Pearl Harbor and USS Missouri Tours...

One thing in Hawaii my mum was keen to do (myself not so much, I was more neither here nor there in terms of how I felt about going) was go to Pearl Harbor. Booking tickets on the government site was confusing with many different options. Our hotel had a tour desk and we booked tickets to go to the Arizona Memorial and a tour on the USS Missouri ship, both in Pearl Harbor, as well as return coach transfers. It was over $70 per person but was an informative day. Too bad they sent us this coach:

Yep, the bus is on fire.

We started off with a pretty early pickup, around 6:30 A.M. outside our hotel. The drive was just under an hour and the bus driver gave a running commentary on all kinds of things on the drive to Pearl Harbor. The bus driver was the most laid back guy ever, just yakking away casually and not too panicked by traffic, and had a bit of a sarcastic nature, but in a humourous manner. As it was early and I hadn't slept well the night before, I begun to doze on the bus, half listening, half in the land of nod. I was gradually bought back to attention by an odd, strong smell, accompanied by someone behind me saying "Is that smoke? It smells like smoke". The bus pulled to a stop on the side of the freeway exit ramp outside the Aloha Stadium (where gridiron is played), and I looked out my window to see not only the stadium beyond but billows of smoke rising up next to my window. We were seated about 5 rows from the back of the bus. The bus driver got off the bus and a minute or two later casually said over his headset "I'm gonna need to get you all off this bus." Cue panic. We all got out of our seats and tried to get down the aisle but the aisle wasn't moving as there were a couple of absolute gigantic whoppers, the morbidly obese people you really only see in America with tyros around their midsections, sitting up the front and were taking ages to haul their gigantic selves out of their seats, let alone get into the aisle, and down the front steps and out the door. A guy a row or two behind me really started to panic, yelling "MOVE!" and then other people joined in as the smoke and smell got worse and the queue wasn't moving, "HURRY UP!", "WE GOTTA GET OFF THE BUS!", "MOOOOOOVE IT!" and so on. It was starting to get worrying as the smoke was getting bad and, being at the back of the bus, we would be the first to blow up if the engine totally went up in flames. Just as I was thinking of suggesting to the guys to break an emergency exit window, the slow poke huge people finally got off and the rest of the busy quickly got off the bus, to stand on the nature strip by the freeway. This is what we saw:

Yes, the engine is on fire. Yes, it looked worse in real life.

 Traffic was banked up and soon enough we heard the sound of sirens.

The fire truck responded very quickly. Anyone know why fire trucks are yellow in Hawaii??!!

 Two firefighters calmly walked over together and extinguished the blaze. They then spent considerable time hosing the whole back and underside of the bus.

 Soon, the police were on the scene talking to our super chilled out driver.

 It took about 30 minutes for a replacement bus to come (from the time the original bus caught on fire), so that was pretty good. The same bus driver got on the new bus to carry us on to Pearl Harbor, only a 2-3 minute drive away! The funniest bit was that when the bus driver got on the new bus and begun speaking into his headset, there was no 'sorry about that folks', no 'the bus overheated but thanks for your patience', nope, no pleasantries or apologies. Our laid back bus driver just continued on his commentary (he was discussing the upcoming Pro Bowl at the Aloha Stadium) like nothing had happened at all. Haha. All the Aussies on the bus liked his attitude and had a bit of a laugh at that one!

So since I didn't die on a bus blowing upon the way to Pearl Harbor, we made it there with only a couple of minutes to spare before our movie begun. My Mum had to check her bag as they don't allow any baggage (so I left my DSLR in the hotel and just took my trusty little Canon IXUS). The movie was a documentary about the events leading up to and of Pearl Harbor's bombing by the Japanese, and was narrated by Jamie Lee Curtis. It was well done with footage from the event, and informative without being information overload. After, you walked out to a boat captained by a military officer which shuttled you to the USS Arizona Memorial.

The shuttle boat.

The USS Arizona Memorial sits perched on two beams above the USS Arizona shipwreck.

The roof of the memorial is open - no glass. 

You have about 15 minutes inside the memorial. Whilst in there you can look into the water and see the ship below, and sometimes just above the water. 

Looking across Pearl Harbor from the memorial. 

Markers like these dotted the Harbor, showing where different ships lie beneath the water or were sunk but later raised.

The names of all those who died on the ship. Amazing. 

The USS Missouri to the right was to be our next stop.

Upon leaving the memorial, the shuttle boat takes you back to land and you can look in some small museums/. 

 After, we got back on our bus and were driven over to the USS Missouri, where we had a guided tour.

We were driven back to Waikiki and arrived back at our hotel around 3:30 P.M.

Have you been to Pearl Harbor? What was your experience? How did it affect you? Have you been to any other war memorials across the world?