Hawaii was a great end to our trip. I wish we had more than a day there, but I think we have gotten really good at doing everything we want to do in a short amount of time. We started the day early since we had an SAS trip we got to get off the ship first. We went to Pearl Harbor and the Arizona Memorial which was really interesting to see since on our last day in Japan we had been at Hiroshima. I wonder if the museum seemed as biased to other people as the Vietnam war museum did to us. The weirdest part for me was the reverse culture shock that I didn’t expect. There were Americans everywhere! For the past 100 days if I heard an American accent I knew that the person was probably with SAS. If they weren’t, we at least had a connecting point and usually started some sort of conversation. My favorite story of that was the bartender in Cambodia, I think he was from like Iowa or something. Anyway, it was really very weird to see all these people. Also, we were able to use American dollars in the store and actually get change back! And the ATM gave out dollars, and there were brands of snacks we knew. It was all a really weird experience. By the ATMs and vending machines some guy asked us for money and we just looked at him. Then he said “haven’t you seen that commercial?” and we all just started laughing. No! We haven’t! Add to that the fact that beggars have been a very real part of our lives for the last 3 and a half months, and we were just completely blown away. After we went through the memorial, we had a city tour of Honolulu. We saw the palace and the punchbowl national cemetery. When we got back from our trip, Kendall, Jeff and I went to Subway for lunch where they had... drum roll please…. FREE REFILLS!!!! That was super exciting, except the fountain that said Diet Coke was actually Dr. Pepper. I was disappointed. We were in a little shopping area, and the bathrooms had….. TOILETS!! and……. TOILET PAPER!!! This was an amazing afternoon. We were shopping a bit when we ran into Jen, one of our ship sisters. We all decided to go to Waikiki, which was supposed to be close. So after we walked for a really long time, we got to another beach and decided to hang out there. It was cool because it was much more of a local beach with people bringing their kids and surfing, not a bunch of girls laying in their bikinis. The picture above is of the Aloha I made in shells while we were sitting there. We played around a bit there and walked some more, then we found a mall with Taco Bell for dinner, yummy! Then we introduced Jen to the wonders of Dippin’ Dots. I never knew all of the things I would miss until I left, and I still didn’t think of things like Dippin’ Dots until I got home. Then we took the bus to an International Market where we met up with one of the professors and his family, and then did some really fast last minute shopping before heading back to the ship. By the way, there is one purse that I almost bought in Malaysia, and then I saw it again in China and thought it was good I hadn’t bought it since it wasn’t really that special, and I saw it again in Hawaii. I really want to come back someday, btu I'm very happy with the day I had there! This is Jen, Me, and Kendall a little after sunset on Waikiki beach.
Last night was had a meeting about what its going to be like getting off the ship and going home. It was kind of funny because they did it like they do meetings about what to expect in each port. They told us what the top 3 movies are and none of us had ever heard of them (except Spiderman 3). We also got to reflect a little bit on the voyage. I am really excited to get home, but at the same time I am a little bit scared. Luckily I have an amazing support system, and I can’t wait to see what lies ahead!
