Day 2: performing at, visiting the USS Missouri, USS Arizona
With a 4:30am wake up call, many students were sleepy when we met at the front of the hotel. We walked to the Hard Rock Cafe, where we were offered a buffet with a huge variety of foods to choose from.
Next, we loaded the busses with our instruments to go play at the USS Missouri. On the bus ride there, my bus driver gave us some background information on Pearl Harbor. He was from Hawaii and very knowledgeable about the event.
When we arrived at Pearl Harbor, we hurried to get our instruments and warm up. Entering the USS Missouri was such an incredible experience. We had such a nice performance, and we were commended greatly about how well we played. We were able to take a tour of the USS Missouri, which was very interesting to see all the different parts of the ship and all the different controls that the navy are in charge of.
Our next performance was at the USS Arizona. The performance itself was not as cool as standing in front of the Missouri playing, but we still had an awesome performance. The number of people that were not just friends and family of North Penn enjoyed the show a lot.
We were able to eat lunch and then walk around the exhibits before going to a 75-minute program on Pearl Harbor. The program started with a short video on what happened on December 7th, 1947. That video was just the beginning of an eye opening experience; it portrayed all the chaos of that day and how everything started with a confusion of being told not to worry about the ships heading toward the U.S. The video really touched on how entering World War 2 united the States, because the Japanese thought we would back down, but we didn’t.
After the video we went on a boat ride showing the 7 ship memorials on Pearl Harbor, and then we got to go on to the USS Arizona memorial. The all-white ship memorial had so much detail and symbolism to it. The back part of the memorial was an all-white room with all the names of the survivors that were found after the attack. These are the eye opening experiences that make me proud to be an American.
Back at the hotel we got ready to go to a nice picnic in a park. When we arrived at the park, a catering company had a variety of Hawaiian cultured foods: white rice, salad, mahi mahi, terriyaki chicken, dinner rolls and pineapple cake. It was an enjoyable dinner and great for everyone to try new things.
Once we were back at the hotel we were given free time. Most of the students either went to the pool or the beach. It was nice to be at the beach around 9:00pm and not be shivering.