Day 2 Wednesday 29 October

A quick breakfast at one of the many food outlets at street level then it was off to Pearl Harbour Memorial Park for the day, another nerve wracking drive through peak hour traffic. Pearl Harbour has been set out very well & we managed to pick up free tickets to head straight out to the USS Arizona Memorial, a monument built over the wreck of a ship sunk during the Japanese attack that brought the USA into the 2^nd World War. The US Navy provides the boat to take tourists over on the short journey across the bay & we stayed for about 15 minutes looking at the wreck of the massive battleship, still leaking oil after 73 years. The names of all the men that died during the attack are listed on the memorial wall in the monument, another terrible loss of life.

Our next tour was of the WW2 battleship USS Missouri, moored next to the Arizona Memorial, a bus taking us across onto the still active navy base. This battleship is massive, last serving during the Gulf War before being finally decommissioned & displayed at Pearl Harbour. We took an informative guided tour, standing at the spot on the ship where the Japanese Peace Treaty was signed to bring an end to the war against the Japanese whilst the USS Missouri was moored in Tokyo Bay. Then it was a self guided tour through the rest of the ship that we didn’t see on the tour, very interesting & informative. I’m certainly glad it was mapped out as the ship is massive with lots of corridors & rooms. The officers quarters were by far the most spacious & the captain had a massive cabin with lounge, dining room own bath room – the only way to serve on a ship is to be a captain.

A look through the museums back at the information centre took us the rest of the day until closing time & our dinner that night was at the Ala Moana food court, a very large selection of all different types of food stalls, again, great food.