Hawaii 2009 - Day 3

Day 3: March 24, 2009

Tuesday was but another day of sightseeing for us. I'm starting to get it now: for the first time we visit a new place, we do a bunch of sightseeing. For every other time we visit that place, we have a much more chill, unplanned vacation.

This was definitely a good place to visit, though: Pearl Harbor.

Exit 15A

Definitely a place everyone should check out when you visit Hawaii. It was here that the Japanese's surprise attack that thrust the US into World War II was carried out.


"Tora Tora Tora" was the command given to begin the attack, which indicated that we were caught by complete surprise. And indeed we were. Over 1,000 soldiers died that day, many of them on the USS Arizona, after a torpedo hit the ship's main ammo dump and exploded. That day we went to visit the USS Arizona Memorial.

While we got there at 10:30am, the tickets we got for the shuttle boat to the memorial were for 1:30pm, so we hung around for a while, checked out the other parts of the museum, read up on some stuff, and took plenty of pictures.


There was a torpedo body recovered from the wreckage

We spotted a typo on one of the info boards...

Xavi was lifting up whole ships

I took a bunch of pictures of that ship in particular, but to be honest, I have no idea what it's name is. Anyone?

At around 12:30pm, we grabbed a bite to eat

$3 for a hot dog and a bag of chips, not bad for such a tourist hotspot. The lady in charge of the food stand was Filipino, and when my mom ordered in Tagalog, we got a free bag of chips xD
Before we knew it, it was almost 1:30, so we fell in line for the short 23min documentary about the attack on Pearl Harbor, and afterwards, we boarded the shuttle boat to head out to the memorial.

The memorial itself actually sits right above the sunken remains of the USS Arizona.


Took a few shots of the ship's remains just below the waterline from inside the memorial.

Shot of a section of the ship that sticks out of the water

We were all just taking it in. The tour guide mentioned to us that the ship is the final resting place of many of the sailors who died that day. The majority of the bodies weren't recovered.

At the very back of the memorial is a list of all the soldiers who perished that day

A WWII veteran took a moment to honor his fallen comrades

The memorial itself is a really nice, of course.

After about 30 minutes, it was time to head back to land.

Shot of the museum from the water

After that we went back to the car, and headed over to the local PX, or in this case, the NEX.


At Travis Airforce Base, its the PX for "Postal Exchange", but since this was a Navy base, this was the NEX: Naval Exchange.
Spotted a pretty nice E30, reminded me of all by buddies in DMC

Went inside, tried on some sunglasses

like I always do.
And after that we went back to the hotel, and out to the beach for the first time since our arrival (I know, it's sad, right? Especially since our hotel is literally right across the street from the beach).

Wheny my family arrived, they got a hold of a free boogie board from a family that was on their way out

So we decided to put it to good use. Darren kinda taught us how to skimboard a while back, and while this wasn't a skimboard, it was still quite skimmable. I turned out to be the best one at it :P


I was pretty good at it by the end of the day; I only had a few of these incidents:

Xavi wasn't too bad at it either.

But not as good as me xD

It's all good bro, you've got all the muscle


Probably the best picture I've ever taken of Xavi :)
Riz was having a go it at as well, but he just couldn't seem to get his balance or speed right

You gotta run faster, bro!

At the end of the day, he just preferred having us pull him around

Driiiiift

Beautiful day to be out on the beach.

I've actually put on ome weight since the last time I was running around with no shirt on :P
Philippines 2008:


Hawaii 2009:

I actually weigh 151 lbs now, which puts me in the body mass index "normal" category for once in my life xD
As the sun began to set, we took a few last-minute pictures

Walked a little ways down the beach to check out the show that was going on

And then it was back to the hotel to wash up, grab dinner, and take dad to the airport.

My dad's the senior budget analyst for Solany County Mental Health, and in these tough economic times, it's hard for him to get enough time to a decent vacation given his role, unfortunately. My mom jokes that she must be dispensible, since she's been allowed more vacation time than by dad these past two times.

We got all dressed up for dinner

We decided we'd have taste of where the whole Hawaiian BBQ thing started: L&L Hawaiian BBQ

Super OG.
They've got the usual menu, which we're more used to seeing in the mainland

But out here, they serve a lot of other stuff as well

It's Chinese-owned and operated on the Islands, so there's a touch of Chinese restaurant in L&L in Hawaii, or at least this one in particular.
I had my usual favorite: BBQ chicken

Got myself a hella dope shirt as well

And after that it was off to Honolulu airport to drop off dad

My dad's flight would leave at 9:50pm, and land in Los Angeles, where he would switch to another plane and fly to San Francisco Airport. Shortly after his arrival, he drove back home, showered up, dressed up, and went straight to work. Craziness. Well, that's my dad for you, always the hard worker :)
Afterwards we stopped by a local grocery store to pick up some cereal, because we had just ran out of Coco Puffs with Vanilla puffs. As we walked down the cereal aisle, I spotted this:

Peanut Butter Crunch. I haven't seen a box of these in ages. Every time I go to a Safeway in the mainland they never have it. We would have gotten it if it wasn't freakin $7. We eventually settled for some Reese's Puffs cereal, also one of my favorites.

And that concluded Day 3 for us.

-nesqu!k