Waikiki – Pearl Harbor

The Pacfic Beach hotel turned out to be nicer than we expected.  And they didn’t give us any hassle for having 5 people in a room that was only supposed to have two adults (a source of some anxiety as we approached the hotel.  It was a bit odd to tell the kids to "spread out and lay low" as I approached the front desk).  Hawaii_vacation_2005_day_1_hotel_view

We ended up with a nice room with two double beds. Roby slept on the floor in our ultra compact sleeping bag that we brought from last year’s trip.

Hawaii_vacation_2005_day_1_psp_in_bed We all got at least a few hours sleep on the flight in.  Ryan was hungry when we got here so we went out and bough some ramen noodles at a local convenience store for him to make in the room.  After a bit of muching, we were asleep by 1am Hawaii time and slept in until about 6am.

After getting some muffins and amazing pineapple juice we took a taxi to get to Pearl Harbor, actually the Arizona Memorial, early.  All the guide books stressed that we’d need to arrive early. 

We got there about 8:30 and the line was about 400 yards long! It twisted and turned in the large grass area leading up to the entrance.  Luckily it moved reasonably fast and we got in about 9:30. Then we learned that we were part of the 11am tour.  After grumbling a bit (Rusty that is, not Sue), we listened to the audio tour for an hour and rested on the grounds for 30 minutes and then got on the shuttle out to visit the memorial.

Hawaii_vacation_2005_day_1_pearl_harbor It was sobering to think of all the people who lost their lives at Pearl Harbor and on the Arizona specifically.  The kids were very engaged too in part because we rented "Tora, Tora, Tora" and "Pearl Harbor" a few weeks ago.  They could imagine the Japanese planes strafing the airstrip and bombing the boats. 

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