Pearl Harbor

I finally went to Arizona Memorial yesterday. It is the anniversary of the day in 1945 that the end of the war was announced.

As the Memorial opens at 7:30am, my friend and I arrived at around 7:20am. There were a few tour buses, and that was an indication that there'd also already be a looooong line. The line looked even longer than the one for attractions at Tokyo Disney Land. I thought I'd have to wait for a couple of hours. An attendant came to sell an audio tour, and I bought one. The admission is free, so $5 for more info should be justified. But the line moved rather fast as the first people start going in, we were able to get inside the visitors' center at around 8am.

Each person receives a ticket for the movie and boat on entering the visitors' center. Our tickets had about 40 minutes to wait, so we headed for a museum that was super crowded. With the audio tour, we looked at many pictures and artifacts - like the letters written by the victim of the attack. People were generally quiet in the museum and reading the signs and boards attentively. There was one older couple that were a little disturbing. The old man was preaching how many people were killed, and the old lady was saying that was a larger number than the 9.11, and she boasted that her relative was a victim of the Pearl Harbor attack. I felt disgusted, and moved to the other corner. In that corner, displayed was the Japanese aircrafts and aircraft careers. I thought it was good that information on both sides was provided.

The movie was a rather extensive documentary that lasted about 30 minutes. Some review said that the Japanese were depicted like a super terrible barbarians, but I didn't get that impression at all. I thought it was rather trying to be removed. I think the review came from the people who didn't understand the English narration.

The memorial was a short boat ride away. The white memorial is above the sunk USS Arizona. In the back is a room with all the names of the victims on the USS Arizona. There were gun spinner on the surface (left, picture), and oil still running from the battleship. The ship feels so real, but the memorial was so peaceful (although very windy as you can see in the picture). The contrast was surreal.

One thing I was surprised at there was that the place was so different from the other part of the island. The visitors there were at least 70 per cent white, and the second largest population was tourists from China, speaking Chinese among themselves. I think it was really a good place to visit, and I'd recommend Japanese tourists to go there too.