Hawaii: Polynesian Cultural Center

On Wednesday we'd booked a tour of the Polynesian Cultural Center. We had a small bus pick us up at the hotel and we made our way up the coast to Laie.

This was the kind of weather we enjoyed all day.

Just a little bit about the center- It's owned and run by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and is a non-profit facility. Most of their employees are students at BYU- Hawaii who are working at the center in exchange for tuition & housing.



The first part of our tour was a behind-the-scenes look at the stage and practice areas used by the performers in the night show that we were scheduled to see that evening. I didn't take any photos, but it was interesting to see where they stored their many costumes, where they'd practice their dances before the show and things like that.

Next we began visiting the different island "villages". Our first stop was the Aotearoa (New Zealand) pavilion. Aaron volunteered to help with a demonstration of how the native people would receive visitors to their village.
It wasn't exactly a warm welcome, but I guess to them it was important to be more intimidating than hospitable.

Inside, performers demonstrated traditional games, dances, and songs.

I hate that there's a pole in the way of my shot, but I just loved their singing.


Over at the Samoa village we got to see a stand-up comedy routine. Actually, we saw this guy demonstrate how to start a fire with two sticks, how to open a coconut and remove its meat, then squeeze coconut milk from the meat. He was also very, very funny!

He lit a coconut husk with the fire he started...



... and once he got a good flame going...

... he stomped it out with his bare foot. That's what I call a showman! :)
If you visit the PCC link at the top of this post, this guy is on their home page holding a fire knife and climbing a tree (not at the same time). He was supposed to demonstrate for us how to climb a coconut tree as well, but they were too wet that day. Bummer.

About midway through the day we sat down at the side of a shallow river and watched "The Pageant of the Long Canoes", which was where several floating stages rowed by with dancers who demonstrated traditional dances from the various Polynesian Islands.

Hawaii

Tonga

Tahiti

Aotearoa

Samoa

Fiji

We continued our tour and activities with learning how to throw a spear.

It was harder than it looked.

We also got tattoos!







I wanted Aaron to get a better shot of my tattoo, but he kept making me laugh. But I guess this one does show the tattoo pretty well, even if I do look like a giant dork.

And of course there was a hula lesson.




I wish I could remember which village this was at (Tonga maybe?), but I thought this guy playing a nose flute was pretty cool. (Sorry about the focus. My stupid, stupid camera does a terrible job of adjusting when I'm doing a video.)


The tour of the center took several hours, so the luau dinner was a nice way to relax at the end.

We got to have some traditional Hawaiian foods like kalua pig, poi (not a fan), coconut rice and some kind of raw fish that was actually pretty good.



During our meal we had some entertainment, too.

After the luau we went over to an amphitheater for the night show, "Ha- Breath of Life".

It was fantastic.
These dancers have to audition for their parts in this show, and all of them have had some sort of traditional Polynesian dance training, just like kids might take ballet or tap growing up.

The singing and dancing were awesome, and the whole show told a story.

There were guys who walked and danced on fire, but the fire-knife dancers were by far my favorite.

We came home with two copies of the show on DVD. We gave one copy to Mom and Dad and the kids watched it with Mom when we got back to Salt Lake.

Everyone that we talked to who'd been to Oahu said we had to visit the Polynesian Cultural Center while we were there. Now I know why. It did not disappoint! :)