2022-02-19: Pearl Harbor Take Two

We had another relaxing morning chatting with the Bryans. I got us checked in for our flight the next day. Just before noon, we headed out and made our way to Pearl Harbor. When we visited Pearl Harbor in 2019, it was a cool and rainy day. The dock for the USS Arizona was broken so they weren’t ferrying people to the memorial. They were taking people over to where the USS Arizona lies by boat though so you could still see the ship. Unfortunately, due to the weather they had to cancel the boat tours as well. We returned this year hoping to see the USS Arizona Memorial.

We started by visiting taking a look in the harbor. There was a navy vessel just pulling in to the dock beside the visitors center. There were actually three navy ships docked and submarine floating in the harbor. The ships were the USS Essex, USS Portland, and the ship that just docked was the USS Pearl Harbor. We headed to the “Road to War” and “Attack” museum galleries. We also watched a video describing the events of the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941. We had tickets to the 2:30pm tour for the USS Arizona memorial. Just before 2:30pm, we headed to the entrance to the USS Arizona tour. After giving us a few ground rules, we were boarding the boat to head over to the memorial.

We toured around the memorial for about 30 minutes. It was very moving to see what’s left of the ship and view the memorial wall with the names of all the sailors that perished with the ship. They even allow the sailors who were stationed on the USS Arizona but survived the attack to be buried with their shipmates when they pass away if that is their wish. They put the urns with their ashes in the base of one of the turrets so they may rest with their fellow shipmates. The magnitude of the attack on the naval base really hits you.

After visiting the memorial, we stopped at the gift shop to grab a couple of souvenirs and left the visitors center. There was a restaurant called Restaurant 604 that George and Ellen like next door. It was shortly after 4:00 and we hadn’t eaten much since breakfast so decided to head there for an early dinner. There was about a 30 minute wait to get a table. We chatted and watched the sea life along the shore until our table was ready.

After dinner, we went for a drive to downtown Honolulu. We stopped at the Ala Moana mall and visited the “IT’SUGAR” candy store. The store is like Costco but for candy. They have a huge selection of candy products. And by “huge selection” I mean both in selection and size. There were 5LB gummy bears, 3LB gummy worms, extra long twizzlers, and huge boxes of other products such as sour patch kids, nerds, etc. The kids each picked out a couple of items. We headed back to the Bryan’s house afterwards where we chatted a little longer before heading to bed.