Hawaii and PCC

So, on Wednesday, August 8th we flew to Hawaii!  Huzzah!  The not so huzzah part was that I stayed up ridiculously late packing the night before, and only got two or three hours of sleep since we had to leave really early.  Then we had the layover from the underworld in LA for about nine hours.  (Flight delays etc.)  I was going insane in my sleep deprived delirium.  As a side note, we sat next to this guy:

 

without knowing he was famous (until people started coming up to him asking for pictures--and having us take them.)  Eventually we got to Hawaii--minus Clint's luggage.  So we didn't do anything in our first night in Hawaii--except I washed the clothes Clint was wearing so he could sleep in something clean at least, hah.

 

On Thursday we had planned on going to the temple, but we ended up going to sleep so late the night before that we didn't have time.  If I ever go back to Oahu, this is a priority!  Anyway, we snapped a few pics at least. I love hibiscus flowers!

 

 

After quickly cruising the temple grounds, we went into the Polynesian Cultural Center. I definitely recommend it for first time visitors!  I enjoyed the ancient tribal singing in the Aotearoa (New Zealand) section as well as the demonstration of more tonal singing influenced by foreigners. They also showed us traditional dance (such as hakka), war games, and this interesting hand quiver called woodi woodi that represents the energy of life. The traditional costume includes some serious face tatoos.

 

The Fijian area was fun too--we has a mini anthropology lesson about how all the pacific islands were populated from an Asian area called Astronesia. Then we hit these big bamboo sticks on the ground to accompany singing and music.  Afterwards we snapped a picture of me with this adorable Fijian girl.  Notice that the Fijian traditional costume includes big black circles painted on the face.

 

 

The Samoan area was fun too.  Before the official show started a guy came and showed us his traditonal chest/torso tattoos and told us about the meaning.  Apparently a Samoan young man gets this tatoos as sort of a rite of passage into manhood.  Then once the actual demonstration started a funny guy who cracked all sorts of jokes explained that Samoan men are in charge of cooking.  We had a demonstration of how to climb a coconut tree, how to crack the coconut, drink the water, shave the meat, and squeeze it to make coconut milk. Then we went to this little pavilion and made a craft out of some kind of palm frond.

 

 

After visiting various other "islands" at the center, we had our luau dinner.  I have to admit--I didn't really like a lot of the more traditional foods such as the purple sweet potatoes and the guava cake.  It was fun though--we sat at a table with people from Canada, New Zealand, and Hong Kong.

After the luau we drove around a bit before the show started--we wanted to get a glimpse of the campus of BYU Hawaii.  I found a plumeria tree that had shed some blossoms. And decided to make a little ear piece.

The show "Ha: Breath of Life" was fun, but included a lot of dancing which we had already seen a fair amount of.  Also, we were soooo exhaused by that point.  We drove back to the hotel and fell asleep after a long but fun day.