One of my objectives when visiting a new place is to learn about the culture of the people who live there. I thought this could be achieved by paying a large sum to go to, in essence, a 7-village theme park, a luau, an IMAX, and a night show in a little town about an hour and 15 minutes from here on the North Shore. At least it would be a fun way to learn, plus it’s a non-profit and all the people working there are receiving an almost-free college education.
Anyway, we had to be picked up around 10 a.m. across the street, so we showered and packed and breakfasted, then ran across the street to catch our shuttle. Our shuttle was a charter bus! After receiving our maps, a mint, and a hand wipe(?), our tour guide “Cousin Moses” (a 20-something Samoan, self-named the smallest Samoan ever made) told us about the points of interest along the way, including the chapel from Karate Kid II, the valley where Jurassic Park was filmed, the pier from 50 First Dates, etc. When Justin and I got there, our first objective was finding a hat for Justin’s burned head, which we did rather quickly. Our next objective was to figure out how to see everything from 12-5 p.m. (this included a canoe pageant, 7 villages and demonstrations, and an IMAX film on coral reefs).
Once this was deemed impossible, we visited the Samoan village demo (palm tree climbing, fire-starting using rubbed sticks, coconut-husking, cracking, and shredding). The guy was hilarious and we saw him again in the Horizons show that evening as a fire-eater and juggler. Wow. We had what was called a Pineapple Delight (sherbet, cherries, pineapple) and visited the migration museum, as well.
Next we moved to New Zealand to the Maori peoples. I got a cool “tatoo” band on my upper arm, which hardly made it through the day because I was sweating so much and kept putting on my backpack or bumping into people.
In this section, we got to see the traditional greeting into the village, dances, stick games, and the use of the poi balls. Much of the chants and poses seemed familiar from Whale Rider, but I still enjoyed it.
We worked our way to Hawaii, where we got to see a demo by “Cousin Benny,” a 44-year old Hawaiian musician. He demonstrated the use of the slide on the guitar, the nose flute, a variety of beat-keepers, as well as the ukulele (which I have been pronouncing wrong for a long time). His daughter, who sat not far from us at the luau, is the first Hawaiian on the US Women’s National Soccer team. At this station, we got to try poi (ugh), and learn to hula (which is not a fast-hip-shaking dance, but rather a slow movement using the hands).
After a quick stop in Fiji where we used large hollow bamboo sticks to keep a beat, we found some seats on the “river” banks for the 2:30 canoe pageant. All I could think about was how hot I was and how much sweat was trickling down my back. Yuck. Fortunately, we had a slight breeze and some cloud cover during part of this show, which was a “parade” of rafts that floated past with dancers from the different villages. My favorite was the Tahitian dances, which remind me a lot of the East African hip-shaking dances that I have seen. I cannot imagine being able to do that on land, let alone on a raft.
Our next stop was a 3 p.m., air-conditioned IMAX about coral reefs with music from Crosby, Stills, and Nash. I enjoyed learning about the reefs and got really excited about snorkeling later in the week. I was also really excited about being in a dark, air-conditioned room.
By this time, it was 4, so we had about an hour to see everything else before our dinner seating started. We zoomed past Tahiti and the Marquesas (which I had never heard of) to get Justin a diet Coke (apparently, it was also caffeine free, since this place is run by BYU). We stopped in Tonga to hear the drum show and the three volunteers (guys from New Jersey, Texas, and Japan) kept us rather entertained when playing the drums.
Stopping by “Easter Island,” we made our way to the luau line. Everyone got a lei upon entering, and the cool flowers against my neck felt so good. I couldn’t wait to wash my face and have some cold water, as well as my first taste of traditional Hawaiian food. The aforementioned Cousin Benny was our EmCee for the night and we had a variety of entertainers perform for us for the evening. We sat next to a couple (the guy was from Seattle and his girlfriend was from California) who were good conversationalists for the duration of our dinner. Before the buffet started, two men pulled the pig from the roasting pit, though I doubt that was the pig that fed us that evening, as there were likely 500 people there (and there were two more happening in other areas of the park). We got to go through the buffet line and here’s what my plate ended up looking like:
The purple roll is made from taro root–like a sweet potato–the same thing poi is made from. Our official menu included:
Chicken long rice, kalua pua’a (Imu Pig), teriyaki chicken, island fish (breaded fish), sweet potatoes (taro), rice, poke (marinated fish), lomilomi salmon (the one with tomatoes), pipi kalua (like jerky), poi, taro rolls, pineapple spears, salad, spinach salad, sweet potato salad (purple), ambrosia salad, cucumber carrot salad, haupia dessert, coconut cake, chocolate macadamia nut cake, pineapple bars.
The food was great and an adventure to try, but I can’t say dessert was fantastic. I thought the experience earned about 6 or 7 stars on a scale of one to ten. The next experience, the Horizons show, was quite entertaining and “shiny”–it reminded me of the mission statement of the PCC–”to preserve the more ideal aspects of the Polynesian culture.” With the glow in the dark poi balls and sticks, the glowing “lava” water, and the fire sticks, I felt like it was a good show, but felt like I needed to learn more about the deeper parts of these islands. I learned some surface attributes, but you can’t learn much more than that in one day.
So, on the way home, I didn’t mull over this very much, as I was putting up with some severe body odor from the people sitting around us ( I know I didn’t smell great either, but UGH!) as well as some sci-fi talk from the couple behind us. I read some of my book and went promptly to bed. What a day…
