Hawaiian Wedding

Sorry for my lack of blogging yesterday. We were very busy, and of course it's like $7 for 10 minutes to blog here. Yesterday morning we got up very early and went to Pearl Harbor, where we toured the Arizona Memorial. It was very sobering to realize about 1800 men cut off in the prime of their lives were lying beneath us. You could see parts of the ship below the water, and it is still leaking oil almost 70 years later. We even met two survivors from that "day that will live in infamy," and Travalon went kind of nuts in the gift shop. I will hopefully post a photo of myself with the two veterans at some point, so watch for that. Then we had a tour of downtown Hawaii, including the state capital and royal palace.

In the afternoon we went to Travalon's friend's wedding. He teaches English in Japan, and his bride is Japanese but his family lives in Wisconsin, so Hawaii is a good in-between point, besides being a beautiful spot for a wedding. They got married at a Methodist church in a brief ceremony, and there was not best man or bridesmaid, since that's the Japanese tradition, but Travalon and the bride's best friend did sign as witnesses. The groom wore a white shirt and a lei, and the bride wore a white dress and veil as brides usually do back in Wisconsin. The groom said his vows in English, and the bride said hers in Japanese, but for whatever reason a woman played the piano through the whole thing so it was hard to hear. Another woman sang in Hawaiian. Then we went to the reception at the Kahana Resort, and wow was this place amazing! Tons of famous people have stayed there. They had a lagoon in the back with dolphins, fish just like the ones we saw while snorkeling, and big stingrays. It was right on the ocean. Don't worry, Travalon and I took lots of pictures. Our dinner was on the lanai (porch) and was of course delicious. Then we went back to the bride's hotel room, where I spoke a little French to her and her Taiwanese friend, who are both fluent. (They met while studying in Toulouse.) We all bonded over singing; Travalon did a mean Elvis Presley imitation, and I sang "Fly Me to the Moon," which the Japanese people knew the tune to. They sang us a song which we sing to the words, "The other day I saw a bear, a great big bear..." and it turns out that's what they were singing too! We stayed up way too late and woke up at 8:00 this morning instead of our usual 4:00 am, so we must be adjusted to Island Time.

Today we are going to the North Shore, the Polynesian Cultural Center, and possibly a luau, so I'll try to blog about how all that went soon.

Famous Hat