Aloha, part 2

Day 9 -- Pearl Harbor and the USS Arizona

We rode the bus to Pearl Harbor. The bus in Hawai'i is TheBus, literally.

We also noticed that the bus numbers matched the license plates

Sights along the way, note the Hawaiian islands on the shaka hand gesture

More murals

The visitor center is open air, two museum galleries, a theatre, and lots of memorials

The Navy runs the ferry from the visitor center out to the USS Arizona

There are buoys at either end of the ship, so you can get a sense of its relation to the memorial structure

Look closely, you can see a small, white buoy close to the USS Missouri and also parts of the USS Arizona sticking out of the water

The entrance to the memorial

You can still see oil on the water from the ship

In the center of the memorial, there was an open area where you could look down directly onto the ship

Looking toward the far end of the memorial

The far end of the memorial had all the names listed of those that died in the attack on Pearl Harbor

I did not realize that those who survived the attack could choose to be interred with their shipmates. The earliest date was 1982, the most recent was 2021

One memorial had a list of civilians killed during the attacks, including a 3 month old baby

One of the USS Arizona's anchors

It was kind of heart-wrenching to read these memorials and how they said "on eternal patrol"

There was a display about Sadako and the thousand paper cranes in the museum galleries

Last Junior Ranger badge earned for Hawai'i

More beautiful flowers

Hawaiian shirts, painted on the structure

A humorous mural

A hula dancer statue

We tried to go to the Aloha Tower to see the views over Pearl Harbor... and it was closed indefinitely!

Beach access with surfboards lining it

A banana tree right on the sidewalk

We tried Hawaiian style hot dogs

I have no idea how they get them inside the dough and it's all toasted, no soggy bun!

We had some birdie friends show up at dinner

Day 10 -- Dole Plantation, Polynesian Cultural Center

We saw our fair share of limos in Waikiki

We found a surfing statue, with a seal friend! This was titled Makua and Kila

We found a monument to Amelia Earhart

While we were there, we watched dozens of surfers

Look, another limo!

More murals

This was the Water Giver statue, companion to the Storyteller statue that we saw earlier

We drove up to the Tantalus lookout at Puʻu ʻUalakaʻa State Park

Great views of Waikiki and Diamond Head Crater

We left the Honolulu area and went up to Dole Plantation

Not sure what this sign was about... it was inside the gift shop!

Almost everywhere we went had Hello Kitty merchandise that matched their theme, so of course their was pineapple-themed Hello Kitty items for sale here

Fun restroom sign

Lots of options for flower earrings in the gift shop

And Dole Whip!

We did the garden tour, there were pineapples planted outside of the gardens though, really interesting to see what a pineapple plant looked like

There were chickens wandering around

And a cat, we wondered if the cat ever went after the chickens.

On our way to Laie, we drove along the North Shore.

Felt very rural, especially when we saw this pickup truck with someone in the back

Bus stop bench

Ocean life guard

Lots of people were at the beach that day!

House number on a surfboard

We drove through Laie and saw this sign

And then someone had doctored the other one!

There was a little food truck/shopping area and this school bus/food truck was there

We tried to find an LDS historical site, we found a marker for a different site instead

We made our way to the Polynesian Cultural Center, staffed mostly by BYU-Hawaii students from all over Polynesia

One of the gift shops had ukuleles for sale and a ukulele exhibit

This interesting ukulele was on display

People were feeding the fish and this bird was hopeful for his own lunch

We were able to take a canoe ride through the middle of the Islands of Polynesia villages

One of our first stops was Samoa, we saw some fire dancers there

We saw dancers in Fiji

And also in Tahiti

We ate dinner at the Gateway Buffet, lots of Polynesian dishes

Just outside the Hukilau Marketplace was this statue of the man who "invented" the shaka hand gesture

We attended the evening show

No photos or videos allowed, you can get an idea of the show if you watch this YouTube video

It was late when we headed out after the show!

Day 11 -- Ford Island and Chinatown

We headed out, catching the bus back to Pearl Harbor. We got to hang out at the bus stop with this really awkward looking teenage chicken

More murals along the way

We had a tour to Ford Island to see the USS Utah and USS Oklahoma memorials.

Our bus driver was quite the character

He had a set up at the front of the bus for his hair care fund

The Utah memorial was hard to photograph and get it all in. There were buoys at either end of the ship so you could see how long it was, since there was only a small portion of it visible above the water

The USS Oklahoma was an actual memorial to all those that died on the ship

We went and found the Chinatown gate afterwards

Then the guardian lions in Chinatown

We walked past the Princess Ka'iulani statue on the way home for the night--there was a movie made about her years ago

More murals

Day 12 -- We went to the Polynesian Cultural Center, again, this time by bus! We didn't realize that our tickets were good for return visits, so we headed back up there, two hour bus ride

Saw this sign at the bus stop

Our bus overheated, so we got to wait for a new one, while the traffic slowed down from a traffic accident in the tunnel where the bus was stopped

Getting on our new bus

We didn't take the Laie tram tour, since we had done our own version of a tour of Laie already

All of the employees wear Polynesian-style clothing

We watched some traditional martial arts in New Zealand

Learned how to make a fish from palm leaves in Samoa

Saw lots more chickens roaming the grounds

Watched tree climbing in Samoa (they were SO fast!)

This time we got to take a canoe ride where we did all the paddling

More beautiful flowers

We went back to Hawai'i to see a replica of a huge double hulled canoe

We watched some traditional dances in New Zealand and even got to see a haka

We ate dinner there at Hukilau Marketplace, this Pepsi was made in Hawai'i

Interesting that the bathroom had a potted plant in the middle

Day 13 -- Makiki Ward. Honolulu Hawai'i Stake

We rode the bus over to church in the Honolulu Stake Tabernacle and saw this mural along the way

There is an intricate mosaic of Christ on the front of the chapel

At the end of the meeting, a person was leaving and they sang "Aloha 'Oe" to her, with a resounding "Aloha!" at the end of the song

Next to the chapel were these amazing banyan trees

Just down the street from the chapel was the apartment complex where Obama grew up

After church, J got to go to the urgent care clinic for an ear ache

S and I went to a lei making class

Day 14 -- We hiked Diamond Head Crater

Two tunnels, lots of stairs, hordes of people, and a fantastic view at the top

We also spied this lighthouse from the top of the crater

This was the whole view, before I zoomed in to take the photo above

A blue stop sign on the way out

Day 15 -- Rest day and swimming in the ocean at sunset

Our last full day in Hawai'i was slow. We did a little walking around, seeing some more statues, murals, flowers, and a Hawaiian shirt shop that was just absolutely stuffed with every kind of Hawaiian shirt you could ever imagine.

I love signs

We went to the beach at sunset and went swimming. We had a waterproof pouch for my phone and we got rained on, took photos of the rain out in the ocean