Waikiki, first impression is Vegas minus the casinos and
plus a beach. The hotel we stayed in was
right on the main road that follows along the beach, a four lane, one way,
constant stream of traffic. All along
the sidewalks were shops ranging from Cartier and Ferrari to the cheapest
tourist junk you can imagine. The street
is lined with sky scrapers and people stream along the sidewalks all day and
night. There are people trying to push
flyers for all kinds of stuff into your hand and booths for tours and shows everywhere. At night the street performers come out, the
caricature artists, the guys who make amazing pictures with spray paint, the
balloon twisters, the lady who will let you take a picture with her parrots for
$10., and my favorite…….the street mimes.
The first night we saw a guy who looked sort of Michael Jacksonish, the
second night we saw a guy all dressed in a suit made from newsprint. He had cool sunglasses that were made from
the crossword puzzles. Our hotel was
nice, we were on the 25th floor, with a wonderful view of the beach
and Diamond head. We faced east so could
see the sky change color as the sun rose and as the sun went down the lights of
the houses going up the hillside were beautiful. Wednesday we had a tour of the city and Pearl
Harbor. On our way to Pearl Harbor the
guide pointed out the hospital where the President was born, several places
where he lived and went to school, and the Baskin Robbins where he had his
first job. We learned that Obama’s tuti
(grandmother) was the first woman in Hawaii to become a vice president of a
bank. Pearl Harbor is very
impressive. The grounds are well kept
up, there are still military ships as well as commercial ships in various
areas. They show a film of what lead up
to the bombing which includes a lot of actual footage, it was interesting to
see events progress from the Japanese viewpoint and to learn that the radar
operators detected the Japanese planes coming in but were expecting US forces
from California that day so did not sound the alarm until it was too late. Someone in charge had decided that the safest
way to dock the battleships was stem to stern in rows of 2. This made the torpedoing of ships very
easy. There were monuments listing the
names of the men who died, it makes what happened very real. We also learned that all but 3 of the
battleships were eventually repaired and returned to service during the
war. We boarded a small ferry to go out
to the place where the Arizona was sunk.
There is a platform with windows over the site and many features of the
ship’s deck are visible. A very touching
experience. Back on land at the
visitor’s center are 4 men who were at Pearl Harbor that day and survived the
air raid. They talk to folks and sign
souvenirs. On the way back our tour took
us through the city, we saw a couple of the old palaces and some other historic
areas. We also saw a protest at a church
that is exhuming remains from an old cemetery to make room for construction of
a new facility. I asked about the men in
skirts I had seen and found out that it is traditional attire for men from
Tonga and a few other islands. They wear
these black wrap around skirts, usually knee length or a little longer. I wonder if they don’t wear what the Scotsmen
don’t wear under their kilts. Hang
loose??? After the tour we ate at
“Dukes” a restaurant founded by a famous surfer, it is open air, facing the
beach and was very pleasant except for the pigeons. Pigeons are a nuisance everywhere but having
them run over your feet while you eat is a little disconcerting. After lunch I convinced my mom to walk out to
the beach and go toward our hotel by walking at the water’s edge. When we came back out to the street, I
couldn’t see the hotel and was not sure which direction we should go. I hailed a cab, and it turned out we were
only about a block and a half away, but who knew? I tipped the driver well and we were all
happy. After a bit of a lie down and
clean up we headed out to dinner. We had
seen an Italian bistro on our afternoon stroll and were able to get back
there. I had roasted beets, red and
golden, and an eggplant and zucchini soufflé.
YUMMMMM. We strolled just a
little after that, back to the hotel to get ready for our flight to Kauai in
the morning.
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