Thursday, June 10, 2010

.ALOHA and firedancing!.

-Wake up :: 5am

What an early morning it is! I actually shower this morning since I'm not starting the day off in the my swimsuit. We've got a long and tiring day ahead of us! Today we use the GoOahu card that we bought. We have a total of three days for it! We had to check in our card

-Find a Parking Lot :: 6.15am

Trying to find a parking lot that didn't cost a ton was a pain on the main strip of Honolulu. Considering all the stores consist of Coach, Burberry, Oakley... every kind of store like that you can thing of...it's there. haha We finally found one for $8 till 6o'clock. 

-Walk to the bus :: 6.30am

We walked and checked in our go cards. Got on the bus and we were the only ones at the beginning. We went to different hotels though and picked people up. The most interesting people were the British family - a husband and wife with there 12? year old son. The first thing he said was "Mom, this bus stinks!" - even though in all reality it didn't. haha

-City Tour

We weren't supposed to start with the city tour, but when we showed up at pearl harbor, our tour time wasn't till 11:40. Apparently the tickets to go out and see the memorial go so quick that they are out by like 10:30am! and those are tours that go all the way through the afternoon. So keep that in mind for future referance.

We went on our city tour and I enjoyed it a lot. Even though I did almost fall asleep a couple times. haha Our tour guy's name was "Ted." He said don't call him bus driver or he would call us tourist. haha I liked him, he had a dry sense of humor which I love. I felt weird laughing out loud a couple times when other's didn't. But hey! that's ok! I just take joy in life! haha

We toured Honolulu. He pointed out schools, the military hospital, the city hall... a couple other places.

- Pearl Harbor Tour

Pearl Harbor was really cool! It wasn't as serene as I thought it would be. Probably because it was so touresty.

We watched the video about pearl Harbor. The United States had ignored the call about unknown aircraft in their radar. Makes you wonder, if they had listened, could less damage been done? I guess just like we mistakes, the military does as well. I still hold all respect to the men who stood strong during that attack of course! They could have ran, but they fought even though they new they might loose their lives. And most did.

We took the boat out to the memorial. A white building, 7 open spaces on top, and on both sides. It's built right over the top of the USS Arizona. You can see part of the boat still sticking out of the water. Others are shadows below the water. Every once and a while you see oil come up from the boar. Approximently 2 gallons of oil leaks from the boat daily. A constant reminder of what happened that day. You walk to the back of the memorial and the names of all the men who died on the USS Arizona that day are inscribed in the wall. There were many other boats that were attacked, this is just the one that is still there under water. Others who gave there lives that day names are on stones on the shore with the picture of the boat and the story.

I have so much respect for all who serve in our military - we have over 12 people from my senior class going within the next year and they will constantly be in my prayers.

- Moped Rentals

ignore the wind blown hair. lol
Oh how fun this was! I've never driven a moped or anything like it before. I love driving around my little red moped around Honolulu. We were going to go to this palace, but we failed on sticking together while trying to find it, so we never made it. haha It was still fun though. We ended up just driving around and going to the market for a little bit! I bought this really cute sterling silver ring with three Hawaiian flowers on top. It has little chrystals on the inside of each flower. I love it, its really pretty. =)

We eventually returned the Mopeds and picked up some water and juice before heading out to the Luau. Wow, I bought this pinapple juice that was 100% natural. No preservatives or anything. It was seriously amazing! In love with it! haha

- Sitting in 7 lanes of traffic!

We underestimated how long it would take us to get out to the luau. What turned out as a 35 minute drive turned into an hour drive. haha It was rush hour and we didn't take into account of the millions of people who live in Hawaii trying to get back from work. So we sat in 7 lanes of traffic. We made it eventually though!


- Luau :: 6pm

Once we got there, we were greeted with a shell lea. We found a table amongst all the other tables set in the sand along the beach. We saw a pig pulled out of a coal stone "oven" in the ground - that is what we ate. IT was so GOOOOODDD! The fish was my favorite =) Everything was home made and good. It was an all you can eat buffet!

The entire show consisted of Hula dancers - both guys and girls. They all had  amazing abs. haha Including the girls. lol They were really good. We even saw a fire dancer. It was really cool to see all the culture. It made the reality that I was in Hawaii hit. haha

After that we headed home after a really long day.
Now time to crawl into bed! goodnight!

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