America Through My Eyes – THE HONOLULU – Hawaii (Final Part)

America Through My Eyes

THE HONOLULU – Hawaii (final part)

Telugu Original : Dr K.Geeta 

English Translation: V.Vijaya Kumar

          This is the last day of our trip to Hawaii. The day to return home from Honolulu. Our return flight was at 9 pm. The hotel room will be vacated on that day, so there will be no games on the beach that day. Since it was difficult to get back in time if we went far, we thought of seeing the important sights nearby that day. As it was Saturday, we all took a shower and took photos wearing Hawaiian white t-shirts and Deva Ganneru flower garlands bought at ABC stores the day before. As the first rays of the sun shone on the tall buildings outside, our hearts filled with joy, and we packed our things happily. Children love to go back home wherever they go. When going back home, Varu always exclaimed with delight when we stepped into our home, “This is our sweet home, here it’s”.

Pearl Harbour: Around ten o’clock we reached Pearl Harbour. Pearl Harbor is half an hour from our hotel. America’s Western Frontier Naval Base. The aftermath of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in World War II will never be forgotten. Explaining to the children about the outrage of Pearl Harbor I lead the way forward. I expected something like a fleet of ships when we were going to the harbor. But we reached a place like a park with row upon row of sheds and car parking spaces from one corner to another corner. No place is left there.

          The reason for that is that various tours start there early in the morning. There were different tours at different prices. One day is not enough to see everything there and the few hours we planned were not enough. At least each tour takes 3-4 hours. Moreover, all the morning tour tickets were already sold out online.

          What we learned from going there was that the main attraction in Pearl Harbor was the “USS Arizona Memorial” tour. The USS Arizona was the ship with the highest loss of life in the attack on Pearl Harbor. The boat tour is free for everyone to see the memorial built on the wreckage of the sunken ship buried under the water, and no tickets for that tour. We couldn’t book tickets online in advance. We had to come there and stand in line to get tickets. In the hourly tour, we got tickets for a two-hour tour in the afternoon.

          There was a small museum there. The big rudder taken out from Arizona, the main features of the warships, the capsules used for bombing during the Second World War, the capsule that dropped the atomic bomb on Japan, etc. displayed openly there. We postponed the visit to the submarine and other ships that needed to be booked in advance.

Hawaiian Senate Building & Aolani Royal Palace: Instead of staying there until two o’clock in the afternoon, since it is only eleven by then, I led them back to town to see the Hawaiian Senate Building. It was closed because it was a Saturday.
Adjacent to the courtyard was another great building. It was the “Royal palace of Aolani” where the Hawaiian king Kamehameha lived. We tried to tour the building there. There were also tours inside the building. But it was said that the tour takes at least two hours. Since we didn’t have much time, we were satisfied with some outdoor photos. The Senate building is like a library. It is spacious, with four to five floors and the sky is visible in the middle. We took pictures with the statues of Maharaja and Maharani in the courtyard, ate something under a big banyan tree in the park around there, and rested for a while. The whole day was cloudy, and it was drizzling now and then; we sat happily outside under a tree. Siri happily played in the grass.

Arizona Memorial: Around 1 o’clock we came back to Pearl Harbor and stood in line for the boat ride. Within five minutes, we entered the long hall built in the shape of a boat called the Arizona Memorial, located on the opposite side of the beach. If we look down into the water from there, it is clear that this hall was built across the sunken ship.

          An inexplicable sadness filled my heart looking at the warship sunk under the shallow water, with rusted masts rising, arms raised in defeat, while the ship slept in shallow water. There, the names of two thousand soldiers who lost their lives on the wall, flower bouquets, and pictures of shipwrecks as if moving silently from the grave under the waves ignited in me an intolerable pain.

          A total of 5 warships and 13 other ships were sunk in the attack on Pearl Harbor. A total of 2400 people died and 1200 were injured. Watching there quietly for half an hour, and reaching at three o’clock back to the shore, I felt I was still clung back there.

          We walked around for another hour and saw all the exhibits and entered the museum. All the events of World War II were exhibited there in all media. As Varu was studying modern American history in seventh grade, she insisted on following everything seriously on the display. We stayed there till about five o’clock in the evening. We ate nachos, chips, and cheese in the small food court adjacent to the Pearl Harbor gift shop and left. At a shop selling expensive pearls, the children were scared and ran in fear from the shop where the pearls were taken out from the live molasses.

          As our flight was at nine o’clock, we went to the famous open market cum exhibition to spend another hour shopping. When we reached there, we couldn’t find a parking spot anywhere. One of us stayed in the car, and the other bought boiled corn and ate it.

          We went around the big ship-shaped building and came back and reached the airport directly. In the dusk of that evening, while driving in Hawaii, we remembered all our memories and experiences of the last five days. As soon as we left the warm Hawaiian Islands, surrounded by beautiful beaches and pure soil being away from the world of computers all these days, suddenly I felt a kind of vacuum in my heart again.

Happy ending: If you think the story ends there happily you would be wrong.

          Since our tour was a cost-co economy package, we had to first land in Salt Lake City, a thousand miles east of our hometown, and board the California plane two hours later to reach home.

          Our flight to Salt Lake City was delayed by three hours, so we sat in the waiting area for a long time. We spend time playing and chatting with the children so that they don’t get bored. In the last hour, I noticed that my cell phone had no charging. I put the charging in the socket between our seats in silent mode. Siri started running and playing, and when the announcement for the flight came, I alerted Satya to take care of the luggage, and I took Siri standing in the line.

          When the plane took off I asked Satya about my cell phone in his pocket. “Which cell phone?” Satya questioned. Then I realized my mistake. I told Satya to bring everything, but the cell phone kept charging next to the luggage. If it were me, I would look around and bring things without forgetting them. But Satya is not like me, he doesn’t see anything around him if he is not told.

          From there, we landed in San Francisco in an hour and a half, and I immediately asked the inquiry counter to send me back to Salt Lake City. They were surprised at my demand without a return ticket. They suggested reporting in Airlines Lost & Found online.

          I came home sadly, greatly disappointed at the end of our journey, thinking of why this happened to me and it was my iPhone. Unable to bear my pain, Satya went and bought another phone that evening. Satya locked my phone online and set it to display a message on the screen that if anyone finds it, they should call the number.
When I woke up the next morning, I got a call from a cleaning person at the airport. It will be kept in the Lost & Found platform and if ten dollars postage is paid, it will be sent home by speed post.

          After seeing my phone in an envelope outside the door the next morning, I was happy and jumped up in delight that the last part of our trip to Hawaii had a happy ending.

*****

(to be continued)