8/31/15: Somber time at Pearl Harbor & Random Obsevations

Started the day by going to Pearl Harbor, located about an hour west of Waikiki. Steven had wanted to go there for years. Did you know that Hawaiians used to harvest oysters and clams in the harbor and thus the 'pearl' connection? I sure didn't.

The only time you'll see Steven without his fanny pack, I bet, this trip.

We’d read about the possibility of 3 plus hour wait times but luckily we were whisked right in, having divested ourselves of camera bag, my purse and Steven’s beloved fanny pack (more on that I am sure from him another time!). We both felt quite bereft without ‘our stuff’ and hoped it would be safe in the car while visiting the fabulous museum and Pearl Harbor sites. Normally one is told to take your valuables with you but here, we needed to leave them all in the car.

The Tree of Life ‘inspires contemplation of healing, peace and reconciliation 

for all people and all races.’ The same design is incorporated into the memorial itself.

Our timed tickets started with a very well produced video of the major events that transpired leading up to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and the massive destruction that ensued. Then a group of us were taken in a small Navy boat to the site of the USS Arizona Memorial, built in 1962 over the destroyed battleship. 

Navy ferry boat transporting visitors back to shore
from the USS Memorial.

USS Missouri on the left and the USS Arizona Memorial on the right.

USS Missouri: 20 stories high and 3 football fields long; nicknamed ‘Mighty Mo.’

USS Arizona Memorial, dedicated in 1962, floats above the ship that became a tomb.

Vestiges of the original battleship above and below.

We could see small amounts of oil rising to the surface as there are still over 500,000 gallons of oil left in the warship below. About 1 quart of oil is released per day.

These photos might be too rah rah for my Canadian family and friends
but they seemed perfectly apt in the moment.
Very moving at the stark white memorial for me was listening to an older volunteer recount in great detail what happened on that tragic day, December 7, 1941.  

Names of all those who died on board on 12/7/1941. This father was trying to explain what had happened so many years ago to his 4-5 year old daughter. They were there for a long time.

Since 1982, the U.S. Navy has allowed survivors of the USS Arizona to be interred in the ship’s wreckage upon their deaths. Following a full military funeral at the Arizona memorial, the cremated remains are placed in an urn and then deposited by divers beneath one of the Arizona’s gun turrets. I found this to be especially moving knowing the survivors wished to be forever with their fellow comrades in arms.

The Tree of  Life with the young girl and her endless patience.

USS Bowfin Submarine Museum: Located very near the USS Arizona Memorial
and visible on our return from the Navy boat.

Information from the Pearl Harbor Visitors’ Center:

Zachary: Bet you knew that RADAR is an acronym for Radio Detecting and Ranging, right?

The attack on Pearl Harbor sparked widespread fear of sabotage and espionage but not a single confirmed case of sabotage by the nearly 150,000 people of Japanese ancestry (40% of Hawaii’s population was of Japanese descent) was ever proven. On 2/19/1942, President Roosevelt signed an Executive Order which led to the internment of nearly 129,000 men, women and children, two thirds of whom were American citizens.

Decided then to drive up the western side of the island to see how it looked compared to the other parts of Oahu we had seen yesterday. We were again amazed by the beautiful beaches, the number of beach parks, stunning ocean views and the lush, green gorgeous  mountain ridges. 

These photos  are all from Kea'au Beach Park, located very close to the northern tip of Oahu on the western side. It had been rainy for the previous hour or so, so Steven understandably didn't feel like driving any further north. 

We saw ridges/'mountains' like this all over the island. Unfortunately my camera
didn't pick up the dark, lush green that the hills/ridges actually were. They
reminded me of visiting Scotland some 40 years ago. Please don't tell me I am that old!

Observations/surprises after just 2 days in Hawaii:

Lots of BBQ places all around the island.

Proliferation of heavy duty overhead electrical wires away from Honolulu and Waikiki (so much so it reminded us strongly of Cambodia). 

Certainly NO ‘no shirts, no shoes, no service rule’ in much of the island even in fast food places and grocery stores, etc. 

Bread products hideously expensive: $9.50 for 2 loaves of bread, $5 for 4 hoagie rolls, my daily fix of Little Debbie Brownies a staggering $3.50 each for a 6 pack instead of the labeled $1.79.

Beeping of car horns was almost non existent – oh, what peace and quiet (had read in the AAA tour book that horns can only be used in an emergency).

Beach parks, often with modern play structures too – Al, I thought of you here! – dotted every few miles around the island. 

Quite a few signs up eschewing development and imploring people to support their beaches and communities.

We were both very shocked how terribly poor much of the island looked as we drove almost the entire way around it. So many of the homes we saw appeared to be lower economic class and many of them, little more than huts really. Many of the schools we saw, and we saw a lot of them too, looked like they occupied former military barracks. 

I know that we were only there for 2 full days and didn’t see many subdivisions and no drop dead gorgeous homes that surely are located away from the coast roads BUT, what we saw was not at all what we anticipated.

Steven and I both wonder how the island of Oahu compares in these ways to the other Hawaiian islands. If you have been to others, I would love to know.

8/30: A Day in Paradise aka Hawaii

We finally left the US mainland on Saturday, August 29^th after attending our close friends’ daughter’s beautiful wedding the night before. Steven was so excited to leave Dodge, he had had his bag packed and zipped for a solid week beforehand – I, not so much!

We had long ago decided to break up the trip to Australia with 3 nights in Honolulu, our first trip to the Hawaiian Islands. Speaking of Dodge, our hotel, the Prince Waikiki, was a bit dodgy: small room with no cleaning service, phone, etc but the price was great and the location out of this world, only 2 blocks from the fabulous waters of Waikiki Beach. And it did have great wifi, a 2 burner stove and a pot so we could make tea to our hearts’ content; for us, almost all else is secondary after all!

Imagine all this just 2 blocks fom the hotel.

This was on the pavement; language guide anyone?

In our rented car, we stopped at nearby Diamond Head hoping to take in the beautiful views of the ocean and so many swimmers and surfboarders having fun way down below. I guess other people had thought of that well before we did as there was no parking spot at the top of the mountain. Oh well, lots more to see on the island, so off we went continuing our drive around the eastern and northern part of the island. 

Stopped instead at Hanamua Nature Preserve, a gorgeous beach nestled in a bay of the same name. Everyone watched a mandatory video before being able to walk or take the trolley down to the beach and coral preserve. I think we were the only people not wearing swimsuits and not lugging fins and snorkels. 

 It was blistering hot and very humid so I attempted to find whatever piece of shade I could while Steven stood in the shallows and gazed at the stunningly colored fish.

View of Hanauma Bay from the top before walking down to the beach.

Much of the road on the east side of the island clung to the edge with steep cliffs down to the water’s edge on the right and verdant, lush mountain ridges on the left. We saw lots of surfers in the beautiful clear blue waters as we rounded so many curves in the road – this is what paradise must look like, we thought.

Stopped at Waimea Valley Park on the north side of the island to take a break and stretch our tired legs for an hour or so. The park must be a favorite for locals as many were again ‘dressed’ in just swimsuits ready to cool themselves off in the falls at the end of a mile long hike through fabulous botanical gardens and native cultural sites. The colors and shapes of the flowers were just incredible and were mostly new to us mainlanders. 

The cannonball tree, part of the Brazil nut family.

A number of times throughout the day, the weather changed from lovely sunshine
to a fine rainy mist just like in this picture in a matter of minutes. We didn't mind it it at
all as the 'mist' wasa awelcome relief from the searing heat and humidity.

We were fortunate that a show promoting native Polynesian dances was taking place near the falls – imagine having hips that sway like that. I could but dream!

(BTW – I am writing this on a word document on the Sydney-bound flight on 9/2 and we just passed the Equator and International Date Line. Our watches should be on Sydney time now, which is 20 hours ahead of Honolulu time, which is 4 hours behind MST – at least I think that’s right!)

Hope you enjoyed reading this lighthearted look of our 1st day in Hawaii!

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Some background to this year’s adventures:

( My apologies for not getting this 1st post on the blog well before this. My plan is to post every 2 days as long as I have about 3 hours in the evenings to post. That will be easy to do in the first part of the trip knowing there will be ready access to wifi in each of the countries, But, when we reach Laos and Myanmar, I understand that wifi access will be very spotty and/or nonexistent. I thank you in advance for your understanding.) 

 At long last our second long trip around the world, starting westward this time, has finally begun after many months of planning and countless hours spent online. This year’s adventures will take us through, in order, Australia, Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar (formerly known as Burma except by the US Government and most US media outlets who still use the colonial name), Malaysia, Nepal and India with one final night in London before heading stateside again on December 18^th.

Many of you may be asking yourselves how we came up with this list of countries to visit. We knew from the get go that we wanted to explore Australia and return to Southeast Asia since our first foray to that part of the world in the fall of 2013. On that trip we had ‘only’ discovered Thailand and Cambodia, enough to know that we wanted to come back to the region sometime soon, God willing. Steven traveled to Laos, Myanmar, Nepal and India almost 45 years ago but hadn’t spent the time in each then we will have plus we’ll be seeing new cities and areas in each country so hopefully it will be like visiting the region for the first time for him!

All of our long trips start out much shorter than their eventual lengths – we sure didn’t say to ourselves, well, we have this arbitrary 112 days this year to ‘hit the road’ and where shall we go to fill up those days? It was much more a matter of having a ballpark idea of possible countries, looking endlessly online at Trip Advisor particularly to see what other travelers raved about, where that fit into our broad interests of cultural and religious sites, getting out of our comfort zones and being adventurous, getting off the beaten track in between seeing some of the world’s great cities in SE Asia, and also finding inexpensive flights to get from Point A to B to C. For example, neither Singapore nor Malaysia were on our radar at all and were only added because it was cheaper to get to Vietnam from Indonesia from Singapore and, likewise, to fly all the way south to Malaysia from Myanmar to Nepal. So, we decided in those cases, to make the most of it and spend a few days in each city.

We know many long haul travelers prefer to have a few flights and accommodations booked along the way and leave the rest up to chance and a come what may attitude. Every summer for 33 years, Steven and I have traveled at length in the US and Canada and we’ve always knew at least roughly where we’d be every night along the way. We like to plan our trips/vacations/adventures as much as possible before actually taking them so we don’t, in our minds, ‘waste our time’ on the road planning what we’ll be doing and where we’ll be staying. For us old folks, it’s reassuring coming into a strange city often late at night and know where we’ll be resting our weary bones! The same philosophy applies with knowing what day trips have been planned and we can look forward to the next day.

We are so thankful that we have both the financial resources and good physical health to embark on such an extended trip like this. We are also very appreciative of all of you who have wished us safe travels and those especially who helped us get ready for this adventure. Knowing some of you will keep an eye out and on for our youngest and also on our home while we're traveling the world gives us a profound sense of peace and thankfulness.

Early update

Since we've gotten back from the last trip Annie has worked tirelessly to plan out our new adventure. And in the middle of all her trip planning, volunteer work and exercising she still finds time to compile a list of all the food banks in the Denver Metro area. What a woman!
We're pretty close now to having all the major flights and accomodations in place and I'm now in the process of putting the itinerary on the computer. Although we know where we're going and for how long, we still need to figure out exactly what we want to see and do in each place. Incredibly exciting.

A few pictures from previous trips:

The Great Wall

Red Square

Iceland

On the Trans-Siberian railway

Bangkok

Auschwitz

Berlin

Xian - Terra Cotta Warriors

Xian

Angor Watt at sunrise

Siem Reap

Gdansk

Warsaw

Krakow

Prague

Kutna Hora Bone Church

Budapest

Sofia

Istanbul

Prague