Rich and I went to the Polynesian Cultural Center on the day after his conference was over. I had gotten tickets ahead of time and we almost didn't make it. It had rained all night long and was supposed to rain all day and there were flash flood watches for the entire island. The center opens at noon and I had been told that you should get there as soon after opening as possible to have plenty of time to explore all the villages. Being concerned about the weather we didn't get there until about 2:00pm. That gave us three hours to explore which turned out to not be enough time. Oh well.
The first village that we visited was Samoa. Did you know that on the island of Samoa the men do all the cooking? I think I could handle that. :) We watched a great demonstration. A young man from Samoa told us about life there. He started fire by rubbing two sticks together (very impressive!). He showed us how to crack open a coconut, the difference between the juice and the milk, how they use the husks. In this picture he has just finished scraping out the meat of the coconut and is showing us the empty shell. He did it in about 5 seconds! Yes, those are real tattoos from his waist to his knees.
There are seven villages and we saw five of them. Each village has some kind of demonstration or activity. We didn't see everything at each of those five villages, but I think we caught the highlights. After visiting villages it was time to go to an authentic Hawaiian luau for dinner. The food was wonderful and the entertainment was great. Can you see behind the dancers in the picture? It was the most beautiful mountain backdrop with waterfalls and tropical foliage. An amazing setting.
After dinner we attended the "Horizons" evening show. It's an incredible 90 minutes of Polynesian dancing, music and storytelling with a cast of over a hundred. It was difficult to get pictures with the low light levels since the performers were in constant motion. During intermission we had some Pineapple Deelite, a pineapple ice cream and fruit concotion. Deelectable!
It was a very fun day.
Hey There Yvonne! I love reading about all your adventures:-) Ditto on the Polynesian Culture Center--It's a great learning center. I had a 3 day TDY to Honolulu with my DC office back in 1998. I took a 2 day vacation by myself afterwards and went scuba diving with a local dive shop --touched a huge sea turtle and saw wonderful sealife. I went to the Culture Center and got up in front of alot of people I didn't know and did the hula dance thing...I was picked as the best hip shaker--ooolala:-) I figured WTH, since not a soul new me!!
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Thanks for the comment, Jennie! If we ever go back I want to try scuba diving. We had such a great time snorkeling. I wish we'd had more time at the PCC. Besides the hula lesson at the hotel, I also got to take a little lesson at the Tahiti village where they really get those hips moving. It's much easier when no one knows you, isn't it? ;-)
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