Sunday, April 14, 2013

Tuesday, April 2: The Polynesian Cultural Center







On Tuesday, April 2, we went to the Polynesian Cultural Centre after having a picnic lunch on a beach at the North Shore. This was one of our excurions, all paid for by Make-a-wish. The Polynesian Cultural Centre is basically sponsored by the church (or an affiliate). It provides jobs and scholarships to Polynesian students so they can attend BYU Hawaii. Many or most of the employees there are LDS. It is a theme park where you go to different "villages," each representing different island culture--Samoa, Tonga, Hawaii, Tahiti, New Zealand and Fiji. At each village there are little activities you can do to learn about the culture there. There are also shows at each village through the afternoon. At suppertime, you can get a prime rib buffet or Asian buffet or you can go to a luau, which is what we did. In the evening they have a huge show, "The Breath of Life" with dancing and lots of pageantry, including those who perfom with fire. The whole day ended around 9 or 9:30 and then we drove an hour or so back to our hotel. It was our first really nice warm day there and we all really enjoyed it. Mark did great until about 20 minutes before the night show ended when he had a complete meltdown and was screaming. I took him out and he settled a little and was fine on the way home.


The first show we went to was Samoa and it was really funny. This guy made fire from rubbing sticks together and then caught the fire onto a coconut shell. 


In the Samoa show  guy climbs a coconut tree. They are really quite high.

I am trying to make fire at one of the activities in Samoa. Pretend you see smoke.
We made "fish" by weaving leaves at an activity in Samoa. This was  Preston's favorite thing.

Learning to play a song on the ukelele in Hawaii. Mark is enjoying the music!

Spear throwing in Tahiti



A stick throwing game in New Zealand
Another game with sticks in New Zealand

A game with twirling balls in New Zealand
Tatts in New Zealand

Hula dancing in Hawaii

As we entered the luau we all got flower leis. Mark was quick to get rid of that baby!


Our family at the Luau

The pig roasted in a pit.



Preston got called up to participate in  performance during the luau

Does it almost look like Mark is drinking the smoothie in the pineapple? It was super delish.

1 comment:

Kartchner Family said...

What a fun day. The tattoo boy looks like he's bad to the bone. Love the hula dancers.

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