Hawaii Trip – Day 9
Saturday, January 13th, 2007 :: 5:18 pm
Spent most of the day after noon at the Polynesian Cultural Center, a place almost like Disneyland, except there were native handicrafts, cultural performances, and yes, lots and lots of Hula dances :-P
Are people just stalking? If you’re here, please give me a “Yo!” so I know I’m not just spending 2 hours a day recapping my own photos :-P
Royal Mausoleum where the Royal Family was they were gathering for Queen Emma’s birthday!
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Greetings all around
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Forming a circle for traditional song
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Pali lookout panorama, where the Japanese flew over to attack Pearl Harbour! (click for larger image)
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Polynesian Cultural Center boat ride
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Tonga drumming performance
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Three very funny spectors chosen to play the traditional drums
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Marquesas songs and dances
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Hula performances on floating platforms – canoe pageant
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Samoa Village – Probably the funniest guy that day… so talented in everything!
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Shelling coconut competition
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Climb the coconut tree with your bare hands!
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Fiji traditional dance performance
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Leis for everyone as you enter for dinner! (I brought it back and dried it!)
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The Fish Weaving I made – it was quite easy!
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Mmm… buffet dinner menu looks delicious…
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First plate, we’ve got taro buns, sweet potato salad, teriyaki chicken, poke (sashimi tuna), salad, rice noodle
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Live hula dances as you eat!
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The evening show "Horizons" starting out with torches
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Fire in coconut shells!
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More traditional dancing
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Live music
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Hula hula! Shake shake shake! :-P
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Samoa dancing performance
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The talented Samoa funny-guy I was talking about… his fire performance was AWESOME!
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Turn turn turn!
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January 14th, 2007 at 3:14 am
very commercialized holiday event?
January 14th, 2007 at 3:11 pm
Some of what you called “hula” is Tahitian dance (I guess I type of polynesian hula dance). The girls in yellow (during canoe pagaent) and also the girls in gold and purple (during Horizons performance). Their hips really shake like that are on springs!
I realized it was commercialized but it was really fun time and I got to know some of the Polynesian groups I had no idea about before and had just thought they were all the same.
a70 did not mention this but the Polynesian Cultural Center is set up by a nearby Brigham Young University of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons). This is an opportunity to bring people from other Polynesian islands to come to Hawaii and work and also a chance for their students (many of whom are also from the neighbouring islands) to come to Hawaii to get an university education and work at the same time to support themselves.
I am usually opposed to things like this which seemed more like a live human exhibition than anything else educational but I had to say I had a good time here. It would have been much better had we had more time there (the ticket is a three day pass but we only had time to go one day).
January 14th, 2007 at 7:45 pm
夏威夷草群五!!!!
好想見識一下喔:P
!!!
January 15th, 2007 at 11:26 am
Yo! Sam, I was waiting to see more pictures from you. I had been this place and I had a great time there too. Very nice pictures.
January 15th, 2007 at 2:33 pm
wow.. your photos are like mine except a lot nicer.. lol. http://flickr.com/photos/natyoung/232483828/ is that not reminiscent of your food plate? again yours looks a loooooot niceer hahaha. and i think i saw the exact same samoa (somoan?) guy perform too .. he kinda had a wheezing voice rite? he was hilarious!
January 16th, 2007 at 1:51 am
Alex: What commercialized holiday event? Nope, it’s like this year round! It’s like a miniature theme park!
Aqua: There were so many pictures I couldn’t really recall which performers were from which village… but thanks for providing all those extra info! ^^
alice: 我相信上Youtube一定有很多 :-D
carol: Thanks for “Yo”ing! :-P The post-processing work is taking a while…
nat: Haha, that does look like my plate! XD And I think you went in the summer, so I don’t think the Samoa guy has changed! He sure is funny eh? :-P
Ohh, I just saw your photos from Hawaii, very pretty, you even went to other islands!
February 4th, 2007 at 1:16 pm
haha XD too much words, so I just look at the pictures. 不過你的caption是很有趣.
February 18th, 2007 at 1:18 am
Most people skip the captions… I think :-P
March 15th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
Wow-fantastic pics!! Just found your blog while googling info for my own Hawaii adventure–trying to decide between Big Island, Kauai, and Maui, any suggestions??
March 21st, 2009 at 1:42 am
Thanks Jess! Actually, they are all quite different from each other! I went on a cruise around all the Hawaii islands the year before, and Big Island was all about volcanoes and magma and the like. Kauai is ancient and small, but Waimea Canyon was gorgeous, not to mention Na Pali Coast. Maui has the tall Haleakala volcano, definitely worth the drive up for the view. It also has some very nice beaches!
I can’t give you a definite answer, but they each have their own scenes and were very beautiful. Though the individual island are definitely drivable within a couple of days, so spend some time on each :)