Honolulu (January 26-27, 2017)
There is nothing remarkable about Honolulu as an American City except of course that it is tropical and beautiful. They have the same problems as continental American Cities, traffic jams, crime, bad areas, shopping centers and of course Starbucks and Walmart. There are however, many things of interest here. The Arizona Memorial being one.
The former Naval Area is now run by the National Park Service (NPS). The NPS have created many displays including a walking listening tour in a building housing the history of the Pearl Harbor Attack. Before we arrived in Honolulu, a lecture provided by the ship pointed out that the Japanese animosity towards America began in 1850 when Commodore Perry forced his way into Japan.At that time Japan was a feudal, emperor worshipping society with no modern armaments. Of course after the Americans came the other European Powers leaving Japan with a bad taste in its mouth. Then there was the rise of the military who in 50 years modernized a hide bound society. You may have heard this before, but apparently before the attack Admiral Yamamoto said, “For the first year we will run wild, after that there is no guarantee of success.”
The ticket to the memorial includes a 35-minute movie that is very interesting even though it relives all that we had seen previously in the displays. After the video we proceeded to the Navy run boat to the memorial. The boat tour is organized very well so that there are never too many people on the Memorial at any one time and one can take it all in as one wishes. Of course my memories go back to 1973 when you could go to the navy yard and they provided a free boat to the Memorial and then a tour of the harbor.
I stole the above from a post card. Tough to get this view.
Took this one myself upsetting the Navy person who needed to get the first group off...
That was not the only change in Honolulu in, what my son reminds me is 40+ years. Besides all the new high rise buildings, the most astonishing change to me was the Bishop Museum. When we first arrived, all I saw was modern brick buildings and I wondered what had happened. When we got beyond all those new buildings I saw the original and immediately recognized it. It has become the Smithsonian of Hawaii and now includes a science museum and even a planetarium where they impart information about how the early Polyunesians navigated using the stars. For those of you who have been there, Kamehameha’s yellow feather coat still hangs there, but now on the third and top floor instead of prominently in the first floor. The birds whose feathers made up that coat have only 6 yellow feathers. Hawaiians would catch the bird, pluck the 6 feathers and let the bird go. In a year they grow back. There are thousands of feathers in that cape…
Our last day in Honolulu I played hooky. Instead of going to Iolani Palace, I decided to experience more of modern day Honolulu, like Walmart… The Walmart is two stories and features an escalator next to the people escalator for your shopping cart . Much of the way to Walmart from the port is a pedestrian mall with markets in the middle that feature things such as fresh fruits, bakery goods, and tourist items. No fish or meat market! Plus flowers along the way. After exploring a discount clothing store we had a Starbucks and sat outside on a busy street watching the pedestrians and traffic.
Thursday was the first day of the Chinese New Year and on the way back to the ship we saw part of a celebration. I have a video of the “dragon” that rose up on its hind legs then its fore leg propelled by two men. To the side was a man playing the drums and a young boy hitting an upright chime.
