Day 3 ~ Pearl Harbor and a long day in Waikiki

Today I woke up and went down stairs for a small breakfast; the hostel offers toast, tea and coffee. One by one my friends woke up and joined me. Corey showed up and had a quick free bite as well, then we took The Bus to Pearl Harbor. It's free to walk in there since it is a memorial. But if you go there, remember that you can't bring any bags, purses or camera bags. You can either leave it in the car (if you have one) or check it in for $3. Fair enough, I guess they have to collect money some how. The boat tour out to the memorial is free as well. There are other tours you can do if you want, but they charge you. I think its enough to just walk around in the harbor, watch the movie they show, and take the boat out to Arizona. There are many great places to take pictures and you still get to see everything, even though you might not be able to walk inside of it. It's cool to have been there. To have seen the ships and the missiles and put some extra thought in to the reality of Pearl Harbor. That it's not only something you read about in school or a movie you watch. We got tickets for the boat out to the Arizona monument and thats when you think a little bit deeper about where you are. That Arizona is a grave. That her crew fought for their lives in there, when time was ticking and they couldn't get out as the water filled the ship. Imagine what a cruel death. To fight for your life to get out, surrounded by your friends who are as panicked as you, and nothing helps, so you slowly drown. Some people were saying that the US let Japan attack Pearl Harbor so that they would have an excuse to declare war. I don't really believe in that. I don't want to.
To see the monument was a bit different then I had thought. I guess I didn't have to many expectations, but still. As we stood there taking pictures, just watching her laying underneath us, we could see small bubbles of oil slowly leaking out. They were giving the surface a glance of a rainbow. It's like she's been crying since December 7th 1941.

We caught The Bus and managed to get a free ride back. Skills!
At the bus stop we saw and talked to John for the first time.
While on the bus, we decided to jump off in China Town and explore the shops and the fresh market. Again we bump in to John (reading his big map at the bus stop), and this time we actually introduce ourselves. He was about to check out China Town and some historic sites, so we joined him. We checked out the last queen of Hawaii's palace and it's surroundings and then we headed in to the shopping areas after swinging like Tarzan in some cool trees. The roots of the trees were growing from the branches down to the ground. Do I have to write that it was the most fun thing that day so far?!

Then we entered ROSS, good old ROSS, which is everywhere in Hawaii! Where you find a Walmart, you find a ROSS. Actually I think we found three times more ROSS stores then Walmarts. LOVED IT! If I ever go back to Hawaii, with a bigger suitcase, I will shop like a crazy girl for dresses and shoes! But not this time, it was to early in the trip to start shopping. We got what we needed; sun screen, hats and sunglasses. All for $15! Back in Waikiki ONE hat is $15, so guess who left the store with a smile up to her ears?

Now it was snack time! We went in to a small smoothie shop and picked out our shakes. Corey's was coolest by far, a super pink dragon fruit shake. And he'll remember it forever, cause I helped him stain one of his favorite shirts! (Sorry about that.. again.) Anyways, we kept on walking with our tasty drinks and hit up a less pleasant part of China Town. We ended up in the 'Bum Park' and it was sort of creepy. 3, 2, 1 and we were outta there. To see as much as possible, we decided to walk back to Waikiki instead of taking The Bus. The walk ended up being long and pretty boring. There isn't to much to see in between C.T and Waikiki. I advice you to take The Bus! It's only $2.50 and if you wear flops, it's definitely worth it, save your poor feet! It's not worth walking the 4 miles, especially not if you're making them into 6 miles while walking in circles... (I mean, not that I ever would do that.. I'm just saying..right.)

With aching feet we decided to see the sunset from the Hilton resorts lagoon. (Girls, 6 miles in the wrong flops is worse then a night in the wrong heels!) Then all of a sudden we find ourselves in the middle of a recording for Hawaii 5.O. Awesome or what?! Instead of walking by, we join the crowed that is gathered around the up side down crashed car and we play along. The camera was rolling and we got to be in the crowd! Yay! Need to find that episode, maybe we're in it! One of the actors were the guy who play Jin-Soo Kwon from LOST! We saw him act and we even stood right next to him - snap that we didn't get a picture together! He's not really my favorite actor, but hey, actor as actor. When you just walk in to them at the street - it's cool whoever it is! A little bombed about the fact that we didn't catch that last picture, but still excited about the fact that we were there we keep walking around in the Hilton resort. Missing the sunset of course. To end our night we hit up an all you can eat buffet; Smorgy, well earned after our long day. Resting our feet and learning how to properly pronounce Smörgåsbord we filled our table with plates and drinks and just ate all we could. Did I mention that we only had 30 minutes to eat before closing? ... I am happy there are no pictures of us eating that night..

The boys called the night and I headed back to the hostel, we had decided to meet up early next morning and rent scooters! Wooopie! Did I end up going to bed early? Pssshhhy! No no no. I met up with Adam, and again, it was time for a midnight swim. It wasn't as nice as my first night in Hawaii, but oh it felt good to soak my poor little feet in the ocean. Adam is from Idaho, and he recently flew over to Honolulu to try his luck finding a job.

Benjamin and Philip at Lulu's

Second time back at the hostel I talked to the counter guy and asked him a billion questions about where to find my turtles. Booom, I stumbled in to a new group of people and zip zap, it's time to hit up the reggae and the bars! Waikiki is supposed to be Hawaii's Miami. Well, not tonight, last call at 1 am when we arrive. Outside Lulu's we end up meeting some new people (again) and we head to their hotel room for a private little party. We had some drinks and went back to the beach. It wasn't as fun anymore, I found myself missing Corey and John so I called it the night and headed back home. 5.30 am I reached my room and set the alarm for 8 am. No doubt that I sucked every moment I could out of my second day in Hawaii.

At the hotel room before the beach