Wednesday 10th September 2008

6am: We left the hotel to go to the Arizona Memorial a.k.a Pearl Harbour. When we got there, there were only ten other people lined up in front of the gate. By 7.15am, the queue had stretched to the main road and right around the field in front of the Memorial. We were so grateful to be there early! There was a notice saying that no cameras, cellphones etc... were allowed on the memorial as it was disrespectful so we left all our gear in the vans. What happened when we got to the Memorial? We were the only ones there without cameras! Such a disappointing moment for everyone.

After Pearl Harbour it was straight on to the Aloha Swap Meet - everyone perked up then and it was shop, shop, shop till we almost dropped! Everywhere you looked you could see tent after tent of stalls with t-shirts emblazoned with 'Hawaii' this and 'Aloha' that. There were stalls were you could buy gold or silver jewellery, some food stalls with ice cold coconuts, fresh island fruit precut and in ziplock bags ready to enjoy. There was even a place where you could get a tattoo and another place (at least three stalls) where you could have teeth whitening with laser treatment for only $97! If you can imagine the Westpac Trust Stadium with stalls going right around it, that was what this was Swap Meet was like. I thought that it was just a short walk and back to the car but I kept walking, and walking and walking and it just went for miles!

The next place we went to was Sea Life - we watched dolphins perform tricks and saw people hand feeding stingrays, turtles, sharks and all sorts of marine life. That was a lot of fun. We went back to the hotel after that and the students all went swimming in the hotel pool while some soaked in the jacuzzi. It was on to dinner at a local restaurant and now it's back to the pool before everyone goes to bed.

Tomorrow we go to Walmart, Hawaiian Water Adventure Park and Iolani Palace.