Wednesday, Jan 30, 2008

I decided to take a trip to Punchbowl Cemetary in Honolulu today. It's the National Memorial Cemetary of the Pacific. It's located in Puowaina Crater, which is an extinct volcano. It received the name Punchbowl because of its shape. The white pillar below is one of two that flank the main entrance into the cemetary.

Below is how it looks from the memorial looking back toward the main entrance. Honolulu is in the background. I took a longer shot showing all of the grassy area--it reminded me a lot of the Mall in Washington, DC looking from the Lincoln Memorial toward the Washington Memorial.

The next image is of the memorial area. Straight ahead you can see the body of a female figure. She is known as "Columbia" and she is on a "symbolized" prow of a ship. She's holding a laurel branch in her hand. There's a walkway that curves to the left and right of the figure, in which are maps and descriptions of various battles.

Another look at the memorial area.

This little chapel is inside the memorial behind the figure. It's supposedly a non-denominational chapel in spite of the fact that you can see a Star of David, a Cross, and to the right is a Muslim symbol.

After I took this shot of the chapel, I turned around and on the wall was this inscription. As I finished getting this shot, a tour group came by and the tour leader asked me if I know what the inscription was all about. Since I didn't, he said I should stay and listen to what he had to say.

It was very interesting. When Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, all the Japanese on the mainland were put into internment camps. But the Japanese in Hawaii were mostly of second generation citizenship, so they were left alone. At one point the United States needed about 1,500 troops to go to Europe, so they appealed to Hawaii's Japanese. 15,000 responded. They later became the most decorated and famous units in the war.

All of the graves in this cemetary are marked with headstones that lay flat on the ground. Apparently it goes along with the guidelines for all national cemetaries. Some had flowers placed near them, but I can imagine what it looks like on Memorial Day.

When I was heading back to the car, I decided to get some shots of the view overlooking Honolulu. Quite impressive. It's hard to believe that so many people call Oahu home. There are one million people living here, and probably about 3/4 of them living in Honolulu, the remainder being scattered throughout the rest of the island.

But, when you think that there are over 10 million people living in Manhattan alone, I guess one million in Oahu is not that outrageous.

I had gone up to another hill where there was an overlook not too far from the memorial. While walking back to the car I saw this rainbow. I've never seen one so low. It was beautiful and it lasted a long time. A nice way to end my visit.

rainbow=Anuenue (probably a nue nue)