36 Hours in Hawaii

Hawaii was an amazing place and it was a shame that we were only there for such a short period of time. After the ship was cleared, Phil and I headed to Waikiki Beach to relax and possibly take a surfing lesson. When we got to the strip it was really hard to believe that we were actually in the United States; for one being that it had been so long and two that it was such a different culture from the mainland of the U.S. One of the strangest parts was seeing so many "Americans" that looked like us. We were really hungry so we walked along the strip in search of a place to eat and found a place called "Cheeseburger in Paradise" to eat at, sounded perfect. We had been up since like 7 am and were ready for lunch already at 10 am. I had a burger that tasted like the best burger I had ever consumed as it sure beat the pool bar on the ship. Our waitress was very interested in the details of our trip so we spent some time trying to explain it to her. When we were ready to pay our bill we asked if we could get separate checks and she said "yes of course," what a concept they had not seemed to grasp in other countries or really even the universal use of credit cards. After lunch we headed to check out the beach and the prices for surfing lessons. I really wanted to learn to surf in Hawaii and had to convince Phil that it was a good idea. He finally decided he wanted to as well and we found out it was a lot more reasonable than we expected. It was only $35 for a group lesson but of course we got suckered into a semi-private lesson which was $50 each for the two of us. They spent time on land showing us how to get up, how to paddle, etc. They had us put on our shirts to go surfing in so we didn't get a rash on our stomachs from the wax on the board. We finally headed out and they warned us that paddling was the hardest part of surfing. We kind of blew that off and thought to ourselves that we workout a bunch so we would be fine. Paddling out the first time was no problem but as we continued to surf it became very tiring and I began to get a rash on my arms from the surfboard. I got up on my first try and overall found it pretty easy as I had pretty good experience with other watersports such as waterskiing, wakeboarding and kneeboarding. They waves were pretty good sized but not too big but the area we were in was really crowded with lots of inexperienced surfers so it got pretty dangerous at times. There was a few times where Phil and I almost collided so I pushed him off so we both didn't collide or hit another person. Our guides did a really good job of teaching us and also looking out for stray surfers who were about to collide with us. On our way paddling out they told us there would be a photographer taking our pictures so we were anxious to go look at the pictures afterwards. There was some really good pictures of us surfing so I definitely wanted to buy the pictures. They sold a picture CD and it was $20 for 1 picture, $40 for 5 pictures or $60 for all 67 pictures. We decided to just get the picture CD with all 67 of the pictures and then just split the cost. It was pretty expensive but they were taken by a professional photographer so they were really good quality and we didn't look half bad.

After surfing we headed out to check out the shops along the strip and see if there was anything good to buy. I was joking with some people I was with in Japan that I had to find me a good Jewish Japanese women but obviously those are few and far between. As we were walking through this little area of shops there was a women at a Dead Sea kiosk like the ones that are in virtually every mall and the women decided to stop us since we clearly looked like people who would buy Dead Sea products. She was a young Israeli girl about our age so I started talking to her and she continued trying to sell us her Dead Sea product so I told her I had been there before. I told her that I had gone on Birthright and she had been a soldier on a Hillel Birthright trip. It wasn't an Oranim one but she knew who Momo was, who was the guy in charge of Oranim. She had finished the Israeli Army only several months earlier and now works at the kiosk in Hawaii but was born in NYC and lived there until she was 8. We asked her what there was to do on a Sunday night in Honolulu but she said that in comparison to Tel Aviv there was really not that much going on, especially on a Sunday night. It was back to reality of many of my friends being under 21, so even though I was 21 I was obviously not going to go someplace by myself and Phil is 19. I just found it really amusing that the first person I met in Hawaii happened to be Israeli/American and Jewish. After our sampling of Dead Sea products we headed to an ABC store which sold liquor and we bought some rum and coke for the beach, pouring the rum in the coke bottles so we could bring it in the beach. We hung out for an hour or so but then had to leave and head back to the ship so we could get ready to our luau that evening. They said they were picking us up at 4 pm from a hotel we didn't know of. We got back to the ship and showered real quickly and waited for Mary and Sam to get ready, thinking we were going to miss the bus to the luau which was an hour away. We finally arrived at the hotel and were only a few minutes late but could not find the bus. Eventually the Germaine's Luau people called Mary and asked us where we were so we told them we couldn't find where it was and eventually a guy who had been trying to sell us drugs got on the phone with the people and was able to show us where to go. Finally we were on the bus and everyone on the bus was between 40-60 but we figured it would be fun. The whole luau was a huge tourist gimmick but quite amusing. After about an hour on the bus we finally arrived at the luau and there was about 10 other bus loads of people there as well. These two men we met on the bus were married and in their 40's or 50's and took a liking for the 4 of us saying we were their college drinking buddies. The were on a business trip and they spend about 50% of their year traveling around working for an insurance company training employees. The luau was centered around a pig roast which had been roasting in an underground pit since earlier that day. Each of our tickets included 3 drinks but they were IDing so Sam and I got Mary and Phil's drinks from the bar and brought them back to the table. Everyone at our table was over the age of 50 but really interested in our travels thus far. The night continued on and so did our drinks that were included with our admission ticket. There were many performances by native Hawaiian people with lots of singing and dancing. It got a little rowdy as they started picking on the drunkest people in the crowd to go up and make fools of themselves. The luau ended at 9 pm and we got back on the buses heading back to Waikiki. Since we couldn't really head to a bar we ended up going to a store and getting some alcohol and went down by this canal waterfront to drink for a while. We were then on a mission to find a pizza place and couldn't find one so we eventually hailed a cab and told him to take us to a pizza place, only the first place he took us to was closed. We finally found a bar with pizza and ate there. We met these guys that couldn't understand why we couldn't go scuba diving off the ship while we were sailing throughout the world, seems pretty obvious to me. We headed back to the ship a short while later.

The next day Phil and I went on a SAS trip to tour an active U.S. Navy ship the U.S.S. Crommelin. We got a tour of the ship by two sailors and also got to talk with several other sailors. Most of the sailors were our age and had just finished college so it was very interesting to talk with them. After we got a tour of the ship we headed to a boat that is used for VIP tours (that would be us) of the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial . They took us out in Pearl Harbor and showed us around telling us that we couldn't take pictures in certain places. There was a huge radar system that was in from Alaska under repair to detect missiles from Asian countries. The memorial was pretty moving and very interesting to see after going to Hiroshima. You could see the sunken ship under the water and the oil seeping up from the ship as there is still much oil left in the ship that will continue to leak for many years to come. After that our trip was over but we decided to split off from the group and see all of the other Pearl Harbor sites. There as a Pearl Harbor Museum which was very tiny and they are in the works of building a new museum which should be ready in a few years. We then had a quick snack at the snack bar to hold us over for a little while and then toured the U.S.S. Bowfin which was a submarine. It was amazing how close the quarters were and how people could live in there for months at a time. After the submarine we took a shuttle bus to the U.S.S. Missouri which was a large battleship only retired few years ago and was where the peace declarations for the end of WWII were signed. Our last stop was the Pacific Aviation Museum which had several planes on display that were used in WWII. After all of the Pearl Harbor sites we took the bus back to the port area to go have one last good meal before our journey to Guatemala. Many of our friends were eating at Hooter's Honolulu so we went there as well. We also went to a small convenience store to get some snacks. We got on the ship just in time without getting dock time which many people ended up getting.