Finishing up in Honolulu

The morning after the wedding, I had to be up fairly early to make an appointment at the Apple store in Ala Moana Shopping Centre. As you have probably noticed I have not been able to post photos with my blog (very frustrating) and it turns out tht I have a problem with my Itunes store. My very patient and caring friend Nick, has been emailing me trying to solve the problem but it was beyond repair, so off the Apple store I went.

The good news is that the problem looks like being solved very soon (hopefully even tomorrow) and then I will update all my posts and fill in the the photos I have been taking.

After some wandering around and lunch, we decided to take it pretty easy in the afternoon. We headed back to the apartment and I went for a long swim in the pool while Russ slept on the sun-lounge. Guess all the excitement of the previous couple of days caught up with us!!!

Friday we wentured out to Pearl Harbour. We caught a shuttle bus out the front of the apartments and it dropped us off a little way up the street from the entry. Russ had already visited Pearl Harbour when our cruise visited Hawaii (about 3 years ago). Because time was timited then, he only explored the Aviation Museum. (I went shopping !!!!) This was his first choice as his Dad had been a pilot in New Guinea during WW2. This time we planned to visit the Arizona memorial and the site in general.

I must say that some of the things I do not enjoy are ... museums, history, war and killing. You can imagine then that Pearl Habour was not my first choice of how to spend a day. I basically left Russ to explore all the museums and exhibits on his own. I wandered around and took some photos with my new camera and just took in the scenery.

We then went into the theatre to watch a 15 minute film about the history and facts of the bombing on 7 December 1941. I found this extremely moving and very informative. We boarded a Navy boats for the very short trip to the Arizona memorial itself. This is the iconic white builidng you see on anything about Pearl Harbour. It is a very simple, stark memorial built over the remains of the sunken battleship. The ruins are the actual grave of approxiately 1100 men who never escaped the battleship before it sank after a direct bombing. It is supposed to be a place for no talking and just quiet contemplation. Unfortunately many people failed to understand this which I found really disrespectful.

If you look at the huge marble wall engraved with the names of all the men who lie beneath, you could not help but be moved and grateful for their sacrifice.

Our shuttle bus was very late picking us up, so we ended up getting stuck in peak hour traffic at the start of a long weekend (Memorial Day). Finally maded it back to base around 6pm. Long day.

Michael had organised a final get together for everyone in the nearest beach park. There was still a fair bit of drink left over from the wedding and they obviously could not take it with them, so anyone who was interested grabbed some food and met at the park. The best thing was that every Friday night there is a massive fireworks display right over the lagoon next to the park, so we also had free entertainment. Can't beat that!!!!!

It was a great way to finish off our time in Hawaii. Lots of the guests were heading home, a few going to the mainland for further adventures and some grabbing an extra few days of sunshine before they returned to Melbourne's winter. Farewells were said and then a longish walk back around the lagoon to our apartment.

We packed up everything before going to bed as we had a VERY early start this morning. The airport shuttle I had booked picked us up at 5:30 this morning and our flight left Oahu at 8:00am. We arrived in Los Angeles around 4:30pm and FINALLY got to our new 'home' just after 6pm. After a quick orientation walk, we grabbed some dinner, unpacked and as I type Russ is snoring his way to the land of nod!!!

Time to grab some sleep, so we can start our jam-packed schedule for the next few days. The is sooo much we want to see and do while we are here!!

Hope you enjoyed my post on the wedding. Hopefully I will be able to post lots of photos very soon. Thinking of you all xx