We continue with our report of Day 2 in Hawaii! (If you missed Day 1, you can start here.) We had a packed schedule on Saturday, June 12, so we woke up early to get some breakfast — we stopped by the local McDonald’s.
Now before you go and judge us for going to a McDonald’s while vacationing in an exotic place like Hawaii, please take into consideration that the main purpose was to try this:
Only in Hawaii will McDonald’s serve up spam breakfasts. Of course, I couldn’t eat the egg, so I just had a bite of Dan’s spam and ordered a cherry pie instead. The spam was not too bad! We then went on our way to drive over to Kualoa Ranch, where we had made a reservation to go on the super-touristy movie tour! The Kualoa Ranch is where famous films such as Jurassic Park, 50 First Dates, Pearl Harbor, Windtalkers, and Godzilla were filmed (along with a host of others that I can’t remember right now…). It was also used to film several scenes in the popular television show LOST.
They had some photos of Japanese celebrities who had come to visit the ranch:
You can see more photos from our movie tour at Kualoa Ranch here. Upon completing the tour, we jumped back into the car and drove down to Aiea, where we visited the historic sites of Pearl Harbor.
We had limited time to spend at Pearl Harbor, but the one thing we wanted to make sure we saw was the USS Arizona Memorial. The USS Arizona Memorial grew out of wartime desire to establish some sort of memorial at Pearl Harbor to honor those who died in the attack, and it is accessible by boat.
Pearl Harbor is definitely a sobering experience, as are most wartime memorial sites, but I am really glad that we went. I’ve always been very interested in American history, and so I was really glad that I was able to see firsthand the site of the attack of the “day which would live in infamy.” It meant a lot for me to be able to actually see the wreckage of the USS Arizona and to pay my respects to those lost. (See the rest of our photos from Pearl Harbor.) After leaving Pearl Harbor, we decided to check out the Aloha Swap Meet, which was also in Aiea. It is one of the largest flea markets in Hawaii.
The swap meet was interesting to look around in, but there wasn’t anything that was so amazing that we felt compelled to buy. It was definitely a neat place to look around and explore, though. After walking around so much at Pearl Harbor and at the Aloha Swap Meet, we were starving! We promptly headed over to Honolulu to enjoy a late lunch.
After lunch, we walked around Honolulu to see the area and do some window shopping.
In the late afternoon, we headed over to the Kahala Hotel & Resort for the main event of the day, and one of the prime reasons we scheduled our Hawaii trip to be in mid-June: to attend our friends Yumi and Mark’s wedding. 🙂
Unfortunately, there was no photo-taking allowed at the ceremony, so we snuck in a few right after the ceremony, when the bride and groom were taking group photos.
We had to retire a little early and couldn’t stay until the very end of the reception, because we had to make the drive all the way back up to the Turtle Bay in North Shore, but we had a wonderful time and were so happy to be able to attend our friends’ big day. (More photos here.)
Cheers to their happily ever after! 末永ããŠå¹¸ã›ã«ï¼ï¼ï¼