Polynesian Cultural Center

The day began with a delicious breakfast at IHOP--pancake guru!!! A tall stack of chocolate chip pancakes is the best breakfast ever! We left Waikiki headed to Laie via the Pali and Kamehameha Highways. This is a beautiful drive. The Kamehameha Highway runs along the coast so you have the smell of salty sea air along with the mountains on your left. You go past places like the Kualoa Ranch and Chinaman's Hat Island. It is quite a ways--about an hour--but the scenery makes it go by pretty fast. Well, unless your were figety like me.

We ended in the parking lot of the cultural center at noon and made our way in. As you walk through, there are glass display cases for each country showing off artifacts from each of the South Pacific Island. The islands had just opened so we made our way to Samoa. Here the Samoan showed us how to "make fire" and how they could scale the trees for coconuts. This guy was hilarious! Probably my favorite entertainer of all the islands.

Next we ventured to Aotearoa or New Zealand. We got to see a traditinal progression
by a neighboring village to the cheif. Afterwards, we all filed in to watch traditional
dances. Since I had visited NZ before, this was rather exciting for me. The dancers
used the poi balls and paddles, and even better, performed a haka! I love these
war dances. After their performances we got to try our hand at poi dancing, maori
tattoos and roam their village.

Next, off to Fiji. This trip to Fiji was not as exciting as my first, but hey, what can you
expect. The leader told about the culture and then followed by letting everyone
participate in a song using the traditional bamboo sticks.

Tahitiain Spear Throwing

After some long deliberation, we ventured off to the Marques Islands because they
only perform two shows a day. Here the "king and queen" peformed ceremonial
dances. They took guys out of the crowd to perform a traditional "pig hunt" which
was hilarious!  This village looked to be bigger than some of the other villages but,
for some reason, didn't perform as often as all the others.

ON TO THE CANOE PAGENT! This canoe pagent took place on the small "river" that
ran through all the villages. Different countries were represented and wore
traditional style ceremonial clothes. Dances and song were performed on each
canoe and proved to be very beautiful and entertaining. It came a small shower
during the pagent and while it didn't deter us, many left.

Resting

This was a shame,
apparently they didn't fully understand the concept of brief Hawaiian showers :)

We then traveled to Tahiti where performances included drumming and the "fast
hip shaking dance" of the Tahitians. This was a great performance! As an
interaction show, I was able to dance on stage and give the hip shaking a try.
Good times! I don't have any pics of this, unformately they were taken with my
moms camera and we are unable to download them at this time. I know, you would
have loved to see me making an idiot of myself...maybe later ;)

There was an IMAX theater in the park showing a documentary on the degaradation
of the worlds coral reefs. I thought this would be pretty interesting so we went to
the 4:00 (16:00) show. This show was great. Very interesting information and the
shots of all the fish and coral was amazing.

Banana Tree

If you ever happen to go to the
cutlural center, this movie is included with your ticket price so...go see it!

Off to Tonga! These guys were fantastic! Very funny and some wicked drumming skills.
Volunteers were asked onstage and of course, my boyfriend had to be one of them.
They were asked to repeat all the drumming of the Tongans and this was by far the
funniest show! Needless to say, my boyfriend made a complete idiot of himself and
loved every minute of it :)

They also offer canoe tours on the "river" that goes through all the villages. This was
the last thing we did before hunting some food. Unfortunately we did not get to see
the Hawaiian village which I guess was okaysince we live here. We chose not to
participate in the luau buffet. While most would really enjoy this, I (andmy mom) am
a picky eater and don't do pork anything.

At 7:30 the Horizons night show started. This was an excellent display of traditional
song and dance from all the villages. THIS SHOW IS AMAZING AND A MUST SEE!!! No
words can explain how great this show was. The only better show would be to
witness the dances in the actually country. 

WHAT A GREAT DAY!!! Highly recommended for a great day trip!