What did you do today? HAWAII

After eight long days crossing the Pacific, we finally had a little time
in port. (Twelve hours or so in fact)

It was such an odd feeling being in the United States after so long
especially after the whirlwind tour of Asia. Since I had cell phone
service for the first time since January, I was up at 5:30 and did some
intense phone calling. This actually continued throughout the day. It
was nice to be able to actually have a conversation with some of my
friends and family.
I got off the ship around 8 or so, which is by far the earliest we’ve ever
been able to get off in awhile. As soon as we were set free in Hawaii, my
friend and I took the bus to Pearl Harbor. We didn’t get to go out to the
Arizona Memorial, but we looked around the museum and met a couple of
survivors. It was cool to see where it all happened. After going to see
war museums in Vietnam and Japan it was really tame. It was a unique
experience traveling from Hiroshima to Pearl Harbor. I’m very glad I
spent a few hours and saw it this time around.From there we went and had a delicious lunch at Nordstrom’s Café then went
on a Walmart shopping spree. Exciting I know, but you have no idea how
amazing it is to see food, be able to read the label and know what it will
taste like. It’s very nice. Also, American Diet Coke… how I missed you.
No more metallic flavored coke light that the rest of the world has. Haha.
We continued the errand trend and went to a Starbucks and a post office.

From there we took a nice long walk to Waikiki beach where I saw the hotel
I stayed at when I went in eighth grade. We laid out for awhile, enjoyed
some Pacific Ocean, and some Hawaiian sun. We met up with a couple of
other girls at Cheeseburger in Paradise where I had my first chicken
fingers in FOREVER. Oh my gosh. Walked to the beach and watched the
sunset. Then we went to this amazing little ice cream shop where the
chocolate chip cookie dough pretty much had actual cookies in it.
Delicious. Unfortunately, the night was drawing to a close, and we had to
head back to the ship then.

I never thought that I would view Hawaii as being so much like home, but
it WAS.
- crossing the street is not like playing human Frogger
- the cab driver speaks English and doesn’t say “yes yes” no matter what
you say
- but then again cabs cost more than five dollars
- not every white person you see is from SAS
- not every is spicy or noodly
- you can open the stall door confident there will actually be a toilet
in there
- you don’t have to convert to US dollars… which was lame because that’s
like spending real money
- you can wear whatever clothes you want

It’s too bad we only had one day there, but I definitely enjoyed those
twelve hours off the ship.