Mighty Mo

Hello again friends,

So like I promised, here is another bit of history located in beautiful Hawaii. I next visited the USS Missouri, nicknamed the "Mighty Mo", the site where the Japanese signed their surrender and ended the war. This ship was huge! And pretty spectacular. But don't take my word for it, I've got pictures to prove it!

When I arrived at the USS Missouri, I was welcomed by a corridor of US flags.
It made me feel super-patriotic!

Then on the ship, I was only one of many admirers of the Mighty Mo's weaponry.
Quite literally, check out those guns!!!

The command room was really cool in multiple ways. For one, it had all the technology that made the ship so awesome. Two, it was one of the few rooms on the ship (if not the only) that had air conditioning. Hey, what does this button do?

This is the site of the Japanese surrender and the where WWII ended.

These are the documents that the Japanese forces signed and the pen that was used to do it!

And don't think that just because my humble beginning was from a gift shop that I would tire of gift shops. Far from it. I just had to go and pick up a souvenir t-shirt! How do I look?

My Mighty Mo experience was great. The tour guides were very friendly, and mine had an awesome sense of humor. There were so many cool stories and factual tidbits that my brain got to nibble on. Not only that, but I got to tan while learning history! Can't really say that about high school history class now can you? For more information on the USS Missouri, go to her home page at http://www.ussmissouri.com/.

Signing out,

LFM

Arizona Memorial

Hello again friends!

So my next adventure brought me to the Arizona Memoral. The weather that day was beautiful and we started off where everyone starts off, at the visitor's center. All the history that they have collected and displayed there really gets you emotionally connected to the USS Arizona and her crew even before you get to the Memorial site.

Before we were allowed to visit the Arizona Memorial we had to watch a video about the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the story of the USS Arizona.

Then we took a nice boat out to the Memorial, which is actually built right over the sunken USS Arizona.


Here you can actually see a part of the Arizona. Most of the ship remains where it sunk, along with her crewmembers.

Here is the wall with the names of all the people who perished on the USS Arizona, many of them whose remains are still down with the ship. At the Memorial the atmosphere is quiet and respectful like it should be.

So that was a little more solemn bit of adventure and history. Up next will be something just as historical, but something that revolves around victory rather than loss.

Until then,

LFM

Yakiniku

It's been awhile friends!!!

A very LONG while. Though I am truly sorry for the period of blogging silence, I do have a pretty good reason for my absence. I was in HAWAII!!! I was sitting around in Ithaca, right as the weather was starting to get nice again when my friend offered to take me with her to Oahu. Being the adventure-lover that I am, I just could not resist! The plane ride was actually quite comfortable, as comfortable as traveling could be. Luckily for me I was able to relax in my friend's roomy backpack while she had to deal with all the typical traveling stresses. It's great to be small sometimes.

Once I got used to the 6 hour time difference from Ithaca, NY I was excited to see what Hawaii was all about. A big part of the culture, I quickly discovered, was food! So much food, so much variety, so much... per portion! This was not fine dining in portions, but fine dining in flavor definitely.

So one of my first culinary delights came in the form of yakiniku. Yakiniku is when you order meats and veggies at a restaurant and it comes to you... raw! At first I thought it was a joke and the people I was with were trying to trick me. But then I took a closer look at the table and realized that there was a charcoal grill right in the middle! So I guess I had to work for my food that night. But it was definitely worth it.

I found huge tongs on the table.
Needless to say, I would soon find out exactly what those tongs were for...

That's silly! I think they forgot to cook this...

Oh hey look! A grill! In the middle of our table???
(ooop... don't drop me now!!!)

Ah... so this is how it works. Deeeeelicious!

So that was my first yakiniku experience friends. Some people might be slightly put off by the thought of having to cook their own food in a restaurant, but I found it exhilarating. I've always thought it a shame that you cannot smell your food cooking when you go to a restaurant, a sensation that always heightens my enjoyment of a meal, so this yakiniku adventure was a great culinary adventure indeed.

Much love,

LFM