Hawaii Day 6: condo, sea arch, Polynesian Cultural Center

 Friday morning, we had a bit of a laid back morning which was nice since we had arrived a bit late and had a late night planned with the show at the Polynesian Cultural Center.

The living area. Megan slept on the pullout couch.

Matthew slept on the day bed.

Master

Nice view from the lanai.

Our condo was on the 7th floor. It's the 3rd from the top in this picture.

U and Me walked down on the beach in front of the condo.

Me

Me on the tree swing.

Double rainbow

U, Megan and Matthew playing a game.

We headed up to Laie Point State Wayside Park. It was a lovely area!

Sea Arch

We then headed to the Polynesian Cultural Center where we enjoyed a day exploring the Pacific Islands. We got there a little before it opened and got to see the preshow with greetings and dances from the different islands. We then got on our guided tour with Becks from the Philippines as our guide. There were 4 other people in our group.

Megan, U, Matthew and Me on our canoe ride. Our guide was Samoan and the power of the boat was a guy from the small island of Australia (his words). It was a nice overview of the center.

Megan, U, Me and Matthew with the big sea faring vessel they are working on at the center.

We went to the Hawaiian village where we tried poi.

Next up was Fiji. They are actually Melanesian, not Polynesian. We visited a replica of the chief's hut.

In Fiji, they believed in having big hair. They also had a rule that no hair should be on the bed or ground so they had elaborate wooden pillows to hold their hair off the bed. It gives a whole new meaning to pillow fight....

Some of the different weapons they used.

A small Fijian vessel similar to the one in the film Moana. The Fijians are known as the best canoe makers in the islands. Only the high chief owns boats so technically Moana stole from her father when she left. Also, it takes 5 grown men to sail this vessel not one girl and her chicken.

We next headed to Tonga which is the only island group that still has a monarchy. The current monarch has an unbroken line of over 1000 years.

Fun Tongan show. They had 3 men in the audience come up and dance and drum with them. It was very entertaining. Megan, in particular, really liked it.

When the queen of Tonga learned that the PCC was creating a Tongan isle, she sent her master carvers to the build this replica of her summer home. Notice the shells around the ceiling--only royalty can decorate with shells as they are hard to get and expensive.

Other side of the summer house.

Next up was Samoa. Samoa is one of the isles that tattooing come from. The word "tatau" comes from the sound that the tools make during the tattooing process. The tattoos that Samoan men get are very symbolic and go from the waist to the knees. It takes multiple people to pull the skin tight. The process is broken into multiple sessions--it is over 40 hours of tattooing! The belly button is done last and it supposed to remind them of their connection to their mother, to whom they always show respect. This man explained the process to us and showed us some of his tattoos.

He was telling us a bunch of jokes as well. For instance, in Samoa, the buildings are open and they have guest houses where people can stay whether they are invited or not. He said they have an "open house" in Samoa. He also said that Samoa is heaven (while Tonga is the other side of heaven). He said that knocking on heaven's door is misnomer as there are no doors in heaven (aka Samoa). He also pointed out that the in the US, we tell kids not to play with knives or fire versus in Samoa where they have kids put the fire and knife together in fire knife dancing.

In Samoa, they demonstrated starting fire by rubbing wood on wood. They then took the coal and put it in coconut fibers to create a fire. Reminded me of Anasazi. We also saw someone climb a coconut tree.

We then went to Aotearoa (Maori name for New Zealand; it means "land of the long white cloud"). We played a game with sticks where we let go of our stick and grabbed the one to the right or the left or turned around depending on what was called. It's one of the ways they teach their children to have good reflexes. It was pretty fun although U got bonked in the face with a stick. We watched their show which was very fun! They have a reputation of being fierce warriors and that was definitely reflected in the show. We saw dancing with poi and a fight dance. They also told about their ancestors who were represented with totems.

U, Me, Matthew and Megan with Becks, our guide

We then headed to the luau where we started our meal with delicious pineapple drinks served in pineapple.

The uncovering of the pig.

There was some entertainment while we ate all the yummy food. A favorite was the purple rolls made with sweet potato flour.

The queen watching the festivities from her throne

A few photos from after the luau:

Megan, Matthew and Me

Me and U

Megan, Me, Matthew and U

The fish we made in Samoa. We could play a fishing game where we cast them out on the thin grass they were on.

Megan and the tiki

U and Megan

Megan showing off her ukulele skills. We learned to play a few basic songs ("row your boat" and "you are my sunshine").

U, Matthew, Me and Megan

Megan, Matthew, Me and U waiting for the evening show Ha: The Breath of Life to start. It told the story of a boy, Mana, through his birth, childhood, adolescence and start of adult life with an island visited during each of those time periods. Hawaii was visited for the 1st year luau. The young boy who represented Mana was probably 3-4 years old and did a great job dancing the hula. At the end was the fire knife dance from Samoa. It was amazing! There were even a couple of women who participated in it.

Me, Matthew and Megan after the show which we really enjoyed.

Megan, U, Matthew and Me in our photo from the PCC. The fire knife dances really are a lot of fun to watch!