December
12, Wednesday
Iolani Palace, the only palace in all of the USA
Honolulu is all decked out for Christmas
State Capitol Building
Pearl Harbour Memorial Site. Notice the cut-out diagram in the monolyth on the left. That is the "Tree of Life".
2,400 Americans were killed and 1,200 were wounded on Dec 7, 1941
Battleship USS Missouri
Circle of Remembrance, for the 130 ships destroyed or damaged in the Pearl Harbour attack
Artist's depiction of the USS Arizona Memorial
A huge dome of some kind at the other end of the Harbour. Something being repaired before being shipped back to Alaska. In the foreground, Admiral Clarey Bridge to Ford Island
USS Bowfin submarine
USS Arizona Memorial: The “Tree of Life” incorporated into the Memorial, symbolizes the interconnectedness of all life on earth, was incorporated into the design of the memorial by its architect, Alfred Preis.
The Memorial Building sits across the wreckage of the USS Arizona. You can still see parts of the ship in the water below. Small amounts of oil from the wreckage continue to seep up to the surface and these are called “the tears” of those who lost their lives that day onboard the bombed ship.
The outline of the ship below the monument
The Monument is an open structure and has a memorial room at the far end with the names of all the men who died on the USS Arizona that day.
If I ever return to Honolulu, I will definitely do a lot
more touring on my own and forego the organized ones. Buses 20 & 42 would have brought me here
directly from Waikiki and I could have spent as much time as I wanted touring
Ford Island as well as the USS Missouri.
I had a few minutes to finish seeing one of the museum displays before
returning to our mini-bus for the return trip to the city.
I asked the driver to drop me off in downtown Honolulu instead of returning to Waikiki, so that I could visit the Iolani Palace, completed in 1882.
The gazebo and grounds of the palace
Iolani Palace
The main entrance to the Palace, with its grand staircase
The throne room and official reception area
One of the "salons" where they relaxed
This is the only Palace to exist in all of the United State of America and was the official residence of King Kalākaua and Queen Lili'uokalani, who were the last in a long line of ruling Hawaiian royalty.
Statue of Queen Lili’uokalani “The last reigning monarch of the Hawaiian islands. She felt her mission was to preserve the islands for their native residents. In 1898, Hawaii was annexed to the United States and Queen Liliuokalani was forced to give up her throne.
Just across from the palace and the statue, is the State Capitol Building, with an open air interior
The huge structure is surrounded by water, just like the Hawaiian Islands.
In front of the State Capitol Building is a statue of Father Damien a Roman Catholic priest from Belgium and member of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. After sixteen years caring for the physical, spiritual,and emotional needs of those in the leper colonyon the island of Moloka’i, he eventually contracted and died of the disease, and is considered a "martyr of charity".
I continued my wal to go and see St. Andrew’s Cathedral French Gothic architectural style, erected in 1867.
The outside didn't look very impressive, but the inside certainly was
It wasn't until I turned to go back down the main aisle of the cathedral towards the doors that I realized that the entire back wall was a stained glass window. You can’t really tell from the outside.
I decided that I needed to find a restaurant where I could eat lunch, and a rest room. I walked down Alakea Street towards the Harbour and also kept an eye open for a tourist information centre, since I still had not found a tourist map of the downtown area. (There are maps showing the shopping areas EVERYWHERE however.) I cut across a shopping plaza and finally located a restroom. I continued on my way passed Punchbowl Street to South Street where it meets Ala Moana Blvd and finally located a bus stop. As I waited to cross the boulevard a number 19 bus passed by. CRAP ! Missed it by “THIS” much! Had to wait another 20 minutes, standing on my sore feet, waiting for either a number 20 or 42 to come by to return me to Waikiki.
Waiting for the bus, impressive million dollar condos across the way.
I had an excursion today to the Pearl Harbour & City
Tour. Pick up was at 7:15 because it was
a half day tour. The mini-bus gave a
very abbreviated tour of downtown Honolulu.
The City Tour portion was extremely disappointing since it was just a “drive by” kind of tour, apart from one stop at the King Kamehameha Statue.
King Kamehameha, Supreme Court Building at back
Honolulu is all decked out for Christmas
State Capitol Building
We drove up to the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific
at Punchbowl Crater (extinct Puowaina volcanic crater) and Lookout, but we were
not allowed to get off the bus. Among the first interred here were 776
casualties from the Dec 7 attack on Pearl Harbour.
In addition to the fact that it was raining, the
reflections from the bus windows did not allow for good photography. It
definitely looked like something I wanted to visit, so I’ll have to take the
“Hop-on / Hop-off” bus on Friday and come back here, as well as climb Diamond
Head. This part of the tour was a
rip-off.
Our tour tickets to the USS Arizona Memorial were for
9:30 and we arrived at the Pearl Harbour Visitor Centre a few minutes before 8:50am. We had a bit more than half an hour to walk
around the site. I opted to rent the
Audio Guide, as recommended by one of the park guides. Definitely worth it; it was narrated by Jamie
Lee Curtis and also provided the sounds from the bombing and appropriate
background music that made the visit even more moving. Many portions of the tape were recorded by
soldiers and other individuals who were on the island at the time of the
bombing.
2,400 Americans were killed and 1,200 were wounded on Dec 7, 1941
Battleship USS Missouri
Circle of Remembrance, for the 130 ships destroyed or damaged in the Pearl Harbour attack
Artist's depiction of the USS Arizona Memorial
A huge dome of some kind at the other end of the Harbour. Something being repaired before being shipped back to Alaska. In the foreground, Admiral Clarey Bridge to Ford Island
USS Bowfin submarine
Ford Island & Naval Air Station, Pearl Harbour
At 9:30, the appointed time, I was at the loading area to get to the Arizona Memorial. We were first herded into a theater to watch a 20 minute movie, and then boarded the launch which would take us across Pearl Harbour off the coast of Ford Island, to enter the Memorial site.
The Memorial Building sits across the wreckage of the USS Arizona. You can still see parts of the ship in the water below. Small amounts of oil from the wreckage continue to seep up to the surface and these are called “the tears” of those who lost their lives that day onboard the bombed ship.
Dec 7, 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbour, where a huge fleet
of 130 ships was docked around Ford Island.
21 ships were bombed that day and two completely destroyed. Most of the others were repaired and used
during the continuing war against the Japanese.
I asked the driver to drop me off in downtown Honolulu instead of returning to Waikiki, so that I could visit the Iolani Palace, completed in 1882.
The gazebo and grounds of the palace
Iolani Palace
The main entrance to the Palace, with its grand staircase
The throne room and official reception area
One of the "salons" where they relaxed
This is the only Palace to exist in all of the United State of America and was the official residence of King Kalākaua and Queen Lili'uokalani, who were the last in a long line of ruling Hawaiian royalty.
Statue of Queen Lili’uokalani “The last reigning monarch of the Hawaiian islands. She felt her mission was to preserve the islands for their native residents. In 1898, Hawaii was annexed to the United States and Queen Liliuokalani was forced to give up her throne.
Just across from the palace and the statue, is the State Capitol Building, with an open air interior
The huge structure is surrounded by water, just like the Hawaiian Islands.
In front of the State Capitol Building is a statue of Father Damien a Roman Catholic priest from Belgium and member of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. After sixteen years caring for the physical, spiritual,and emotional needs of those in the leper colonyon the island of Moloka’i, he eventually contracted and died of the disease, and is considered a "martyr of charity".
The outside didn't look very impressive, but the inside certainly was
It wasn't until I turned to go back down the main aisle of the cathedral towards the doors that I realized that the entire back wall was a stained glass window. You can’t really tell from the outside.
I decided that I needed to find a restaurant where I could eat lunch, and a rest room. I walked down Alakea Street towards the Harbour and also kept an eye open for a tourist information centre, since I still had not found a tourist map of the downtown area. (There are maps showing the shopping areas EVERYWHERE however.) I cut across a shopping plaza and finally located a restroom. I continued on my way passed Punchbowl Street to South Street where it meets Ala Moana Blvd and finally located a bus stop. As I waited to cross the boulevard a number 19 bus passed by. CRAP ! Missed it by “THIS” much! Had to wait another 20 minutes, standing on my sore feet, waiting for either a number 20 or 42 to come by to return me to Waikiki.
Waiting for the bus, impressive million dollar condos across the way.
When I got back to Waikiki, I stopped in at a small shopping plaza called King’s
Village near my hotel to have lunch as a 50’s style diner. Great food by the way.
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