Lamp Floating

On memorial day the community of Honolulu has a lantern floating event to remember people who have pasted. This was the 14th year doing it and there was over 30,000 lanterns and over 40,000 people. It is held at Ala Manoa Beach Park. 

This picture is taken from the peninsula at Ala Manoa.

Most of the lanterns are on these boats. The boats take the lanterns out, light them and then paddle into the "Center Stage" area to release them.

This event is filmed and played live on TV. 

The peninsula in the background 

 Sunset

All the lanterns have been lit now. 

If you are worried about what happens to the lanterns as they float out to sea, you can see here they have put out a rope to catch them before they go too far. Then they reuse them next year.

I know it's dark, but this is a picture of Her Holiness Keishu Shinso Ito as she places her lantern in the sea.

This is the main stage which I was way to far away from to see while the actual event was going on. 

National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific

On Memorial Day, I went to the mayor's annual event at The National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. It is located in a volcanic crater in Honolulu. The crater is called Punchbowl and has been a distinguished place throughout history. Here is a little info about the location from their website.

Although there are various translations of the Punchbowl’s Hawaiian name, “Puowaina,” the most common is “Hill of Sacrifice.” This translation closely relates to the history of the crater. The first known use was as an altar where Hawaiians offered human sacrifices to pagan gods and the killed violators of the many taboos. Later, during the reign of Kamehameha the Great, a battery of two cannons was mounted at the rim of the crater to salute distinguished arrivals and signify important occasions.

Each one of the grave sites was decorated with a flag and a real flower lei for Memorial Day.

21 gun salute

A flyover in the the missing man formation.

All fifty state flags were brought out and lined the steps of the memorial. 

The light colored walls behind the flags in the last three pictures are the Courts of the Missing. On these walls are engraved the names of 28,778 American heroes.  Each of them was Missing in Action, lost, or buried at sea in the Pacific during World War II.

A statue of Lady Columbia, also known as Lady Liberty, or Justice. Here she is reported to represent all grieving mothers. She stands on the bow of a ship holding a laurel branch. The inscription below the statue, taken from Abraham Lincoln's letter to Mrs. Bixby, reads:

THE SOLEMN PRIDE

THAT MUST BE YOURS

TO HAVE LAID

SO COSTLY A SACRIFICE

UPON THE ALTAR

OF FREEDOM

Mosaics describing battles fought in the Pacific.

At the top of the crater wall looking over the cemetery.  

The view out shows all of Honolulu. The square building in the middle with the tall pillars is the state capital building. 

In the background is Diamond Head.

Ala Manoa Park Snorkleing

Took a mile and a half walk to Ala Manoa Park for some snorkeling. 

Here is an image I took from Google of where I was snorkeling. In it you can clearly see the rock reef that is about 300 ft off the beach. 

Moorish Idol fish

Female Spotted Boxfish

Whatever this is, it is really red and stands out a lot when everything else is grayish.

These fish were all about an inch or smaller in length. 

Hawaiian Sargent (mamo)

This is just a shot of the rock reef.

 I know it's a blurry picture but in the center is a Clearfin Lizardfish.

These A’ama crabs are all over around lava rocks along the beaches. But they scatter and hide when you come close. 

Some sort of out of place looking coral thing that I thought was interesting enough to post.

The fish with the pointy orange nose is surely some thing, but I could not find out what, maybe some kind of pennant fish.

My feet.

Here is another pointy nose fish.

These next two pictures might be of blue line surgeon fish.

This little guy was just swimming around all by his lonesome. And he looks funky. It is some kind of box fish.

I'm still trying to decide if I should buy one of these or not.

This is the back of the Convention Center.

This is the spot where Sun and Jin meet on Lost.