Hawaii - Day 2, Pearl Harbor

One of our main reasons for visiting Hawaii was because Chris wanted to see Pearl Harbor.  We'd heard that it was best to arrive early so we were up and on a public bus by 6.30am.  We arrived at 7.15am and it was already fairly busy.  We got our tickets to the Arizona memorial first as you are given an allocated time for them, we got 8.30am so I'm glad we got there so early.

We wondered around the site and looked at some of the displays then went into the theatre at our allocated time to watch a short film.  After the film you get ushered onto a boat which takes you over to the memorial.  After the attack they raised several of the sunken ships but the USS Arizona was one of the ones that they left in the water, it acts like a tomb for the people that died on it.  There is still oil leaking out of the ship which you can see on the top of the water.

After visiting the memorial we bought tickets to the USS Missouri and USS Bowfin. The Missouri was a battleship built in WWII. It also served in Korea and Operation Desert Storm before being decommissioned in 1992. It was one of the most interesting things that I have ever visited. We did a self guided tour and were able to walk all around the boat on our own.

After 'Mighty Mo', we went on board the submarine USS Bowfin. Neither of us had been on a submarine before and I'm a bit claustrophobic so I was a bit worried beforehand but it was actually fine and again really interesting. There is a narrow walkway through the whole submarine and not much room to move about. You have to climb through hatches to get through each section of the sub.  I wouldn't have liked to have stuck on there for months at a time with about 80 other people. There weren't even enough beds for everyone, they had to 'hot bed'!

After we had seen everything that we wanted to see, we caught a bus back to our hotel then spent the afternoon by the lagoon.

Throughout Hawaii, there are tiki torches everywhere and every evening at sunset there are torch lighting ceremonies where a Hawaiian native runs around lighting the torches then blows a conch shell.
 

There are also lots of hula shows everywhere, we just caught the end of one before we had dinner.

For dinner we ate one of the best meals that we have ever eaten at a Sicilian restaurant called Taormina. It wasn't a very expensive place but the food was delicious.