Today was the day of the Polynesian Cultural Center FDP (Faculty Directed Practica) which, again, I was able to attend FOR FREE. Things were getting really expensive so a big invisible thankful hug to whoever cancelled and put it in the donation bin instead of trying to sell it, because otherwise I probably wouldn’t have gone.
We bussed over at 1030 and began exploring at about noon. Or rather, we followed a semi-designated path from Polynesian “Island” to “Island.” There were six different centers, Samoa, New Zealand, Fiji, Tonga, Hawaii, and Tahiti. They each had different events ranging from firemaking to chants and dance, to bamboo instruments, to drumming, to hula, and some cultural descriptions and such interweaved with the entertainment. There was also a canoe pageant that we stayed to watch. Actually, most of the group didn’t go to the Tahiti section, but Natali and I wandered off while they were getting snacks to watch their dance demonstrations, and then to go to a cooking demonstration where they kept bring out bamboo basket after basket of BEAUTIFUL sweet soft perfectly edible Tahitian Coconut bread. AND I got the recipe.
I’ll paste it some where eventually.
After taking about two loaves worth of bread samples, Natali and I hopped on a canoe ride and then headed off to the buffet dinner. It wasn’t a whole lot better than the shipboard buffet, but it was a nice change. Plus the buffet had miso soup, which the ship generally does not. Once we were done eating we proceeded to an Imax movie about coral reefs in Fiji and the surrounding islands. After the movie was finished, I really wanted a hangglider, and I still want one – the kind where you sit and there’s a little motor and you can videotape – but I can’t buy one right now soooo, ummm, well after that we went to a show called “Ha, breath of life”. The money from tickets from the Center goes to students from the different islands, who were the ones who performed for us, hich was cool. The gist of the story was the life of an island human named Mana from birth until the death of his father and birth of his own son.
The show was the last event at the Center, so we took the buses back to the port, and Natali and I met Nat who had returned from his own day out. We ended up taking a free party bus with some other SAS students to a Hawaiian club, where we hung out and danced until like almost two. It was mostly Semester at Sea students there, which was nice. The other half of the students seemed to be at the beach, attempting to spend the night (though I heard the attempt was unsuccessful). When we left, Nat, who actually had left the club a little after midnight, introduced me to a couple international travelers he had met outside, Paul from Germany and diego from Switzerland. They were part of a program on the island where international students spend two months on Hawaii studying English, and were happy to hang out with us for awhile. Diego was intensely energetic and had a lot to say or poke fun at about everything on the street. Paul was his antithesis, very reserved and putting a lot of thought into his questions or comments when he so chose to make them. He also loved Walmart because “everything is all together” and because the people are nice whereas Germany has a different store for everything and people don’t look at you. They were both really nice, but by 3:30 they decided they wanted to go find a bar so we split up and took a cab back to the ship.
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