Aloha!!!!

So… yesterday we headed to the Polynesian Cultural Centre, we wanted to go to a Lu'au and this centre included this along with a number of cultural performances so we decided to check it out.

It took about an hour and fifteen minutes to get to the centre (it is on the other side of Oahu Island) We had a guide on the coach who informed us of lots of information - both about the cultural centre and the island of Oahu. We saw the canyon where many films have been filmed - such as Jurassic park, Wind talkers, Lost and tons more which he was just reeling off - we never realized just how many films were shot on this island of Hawaii!!!We also saw where Karate kid 2 was filmed, the actual house of Mr Miyagi!Also we saw the house and pier where 51st dates was filmed - how awesome J

Enough about the films… we arrived at the cultural centre and set off to our first village - 'Samoa'.The cultural village included 6 villages from the Polynesian islands which we were able to visit - so interesting and we got to visit Fiji again - wooohoooo!!!

The performance at 'Samoa' we saw the guy light fire and open coconuts (which we were taught in Fiji the same way) also kids climbing huge coconut trees to get at the coconuts - crazy - this was quiet a funny show!

SJ bought a fan made out of coconut leaves - mega cool J

The next village was the island of Aotearoa (better known as New Zeland) we were welcomed by a ceremony native to the culture outside, then we were led inside and they again performed things which were common within their culture - stick throwing, singing and the haka dance. This performance was held within a traditional Maori meeting house.

We then moved onto FIJI J as we walked into the village - there was a guy beating the wooden drum like thing we mentioned in our blogs from the Fijian islands - we both said 'its dinner time' and the guy laughed!! The first thing that the guy up front asked the audience was 'has anyone been to fiji?' we were the only people to raise our hands and say that we were there 2 weeks ago 'fresh from fiji' said the guy! Ha ha! He made us get up and dance on stage with the Fijian performers - joys! J

After Fiji we headed for a bite to eat and watched the canoe pageant - every island performed traditional dances from their culture, when Hawaii came through we though it looked so elegant and quite slow movements, then we saw Tahiti - loud drums and proper shaking of the hips - all women - we both though that was hula - we were very confused ha ha our next stop explained our confusion to us…. Hawaii J

The guy there said many people confuse the Tahiti traditional dance with Hawaii's hula; hula is a sacred thing which originally started with the men doing the dancing, when we were shown what the dance meant it was really cool to watch, really calm and elegant. Tahiti is very BOOM BOOM BOOM - HIP HIP HIP haha also good to watch but so different from the Hula, we visited Tahiti next and saw more of the hip shaking (which we originally thought was hula - how wrong we were)

We skipped Tonga as we had seen there dance at the canoe pageant and we wanted to go to the IMAX theatre - we made the 4pm showing - was about coral - was okay, not relevant enough to write about hehe.

After this is was the Lu'au J as we entered the area to be seated we were greeted by fresh flower Lei's - it was soooo busy! Throughout our dinning experience we had this guy entertaining us and Hawaiian dancers performing - we also found out that one of Elvis' films was actually filmed where we were sat eating - crazy stuff ha ha the dancers in the film were from the Polynesian cultural centre back in the day!!

We saw them dig the pig out of the ground which was cool and tasted very yummy, we were at the dinning area for about an hour and a half - had an awesome huge smoothie which we drank out of a pineapple J

After the Lu'au we headed to the Pacific Theatre to watch the Horizons night show - this was pretty amazing - took lots of photos - probably all look the same to you guys but it was super cool - all the different Polynesian cultures performed there native dance and told stories through the dance - there costumes were also amazing!

Today we have been on the beach most of the day and lazing on our 'water beds' in the sea - found a really calm part of the beach sheltered by rocks so we can lye down without being tipped of haha woohoo!!

Tomorrow we are meeting up with Morgans Uncle Abel and Auntie Minda, off to the Dole Plantation and meeting more of the family for dinner we think - we will let you all know how it goes…..

Lots of love

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