those were really pineapples growing in the ground and she said they were, but she either wasn't confident or didn't understand what I was asking because she seemed very tentative. We didn't see any information about pineapples, just touristy stuff. There's also a human maze, they claim the largest in the world. It was getting late and we weren't up for it, so we skipped it. We looked for a sign around the grounds with information, but it was mostly marketing stuff. So much for that. (Later we checked on the Web and learned that, yes, they were pineapples, but they don't grow in the ground, the pineapples are encased inside the leaves. When you buy them, you still see the leaves on the top. That still didn't meet with our expectations, but at least we could accept that story.)

We continued south and then decided to take the loop along the southeast coast that would take us back to Waikiki by way of Diamond Head. We had a bit of trouble figuring out where to pick up that road, but Walendo pulled out the emap and we found our way with ease. That part of the island was much drier and rockier than the rest. It was also more populated. Eventually we got back to town and picked up the freeway. We overshot Diamond Head and then made our way back to it, finding the road that leads you to the top. I wanted to climb up to the top of Diamond Head tomorrow so we figured we'd scout it out now. It closes at 6pm and it was 6:30, so we couldn't go up then. (I think it opens at 6am.) There was no real reason to go back to the cheap hotel, so we parked near the strip and walked along. We hadn't made it to the beach the day before and I wanted to check it out, so we headed there. Even though it was now close to 7pm and getting dark there were still lots of surfers out. You could see dozens of heads bobbing in the water, and with each good wave, several surfers would emerge. We wondered if there was some sort of protocol for who gets to pick up the wave. It was fun watching them ride along, rooting for them to milk the wave as long as they could. Eventually, someone would emerge from the water, rinse off at one of the spigots they have along the beach and then march off into the street carrying their surfboard.

We walked to the end, and then turned back, wandering along the stores looking for a place to eat dinner. Walendo wanted to eat seafood. Someone handed us a flyer for a place, so we checked it out but it looked pretty cheesy, so we passed. We wound up at an outdoor hotel restaurant that had a seafood buffet. It was a bit steep at $28 per person, but we went for it anyway. The sushi was delicious and they had peel-and-eat shrimp that was also good. Walendo sampled the chicken and beef as well. They had a bunch of desserts and I tried all three chocolate offerings but none were any good. Walendo liked his banana cream pie.

We made our way back to the car, finally giving in to the many ABC stores to buy some macadamia nuts for the gang back home. We relaxed back at the hotel before going to bed.

Previous   (Fly to Oahu)

Next   (Diamond Head and fly home)