Date: Thu, 6 Jan 2005 01:14:35 -0800 (PST)
Subject: A day split in 3 parts....

Part 1:
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I woke up early today -- before 5 AM. I thought great, I can get an early start
to the day! Then better sense kicked in -- "I'm in HAWAII! this is not a place
to rush!" So I just stayed here -- in bed, watching TV, and occasionaly taking
tiny naps. Last night I had my cellphone alarm set to 8 AM, and after that rang
for the first time, I put it on snooze. then it rang again at 8:10 -- again
snooze button. 8:20 -- snooze button. 8:30 -- turned off the alarm and set
another alarm for 11:00 AM. And that's when I got out of bed. I was in my car a
little after 12 PM, not really knowing where I wanted to go first.

Part 2:
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There were two things I wanted to see today -- the USS Arizona Memorial at
Pearl Harbor and the rest of the Oahu coastline. When I got in the car I
started looking through my hawaii tourbook for information about the USS
Arizona.. The book says that tickets for that are sold on first-come
first-serve basis and they get sold out early "during busy summer months".
Well, technically this is winter, but its tropical winter -- so the
temperatures are still in the 80's, and it is still a very busy place in
december! So I pretty much gave up on seeing the Arizona memorial today, but I
went to Pearl Harbor anyway. After parking my car (another $5 parking fee -- I
never got charged for parking anywhere in Australia), I went to the USS
Missouri -- the "Iowa Class" (largest type) battleship which was where the
Japanese surrender at the end of World War II was signed.

I've seen similar ships before -- Corpus Christi, Texas has a nice one
(aircraft carrier USS Lexington) -- so I kind of knew what to expect. i.e., not
much. But it was historical, so I bought the guided tour.

Guided tours of other ships like this are typically given by someone who had
served on that ship. This one was given by a college student from Wisconsin!!!
After I found that out I was regretting paying for the guided tour. But as we
went along, it was quite nice -- this guide was very knowledgable about all the
history of the ship (must have memorized the whole speech).

Well, the tour lasted 1 hour. The ship is 2-star according to my system ("fair,
O.K."). And 3-stars ("good, worth a visit") for its historical significance.
They have a photocopy of the surrender document from WW2, with everyone's
signatures. Interesting story about one of the Japanese generals who signed the
surrender. General Yoshijiro Umezu was the Japanese Army's chief of staff (no
that is not from memory). Apparantly he believed sincerely in the Samurai code
of honor -- meaning never surrender, better to die honorably fighting instead
of surrendering. After Emperor Hirohito agreed to surrender, he was ordered
against his wishes to sign the document. When it came time to sign the
document, it was protocol that each person come to the table, sit down, sign,
stand up, and then go back to his seat General Umezu was asked to sit, but
refused, saying he does not support this... then signed the document while
standing up as a form of protest, then went back to his seat, visibly upset
about it.

Ok, so I probably didn't tell it right but it was interesting when I heard it!

Another interesting story: (you be the judge which is better):
The ship was hit by one kamikazi pilot in 1944. (only 1 pilot in its whole
history). The pilot died, and there were no casualties on the ship. Normally
when this happened on other ships, the sailors would toss the pilot's body in
the ocean, or even play with the body parts!! On the Missouri, the day after
the attack, the ship's captain ordered that the Japanese pilot would be given a
proper military funeral with full military honors. The reason of course being
that the captain understood the ultimate sacrifice this other soldier made for
his country, and wanted to give him a proper funeral. This didn't go over too
well with the sailors... their view being who cares about the "ultimate
sacrifice", this man was the enemy! Well, there's a photograph taken during the
funeral that's on display on the ship -- every one of the U.S. sailors in that
picture has a frown on his face...

I spent a little over 2 hours from parking lot to parking lot (the tour was 1
hour and I spent a little more time there). After returning to the car, I went
on my drive...

Part 3:
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The sun was shining (at first). The top was down. And I was looking forward to
another ocean drive similar to yesterday's. This time it was around the rest of
Oahu -- including the famous northern coast. This was also beautiful, but I
think yesterday's was better... Later on today it even started raining so I had
to put the top up.. still, very nice oceanside scenery, with green hills on the
other side..

The surfers were also out -- the north shore of Oahu is famous for the surfing
competitions -- a lot of tall waves ideal for the experts. There was one beach
where I saw this -- the surfers were far out in the water -- looked about the
size of ants -- and the waves were easily 3 or 4 times taller than them. I
didn't have binoculars, but could see with the camera zoomed in all the way..

It also started to rain later, and that greatly reduced my number of viewpoint
stops. Still, 80 miles of ocean road took 4 hours including the stops I did
make. The speed limit here is 35mph most of the time; but the practical limit
is more like 20-25 mph.

Now I'm back at the motel, and will be going to the USS Arizona memorial at
Pearl Harbor at 7:30 AM tomorrow morning. The tourbook says allow 3 hours
minimum, which means I should allow 4. Then my flight back home is in the
afternoon... ending a 3-week long trip -- my 4th longest ever (in terms of
number of days, not number of miles).

Then back to work on Friday...

Pictures taken today:

Table of Contents
January 6 : USS Arizona, flight back home