It’s still raining today, but not torrentially down pouring. We’re both rejuvenated and ready to go after our day off yesterday. We decided that Pearl Harbor is appropriate to do in the dreary weather, so we headed out.
We did Pearl Harbor back in ’07, but they’ve made a huge improvement to the museums and the structure of the place, and it’s absolutely amazing. Learning about the events of that day from survivors, reading letters sent home, and just seeing how it all developed and played out is humbling. It really makes you stand back and think. They told the story before and leading up to the Pearl Harbor, and the effect that the war had on the culture here on the island. It was so informative, and so touching. Seriously, such an amazing thing to go see. We went over to the USS Arizona Memorial, which, like it did last time, gave me goose bumps. Over 1400 men on the Arizona will forever lie here. The ship still leaks oil from almost 60 years ago. The legend goes that the boat will stop leaking oil when the last survivor from Pearl Harbor has passed.
It started torrentially down pouring while we were on the memorial. Everyone ran to the front of the boat to get in line for the ferry to ship them back to the main Pearl Harbor exhibit building, and I took the opportunity to take some pictures of the wall with the soldiers names engraved in it who perished that day. It was eerily empty, but it’s always so hard to get a picture in there because of the mass amount of people that swarm into that area. I made Chris stand in the middle for a pic too, which he wasn’t too pleased about, but obliged J.
We hung out at Pearl Harbor for about a half a day, ate a late lunch, and then we went to downtown Honolulu to the Division of Forestry to pick up a few trail maps. We figured this would help us from getting lost in the woods on our next go round. The maps actually aren’t too detailed and accurate, but they give enough of an idea of where to at least find the trails. I think we’re leaving 10 mile hikes off our list for now.
From there, we headed to the Dole Pineapple Plant Plantation to get our pineapple ice-cream. They own 2800 acres of pineapple crops, and they’re home to the world’s largest pineapple growing farm. Their pineapple ice-cream is absolutely delicious.
We went out and checked out their gardens, but didn’t do any of the tours. They were closed due to bad weather. To be honest, there’s enough to see on your own that it seems silly to pay the exorbitant tourist fee to get a guided tour of the planation or the pineapple maze. We learned some cool new things that we didn’t know previously…it takes 20 months for a pineapple to harvest the first time, then 14 months the 2nd and 3rd time. A pineapple will only re-grow 3 times. Also, to plant the pineapple, you’re supposed to just twist off the top, not cut it off like we’ve done previously. From there, put it in water until the roots start growing, and then plant it.
They also showed us how to pick out a fresh pineapple…the eyes need to be big and even, color doesn’t matter, it shouldn’t have a pineapple smell, and you should be able to reach in and pluck out a green topper thingy mabobber (yes, that was their technical term for it too) from the center without much effort. After you cut a pineapple, you should rinse off the acid before eating. I actually never knew that you should rinse pineapples prior to eating them.
In spite of the rain, we had a really good and educational day. Hawaii is still beautiful, even when it’s raining. There are lots of rainbows!
No comments:
Post a Comment