JDNumbahz and LW's trip to Hawaii

JD10367

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As usual, I'll put the pics here in the Classics forum, not because they're Classics but just to keep the clutter off the main board.

I've "narrowed" it down to around 270 pictures. Needless to say, they all won't be coming today.

First up: San Francisco as seen from the plane. Up at the top you can just make out the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz. This is because the stupid photographer was looking at the wrong bridge. LW needs to be more specific about that sort of thing; she should know better.
 
Visiting the Honolulu Zoo... nothing says "Hawai'i" like a poopin' hippo, eh? Just think, this is what makes tilapia such a tasty fish!
 
Waikiki Beach as seen from our "ocean view" hotel patio. (We originally had a "partial ocean view" but they upgraded us; I guess that must've meant, "If you go to one specific window you can see some blue water out of one corner," LOL. No big deal though, since we *were* right on the beach and could just walk over.)
 
Down on the beach, looking east towards Diamond Head. (Which I was depressed to find out is simply an old volcano, as you can find neither diamonds nor head there...)
 
Looking west, same spot.

Let me take this opportunity to mention that, yes indeedy, there were quite a lot of bikinis, and quite a lot of those belonged to Japanese girls. The nationality of the islands is a mix of Hawaiian, American, and Asian; in addition to that, they get a ton of Japanese tourists. So everywhere you looked there were hot little Japanese girls in skimpy bikinis. For those of you with a Japanese Girl Fetish, Hawai'i is the place for you, my friend! (And, no, I don't have any pictures of them... but they're all burned into my brain.) :D
 
Swimmers and surfers. The surfing action is usually better on the North Shore, but the winds were making the surf on Waikiki (South Shore) pretty good all week. And the water was vicious! You'd walk two feet out and it would drop off about a foot, and the undertow was nasty.
 
From the western end of the beach, looking east towards Diamond Head (the classic postcard view, although I think they take that shot from a hotel rooftop or something).

(Edit: I had another version of this shot, with one of those aforementioned hot Japanese surfers walking by, but her board blocked out everything good. However, I did just notice in this pic that you can see some Japanese gams walking towards the camera under that umbrella; I'm not exactly sure why her skirt was up, LOL.)
 
If you like pina colada... and getting caught in the rain...
 
The moon looked cooler when I took this, the pic doesn't do it justice.
 
Waiting in line at Pearl Harbor... the first Hawaiian rainbow.

My 80-something-year-old father-in-law particularly wanted to see Pearl Harbor, as he was in the Navy and just missed WWII (he was in the program when the war ended) and ended up serving somewhere in the South Pacific post-war.
 
To get to the memorial, which is over the wreck of the Arizona, you have to take a shuttle boat. While waiting, I walked down and took this pic, of a memorial ring of names. In the background, on the right, you can see the memorial over the Arizona; on the left, you can see the battleship Missouri. The war started at Pearl Harbor, and ended on the Missouri's deck with the signing of the Japanese surrender treaty. It's a poignant bookend.
 
Approaching the memorial.

I'll shut up for a while, as I think it's appropriate. It was very quiet there. A few things to remember: the thousands who died on the Arizona are still entombed below the surface, and the wreck to this day still leaks oil, like its lifeblood, causing murky pools on the surface. There are little fish darting about, a taunting yet reassuring sign of life continuing. People also scatter flowers on the water as an offering.

I think going to Pearl Harbor should be a requirement of every U.S. citizen.

As we left the memorial, in the pic where I turned back to take a few shots of the building, that's my father-in-law who walked into the shot (which, in hindsight, was rather fitting).
 
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