December 7
th, 1941. You can try to explain the feelings you have when you are here, but it never comes out right. How can you truly describe what it is to be on the spot where over 1200 men died and still remain, let alone being in the area where over the course of 2 hours, over 2500 people were killed? It is something that changes the way you look at things. 1200 sailors, husbands, brothers, sons, fathers. Most were between the ages of 18 and 22. A father and son died here together, along with a few pairs of brothers. Men just doing a job on a
peaceful Sunday morning. Most were eating breakfast, waking up or finishing attending Sunday services. Nobody knew what was about to happen, and because of that, we lost a lot of good people and were immediately forced into WWII. This isn't a place where you have to try and fight back tears. It's useless. There is no point in being too proud to mourn here, in fact, it's almost insulting if one is
insensitive and unfazed here. Tourists,
foreigners, and ignorant people unfortunately are abundant here. Men refuse to remove their hats here. Japanese tourists flock here in some form of past glory. These people shouldn't be here. I usually leave here saddened, humbled, thankful, and a little bit angry from said above people.Amazing how people don't understand what they need to, all the while as oil still bubbles to the surface of the stricken vessel.

After the quiet boat ride back to the main area that Wednesday morning, we had some extra time to look around the memorial center. I got a few items from the gift shop-a shirt, and two flags that were flown on the Arizona late last year. A small 3x5 one I gave to my bosses Greg and Mike, which was flown on Dec 7
th 2006 at 7:44pm, on the 65
th anniversary of the attack. The second one, a bit bigger, I kept-It was flown on Sept. 11
th last year at a commemorative ceremony in remembrance of 2001's attack in NY. These flags will never be flown again, they have too much honor in them. We left the memorial and linked up back with our tour group to head over to the USS Missouri. This harbor is unique now, for it has the places that began and ended the war. Chris, Crystal and I made our way to the massive ship via shuttle. Kevin was our custom tour guide instead of the park docent we had 4 years ago. He turned out to be much more informed that the others.
We toured the entire vessel (where allowed), from the bow to the bowels of the ship.

We left the old girl smelling of
cosmolene and war grease. It smelled like triumph.
We were left to our own devices for a hour before
needing to meet up with the group to depart, so on the way out I humped a mine and then we went to grab a burger for lunch.

The tour left the harbor and we got the extended tour through Chinatown, the capitol, royal palaces and finally through Punchbowl
cemetery. We were eager to see George again, the VFW park docent we had the pleasure of walking with last time. Kevin informed us that George works there Weds, so we were in luck. We pulled unfortunately to see that he wasn't there. Another VFW docent, Bernard, was to be our guide because George's wife had fallen ill. Concerned and
downhearted, we forwarded our condolences through him and pressed on with the tour. Bernard didn't get into the same detail as George did 4 years ago, but he did give us additional info that George didn't. Certain sections of the
cemetery were technically tombs of the unknown soldiers through the wars. He pointed out certain graves and memorials that added to our knowledge.
We started our day before light, at 5am. It was now 3pm, a long day. But we were still determined to make somewhat of a night out of it. We got back into our room, showered, rested and regrouped.
Papi got a second wind and decided that he needed to test his surfing ability on the ironing board. For his safety, he only got one leg on and 5 toes on the nose.

We heard good reviews about the Harbor pub, near Honolulu marina, so we got a taxi there and turned out to be some of the best pizza I've had in years. Reminiscent of Round Table pizza back home when I was in elementary school (before they got corporate and crappy). We had a few rounds of drinks, watched the sunset over the ships and let our evening commence.
Opon leaving, we decided to try and hit up the Row bar, near the Aloha towers area. Apparently our directions were skewed as we thought we were close enough for walking distance. A nice 2 miles later and 1 pee break along the way, we stumbled in after a 40 minute walk. We all agreed to take a taxi home when the time came. We grabbed a table and met up with Laura's new friend Andy, whom she met at Duke's the night before after we crashed out for the night. We all warmed up after a little bit and soon we were joking and having a good time. The group agreed to leave, to the 5 of us crammed into a taxi (literally, like beyond sardines...I got a semi personal lap dance from Crystal and Chris.) Andy shuttled us to a dive bar called Arnold's. Total hole in the wall complete with strangers talking to themselves. At least it was entertaining. You learned to make friends early here, as to limit the number of your enemies. At least the crowd was mixed as to not feel that out of place. Drinks were steep, which lightened our moods a bit more. After a bit though, it got boring, so we once again voted to relocate while walking towards the hotel. Last stop, Honolulu Tavern, 1/2 block from our hotel. Talk about super cheap!! It's a locals bar, so annoying tourists need not apply, which is fine by us. It was the most comfortable place I had found yet. Hot bartenders that pour very steep for next to nothing. Complimentary chips, popcorn or this night they had pork rinds(yuk). We have a few more there before heading back to the room. We started a new game that night called "Ho or No". Rules are simple. Get back to your hotel room
and get on the balcony. Look at the street below and point out girls if they are Hoes or Not. Simple and fun if you are drunk. What a fun way to end the night after a long day-heckling hookers.