SUNDAY MEMORIES
Judy Wills
After a good night’s rest, we were ready to start our Hawaiian adventures! First off, we went to the Maui Ocean Center – a really neat aquarium and sealife center. We enjoyed everything about it. Especially the to-life-sized bronze tortoise – with eggs! – near the entrance to the center.
The center contained all the things one might expect in such a facility – a living reef, a surge pool, a turtle lagoon, a touch pool, sharks, whales, and how the Hawaiian’s related to all of it. Most fascinating. We spent several hours there.
Next, we went into Lahaina proper to see the city and all it holds. One of the most interesting sights is a huge banyan tree. It was planted in 1873, and has grown so that it’s limbs cover the entire city center. Many of the limbs need to have supports so they don’t drag the ground. It is over 60′ high, and covers more than 2/3 of an acre. It was planted to mark 50 years of Protestant missionary work in Lahaina.
Next we saw the Baldwin Home. It was built in 1834 as the home for Dwight Baldwin, Protestant medical missionary to Lahaina. The house served as a medical office, and the general center for missionary activity from mid-1830’s to 1868.
We saw the ruins of the brick palace of King Kamehameha 1. The footprint seemed really tiny, but the accompanying legend shows it to be a two-storied thatched building. So I guess important guests were more impressed than we were. It was built near 1800, one of the first western buildings on the island, and the bricks were locally made. We saw ruins of the old fort.
We saw the Ko’a Fisherman’s Shrine along the harbor, as it faced Molokai.
We went into Lahaina proper and to the waterfront. A cruise ship was in port that day, and we watched as the ferry brought tourists from the ship to Lahaina, as the port isn’t deep enough for the ship to anchor right at the harbor.
As we walked along Front Street, we saw some young men tossing literally dozens of Mahi-Mahi into the back of a pick-up truck. Amazing.
A good day in Maui. This was such fun for us. Something we shall never forget.
~~~~~More to come~~~~~
That sight gave me a very uncomfortable feeling at the time, knowing I was eating lunch that close to Communist China. Another part of the tour was to the amazing Tiger Balm Gardens. The gardens consist of acres of Chinese figures cut into a hillside, and painted some of the most vivid colors you can imagine. Overall, the trip to Hong Kong was really great, and a one-of-a-lifetime experience. I would like to go back some day to see how it has changed over the years, as modern pictures show a very modern city compared to what I remember.
Japan. I can’t remember just what the occasion was for our visit, but the day after we got there the ship hosted an “Open House” for the Japanese people. We had the ship roped off so the visitors would walk in a line, in one direction, through only certain areas. We had a solid stream of people, walking through the ship all day long, and I didn’t notice until it was all over, but all those wooden shoes the Japanese women wear had chipped the paint right off the decks, everywhere the tour went on the ship.
places I visited while there, was the “Ground Zero Museum.” The museum houses many graphic artifacts from the ruins of the city, and photographs of what was left of the city after the Atomic Bomb (Fat Man) was exploded 1540 feet above the city on August 9, 1945.
and her grandmother came for a visit, she came to Dora’s room every night and they kneeled by the bed and prayed together. That TLC, Mother said, was what helped her want to become a Christian later in life. Florenda Jane belonged to the Church of God Holiness. I assume from the name they were what we now call charismatic. Florenda Jane died December 28, 1936 at eighty-nine years of age. I was born two years after she died. I wish I had known her. We’ll all sit down and have a fine chat in Heaven some day. Please join us when the time is right.
Boom, which was permanently attached to, and located, toward the aft portion of the ship. When a boat was required for any reason, the boat crew had to walk out on the Boat Boom to where their boat was tied-off, and go down the Jacob’s ladder to the boat. Then when they were done with the boat, they had to tie it off to the Painter Line, and climb up the Jacob’s ladder to the Boat Boom, and back to the ship. The first few times I had to do that, I had to walk very slow and it was very scary, since the 1”x 8” catwalk attached to the top of the beam, we had to walk on, was highly varnished, to protect it from the salty environment. This made it very slippery when wet, and I felt like I was “Walking the Plank” every time I went to or from the ship to a boat.
Enlisted Men’s Club or in Sasebo itself. Finally, after months of this routine, the ship made a trip to Hong Kong, to give the crew an opportunity to be exposed to other cultures of the world, and for a chance at some different scenery.
Kong in 1957, was built into the hills surrounding it, and reminded me of the Mexican border cities of Juarez or Tijuana (except a lot cleaner & more beautiful), where a person could buy anything very reasonably. I bought a tailor-made Navy blue uniform and a beautiful Chinese Cheongsam silk dress for DiVoran for next to nothing, compared to what they would have cost in the states.
Kong’s 60,000 boat dwellers lived. Here the boats had been tied so closely together, over so many years, that a person could step from one boat to the next, all the way across a portion of Aberdeen Harbor. The only boats that could get out of that mass, were the ones on the outer edge.
Old Things R New 