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…

This was a chillin’ day. We didn’t leave the hotel until almost 11! We got up early enough (9 ish) but just had a hard time rolling out of the room after such a busy day Wednesday. Our main objective on this day was to accomplish as little as possible in a whole day by the beach. When we got to the lobby, Amy’s mom and aunt were just leaving and decided to give us each a beautiful, cool purple orchid lei. They also didn’t want to fly with their bamboo beach mats, so we ended up with three of those. Yippee! We wandered through the Hilton Hawaiian village to go to the beach and found an unoccupied spot. We promptly spread out our mats and sprawled on them, trying in vain to hold them down from the strong tradewinds. We were out there for almost three hours, swimming, sunning, reading, shielding our eyes from the occasional sandstorm. Around us were fellow sunbathers as well as beginner surfers and children playing on their boogie boards. We ended our afternoon on the beach with a picnic lunch in the little park nearby. Justin was so moved to try to scale a palm tree, inspired by a demo at the Polynesian Cultural Center. He didn’t get too far, but I am sure he could learn how.
After lunch, we trekked back to our hotel and I went to the pool for an hour. Justin had to set up a couple of new clients and I wanted to finish my book (Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim). Unfortunately there was an older gentleman persistently hitting on an older lady next to me, so I spent most of my time half-listening to their conversation rather than actually reading. I was entertained, but I decided to come upstairs and read on our lanai. I talked to my parents, drank some afternoon coffee, and finished my book.

Soon I got cleaned up because we had to get ready for dinner with our friends. We had to walk 1.5 miles to their hotel so they could pick us up to go to Ono’s, a Hawaiian restaurant.

We ate an early dinner due to the tiny restaurant’s popularity with natives and visitors alike. I’m not kidding–this place is tiny. Think Bobby’s in Searcy-sized. Now cut that in half, stir in some Hawaiian food, double the prices, and put all the food on hospital-pastel dishes. Now imagine it being REALLY yummy. I had chicken long rice, a noodle and chicken soup in a clear tomato (?) broth, rice, haupia (a gelatin made with coconut), a Hawaiian beef jerky (not too tough–it was obviously fresh), and a chopped salmon and tomato dish (like pico de gallo with chopped salmon in it). I tried some of Justin’s shredded, smoked pork. Yum!

After dinner, the ten of us made our way to a Malasada place called Leonard’s (Malasadas are Portuguese donuts).

On the way there, it began to sprinkle and we could see this amazing rainbow that stretched from the mountains to the ocean, it seemed. This made our walk go by quickly. When we got there, I found that this place was also tiny, and it didn’t have the most friendly of employees, but we gave them great business. I ordered one filled with coconut and one filled with chocolate for later. Both were fresh and warm, rolled in sugar. YUM!

When we said our goodbyes, Justin and I walked back toward our hotel, stopping in vain to inquire about bike rentals. We made our way through the international marketplace and picked up a boogie board for $13 and got a snorkel set for $25. It costs almost this much to rent, so we thought we could use these again sometime. We also saw a 2-story fish aquarium that you can walk through in one of the stores. I love manta rays, and there were a few in there, so we had fun in that tunnel for a while.

Once we got back to our room, we decided to stay in and watch the rest of Wimbledon and all of The Princess and the Warrior, starring Franka Potente. I slept through the middle of it, not because it was boring, but because I was lying down already and it had been a long day, but I got to see the end of it. We had to go to bed now that it was 1 a.m. because Friday morning we needed to catch the 8:15 bus a few blocks down the road.