Sep 8, 2011
Wake up early in the morning and see that it is a clear place outside. I wiped the railing of the lanai with my arm, and it was true that there was no bit of ash. This confirms what LianQiao said: Hawaii is spotlessly clean.
The picture below is the façade of our hotel. It's so small, no wonder I can't find it.
Everyone eats breakfast here. The little girl on the left is Penny, a Taiwanese. I have lived here for more than 10 years.
Hawaiian Caucasians make up only 10 percent of the population. The rest are mostly Asian. Most of them are from China, South Korea, Japan and Southeast Asia. Therefore, there are not many blonde foreigners here.
Having breakfast early, we started our day trip around the island. Accompanying us was a relatively small minibus. We walked through the main streets of the city, honolulu city is not very big. However, it feels very good: the whole city, neat and clean. Not a single dead leaf was seen on the branch.
Walk through the city and come to the villa area of the rich family. Penny told us that the lions in front of the door are Chinese family, and most of the flowers and grass are Japanese.
Penny pointed to the white building with a three-story circular terrace on the hill and told us that it was the house of Li Ka-shing, the richest man in Hong Kong.
We came to the Dinosaur Bay Nature Reserve. Look at the mountains of the bay like the head of a dinosaur.
The picture below shows the head and tail of the dinosaur. We just stood on its back.
There is a small bird on the grass
There was also a bird in the tree, white. They are basically not afraid of people. The flora and fauna here are absolutely protected. Penny said she couldn't eat pheasants, fresh fish and shrimp here.
Because Hawaii has no industry, no agriculture, only tourism, and its ancillary industries. There is no fishery, aquaculture. All food is brought into the island from outside the country. So the chicken and fish are all frozen.
The water here is particularly blue and exceptionally clear. There is no contamination.
We circle from the southeast of Oahu to the northeast, then the northwest and southwest.
After going around for about half an hour, we came to the high wind outlet located in the mountains. The wind outlet is located at the gap between the two mountains, and the strong wind from the northeast blows hard, making people feel like they are blown when they stand on one foot. However, 2 meters away, the wind and the sun are beautiful, and there is a difference between the world.
In the early morning of December 7, 1941, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, they were afraid that the aircraft would alarm the Americans, so they took advantage of the terrain of the wind outlet, turned off the engine, and used the wind to glide to Pearl Harbor to carry out a sneak attack. It can be seen that the Japanese have calculated every detail. And the Americans are still in the dark.
It is a very old artificial site. I don't know what it's for.
The Great Wind Pass was once an ancient battlefield, where King Kamehameha defeated the Oahu chieftain in 1795 AD. When the chief fled to this place in defeat, seeing that the situation was gone, he and the soldiers jumped off the cliff more than 300 meters high to commit suicide, and thousands of people died here. The Great Wind Outlet is also a historical site in Hawaii.
The indigenous people of Oahu still regard this place as a sacred place, and every festival, they come here to dance gods and sacrifices. There is also a sign that records the story of the battle.
From here, we're going to see Pearl Harbor.
This is the big tree in front of Pearl Harbor, and there are many and beautiful trees in Hawaii.
When we came to Pearl Harbor, we first watched the historical documentary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Penny said she watched the documentary twice and cried each time. Recreating that tragic history, whose heart can not be heavy?
Coming out of the theater, we boarded the ferry to the USS Arizona Memorial.
A naval soldier is welcoming every guest. And told the ship that it was about to sail.
Attack on Pearl Harbor Looking Back:
In the early morning of December 7, 1941, the Combined Fleet of the Japanese Navy formed a joint maritime fleet with 6 aircraft carriers, 423 carrier-based aircraft, 24 large and medium-sized ships, and 5 submarines, and after a 12-day voyage of 3,200 nautical miles, it successfully arrived at the 230-nautical-mile sea north of Pearl Harbor, the base of the U.S. Pacific Fleet.
At 07:55, after receiving the order to launch an attack, 183 carrier-based aircraft began the first wave of lightning strikes. Because it was a Sunday, the U.S. military was not at all on guard.
Despite the loudspeakers constantly shouting "War, war, this is not a drill!" Again, this is not a drill! "But the U.S. military, which is immersed in a peace, cannot gather combat effectiveness at all." Because no one believes that war is coming so suddenly.
In this way, the surface ships and base facilities moored in the harbor have become the targets of aircraft bombing. After two assault waves with a total of 354 carrier-based aircraft, in less than an hour and a half, the Japanese sunk and wounded 7 American battleships, 12 large ships, and more than 20 small and medium-sized ships, destroyed more than 260 aircraft, and killed and wounded 3,615 people.
The U.S. capital ship USS Arizona was hit by a bombshell during the battle and sank nine minutes later. Fortunately, the US aircraft carrier was not in the harbor at that time, otherwise the losses would have been greater.
The Japanese lost only 29 aircraft and 5 submarines, and the surface ships were not damaged in the slightest. After the U.S. Pacific Fleet was severely damaged, it once lost control of the Pacific.
In 1958, U.S. President Eisenhower, who had been commander of allied forces in World War II, formally approved the construction of a memorial on the site of the war (the shipwreck of the USS Arizona).
Four years later, the memorial, named after the USS Arizona, the main battleship of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, was inaugurated. The 50-meter-long memorial is uniquely designed and has a profound meaning.
It is a white-shaped building with a hollow in the middle and a straight end. Straddling the wreckage of the USS Arizona. In the distance, it resembled a white warship parked on the surface of the water.
White, the color of the Navy, symbolizes people's infinite mourning for the victims; The upright ends of the depression in the middle imply that although the war was initially attacked by air, it was still completely won. In the middle of the memorial stands a flagpole, the lower end of which is directly connected to the main mast of the battleship "Arizona" on the sleeping seabed, and the flag hanging on this flagpole flutters in the wind.
On the white marble wall at the end of the memorial is engraved the names of the 1,177 naval officers who died heroically on the battleship. In addition, there is no other text introduction on the wall, and everything is in silence.
In the long list, several are fathers and sons and brothers from the same family. They served together on the USS Arizona and died in Pearl Harbor. After the sinking of the Arizona, people did not want to salvage it, and even the remains of naval officers and men who died in the cabin were not searched, as if they were afraid of alarming them again.
Fifty-nine years on, the officers and men who died were still with their battleships, and perhaps, some were still snuggled up to their combat posts.
At the bottom of the list of officers and men who died were the names of more than a dozen recently deceased people who were survivors of the Arizona. They survived the war, but when they left this world, they never forgot to be buried with their former comrades-in-arms, day and night, never separated.
In order to remember the lessons of history, and to educate and warn future generations, the US government designated December 7 as National Disaster Day and National Shame Day.
This is the part of the Arizona that surfaced.
This is Funazuka. Each shipwreck has a shipwreck. It's like a grave for a dead person.
The warship quietly moored near the USS Arizona is the USS Missouri, an American battleship that has been converted into a museum.
On September 2, 1945, the Uss missouri was anchored in Tokyo Bay, and the signing ceremony for Japan's surrender was held on the USS Missouri.
At 9:04 a.m., Japanese Foreign Minister Shigemitsu Aoi signed the instrument of surrender on behalf of the Emperor and the Japanese government and chief of staff, Umezu Mijiro, on behalf of the Imperial Japanese Base Camp.
At 09:08, General MacArthur signed in his capacity as Supreme Commander of the Allies to accept Japan's surrender. Then the representatives of the nine allied countries that accepted the surrender signed on behalf of their own countries.
Goodbye Pearl Harbor, goodbye "Arizona"! After only half an hour of visiting, we took a ferry back to the island.
After lunch here, continue your tour of the city.
In the afternoon, return to the city. We visited the Hawaii State Government and the Royal Palace. The picture below is the Liberty Bell before the state government.
This is the state government building. The building's ingenious design symbolizes that the state of Hawaii was formed in the ocean and volcanoes. The eight pillars of the façade are palm-shaped and symbolize the eight large islands of the Hawaiian Archipelago;
The main body of the building resembles a volcanic basin with a patio in the middle, symbolizing the crater; The bottom pool, with its cylindrical dots, symbolizes the ocean and numerous islands and reefs.
On the front of the state government building is a bronze statue of Father Damien, who died of leprosy in order to spread the gospel of Christ to lepers.
Buildings near the state government
The bronze statue of King Kamehameha is located in front of the Hawaii Supreme Court building. King Kamehameha was the first king in Hawaiian history to unify the Hawaiian Islands. Of the fifty U.S. states, only Hawaii has ever been ruled by a king.
Pictured below is the Iolani Palace, the official residence of the last two monarchs of the Hawaiian Kingdom. The palace was built in 1882. The two kings were King Kalākaua and his sister Queen Liliowukarani. This is the only royal palace.
Back from the city, rest at the hotel and then go for dinner. During the break, I came to the beach "Sciaciacca" next to the hotel.
In Hawaii, you can see the phenomenon of the sun and the moon shining together. Although it is more than 7 o'clock in the afternoon, the sun is still very high, but in the hotel room, you can see the moon above the upper floor.
Dinner was eaten here
Below is the street view near the restaurant
After dinner, the minibus pulled us directly to the airport. Here, we say goodbye to Penny and Mr. Sun. The leader and their counterpart, Miss Penny, hugged and said goodbye. He also said triumphantly: Don't be jealous.
The plane departs at 9pm. The aircraft type is a Boeing 757. Near our seats, there were two foreigners, each holding two small babies. One of the girls is well-behaved and cute. The boy kept crying. I have a nervous breakdown, and I can sleep for more than an hour at most during these five-hour flights. (To be continued)