Woods Wandering: Honolulu April 11, 2012

We arrived in Honolulu at 9:00 am. Beautiful blue skies, in the low 80's.

Aloha Honolulu

Honolulu from bow of ship

We opted to do the Arizona Memorial & Sightseeing Tour. We boarded our bus at the Harbor and proceeded to downtown Honolulu where we saw a tour of the city, the King's Palace and various State, Federal and County buildings. We had the opportunity to get off the bus and explore the area. Some of the side streets were blocked off and closed as they were going to be doing some filming for Hawaii Five-O. Got a good picture of the Headquarters, some crew and the car from the show.

King Kamehameha

Eternal Flame

Hawaii Five-O crew member

From downtown we continued on our tour to the Punchbowl Crater. This is the National Cemetery for the Pacific Fleet. All the remains that were found from Pearl Harbor are buried at this Crater as well as any others that die from the Pacific Fleet. It is an impressive site with beautiful views of downtown.

National Cemetery of Pacific Fleet

Flag flies at half mast

Memorial

Honolulu view from Punchbowl Crater

From the Punchbowl we continued our journey to Pearl Harbor. The whole experience was very impressive and awe inspiring. We saw very moving and touching footage of the actual attack on Pearl Harbor. From this short footage we proceeded to board a boat to take us to the USS Arizona Memorial. Words can't describe how you feel standing on the Memorial. When we returned to the mainland, we explored Pearl Harbor. It is very impressive. If you ever have the opportunity to visit Pearl Harbor, I would highly recommend.

Entrance to Pearl Harbor Memorial

View as we approach in boat

View as we get off boat to walk on USS Arizona

Flag on USS Arizona

Parts of USS Arizona still above water

Rusty on USS Arizona

Memorial Wall on USS Arizona

From Pearl Harbor we returned to Honolulu Harbor. Since we still had time in Honolulu, we took the Metro Bus (only cost us $2.50 including our return transfer) to Waikiki Beach. While waiting for our bus, we met a homeless man who claimed to be God - an interesting experience. Loved the Waikiki Beach area. All kinds of restaurants, shops, hotels, etc. Great place for people watching. From the Beach, we had a nice view of Diamond Head. In order to get our return bus to Honolulu Harbor, we had to wander through the International Market Place - a very unique place. We later saw an episode of Hawaii Five-O that was shot in the Market Place - very cool to know we had been there.