"Red Pill Tour" of O'ahu - Part Two

This is a long-overdue continuation of the amazing - albeit sobering - tour of O'ahu I took with Lino Olopai and Dr. Hope Cristobal. Terri Keiko'olani and Kyle Kajihiro of DMZ Hawaii were our tour-guides, and like all good tourists, we started at the USS Arizona memorial. The US Parks Service has recently installed at the memorial a giant outdoor map of the Pacific (showing, as Kyle pointed out, America's "Pacific Lake"). Lino and Hopie put their feet on their respective islands - and Lino had a long and interesting conversation with some folks visiting from Kiribati.

I was totally confused by the names of the islands on the map (Kiribati wasn't even listed), until I realized that the map represents not how the world is today - but how it was in 1941. (The USS Arizona is, after all, a history museum.)

Then Kyle took us off the paved path, to a section that other tourists didn't seem to notice: the edge of the lagoon itself. Here is a video (shot with my iphone - forgive the technical shortcomings) of what we learned there:



After Pearl Harbor, Kyle and Terri took us for yummy plate lunch - and then to the dry west side of the island, to see how the military and the native Hawaiians are not-so-peacefully coexisting outside of the visible tourist areas. But that story will have to wait for another post...