PCC

Get caught up here:
Post 1 – Friday night
Post 2 – Saturday
Post 3 – Saturday
Post 4 – Sunday
Post 5 – Sunday  
Post 6 – Sunday

**This is extremely picture heavy and long.  I’m sorry, I was just trying not to have to break it out as much…**

Monday was a LONG day.

We boarded the bus at around 7:30 in the morning and didn’t get back to our hotel room until about 11:30 pm.  I hate to say it but the driver of the bus drove me nuts with his bad grammar and his constant snorting and swallowing INTO the microphone which was turned up way loud.  I think I found my Tourettes I didn’t know I had… lol j/k… I think.

Being the last “official” day of summer as people refer to Labor Day as the roads were busy swamped with people trying to get to the beach.  Our tour was through the Polynesian Culture Center who I learned was owned by BYU – Hawaii or at least all the BYU students worked there to help with tuition to attend BYU – Hawaii.

We started our day with a tour of Hawaii and were supposed to get back to the Culture center around noonish but because of traffic didn’t get there until just a bit after 2.

This was a hiking hill.  I can’t remember the name of it but whereas Diamond Head zigzags around, this was straight up.

 

 

Maybe a little too excited??

 

This was called Rabbit Head Island.  The thing we learned about Hawaii is we only recognize 8 islands when there are actually around 137 islands in the Hawaiian Chain that are counted.  This is considered one of them.  Basically the tour guide said if a landmass (such as this) pops up, it’s considered an island.

 

 

One of the only Hawaiian Sumo Wrestlers, this is a statue in his honor.  It was placed in front of his mom’s shop she owned at one time.  The now owner keeps it up there in memory and honor of her.  Japan has since closed their sumo wrestling up to just Japanese born.

 

One of the lookout points.  3 generations!

 

 

Yup, we drove through those tunnels 🙂

Then we headed to the Dole Plantation.

 

 

And while on our drive to the PCC we passed this huge rock.  It is the black rock right down there in the ocean.  It is 3 stories high, like being on the roof of a 3 story high building and people line up to jump off of it.  From the road, it doesn’t look very high but we were above it a ways.  The tour guide said that if you are down by it, it’s huge.

And Hawaii is working on wind power.  Currently, they are in the testing stages.

Once we got to the PCC we experienced the Pageant show at 2:30 where all the cultures represented at the pageant come down the river on canoes and do a chant.

The islands represented are: Aotearoa (New Zealand), Fiji, Hawaii, Rapa Nui, Samoa, Tahiti, Tonga, & other islands.

Photos from the pageant:

 

 

Then we go around to the different areas to watch the different about 20-30 minute shows from all the different cultures.  We only had time to view 3.

This was Samoa.  And we actually got to try some of their food.  Ok so I wasn’t crazy about it, but I tried it and didn’t die and had I lived there, it wouldn’t be bad 🙂

Yes, he climbed up this barefooted!

I truly can’t remember what group we were at here but this was hilarious.  This guy here called up 3 different guys from the audience.

 

 

 

He came up with these three (in this order) San Diego, Japan & Kenya (he referred to them by where they’re from…)

 

 

 

So he goes on with his skit of teaching them how to chant and play drums like the culture we were at would.  Now back behind them were 3 back up drummers

and I swear they must coach these guys when they go back there to pick on this lead dude b/c it was hilarious!

 

San Diego goes first and the leader says, ok I’ll do it first then you repeat me.  Well before the leader could get through SD starts in pounding on the drums or chanting and not making any sense.  Finally, he makes him go sit down.

 

Then Kenya gets up there and they’re banging away on the drums chanting and all of the sudden Kenya breaks out into “Who Let the Dogs Out” and the look on the leader’s face was priceless!  Then they tried to do the dun dun du dun dun…. Du du… and Kenya would just repeat instead of the du du.

 

So he sits down and Japan gets up and he tries to have Japan yell as a man and Japan screams like a girl.  The look on the leader’s face again was PRICELESS!  So then He has Japan ask the crowd, Are you Ready.  And then says, “ok say ‘Are you read in Japanese,'” so Japan says, “Are you Ready in Japanese.”  And the leader is like, “No say are you ready, In Japanese.”  So Japan goes, “Are you Ready IN Japanese.”

 

Later after it was all done we got to talk to the leader and he said he doesn’t ever know what they’ll do, that’s why I think the back-up drummers must coach them while they’re sitting in the background.  He said sometimes they’ll break out into the O’ Canada Song (if Canadian of course), They’ll break out into I like to Move it Move it, they’ll break out into Who let the Dogs out, and he just never knows what’s going to happen.

So after that, we went and caught the boat ride back to the front so we’d be to dinner at the right time.  You can call me lots of things, but don’t call me late for dinner 😉

 

Ever wondered what one of these looks like from behind??

 

LOL 🙂

 

Once we got to the Luau/dinner, they were introducing royalty & the pig…

 

 

Then they seated us 🙂

Toward the end of the meal, they asked for any couples who were celebrating their anniversaries to come up so hubby and I went.  There were 4 couples up there, all of us were on our 1 year except one and they were celebrating 5 years.  Then we got to dance to a traditional Hawaiian Love song.

After dinner was over, then we milled around for a bit until the evenings show started.  My mom decided right here, she wasn’t sure if she would claim us anymore or not…

Once the show was over, we hopped back on the bus, drove the hour drive back to Waikiki beach, went into our hotel room and crashed.  It made for an extremely LONG day!  And Tuesday morning was the only morning on this trip I didn’t wake up at 3 am (which remember is 8 am MO time)

Do’s & Don’ts IMO

• Do take an island tour.  You get to see where Elvis Presley bought a house, where Blue Hawaii was filmed, where Hawaii 5 0 is shot, etc.  Lots of cool little trinkets along the way.
• Do do it early on your trip so if you see something you want to go back and look at you can either hop the city bus or you can rent a car for a day.
• Do eat all the fresh fruit you can find!  It’s extra yummy!
• Do go to the Dole Plantation.  We were only there for about 20 minutes so I’m not sure if it’s worth more than that or not like I said we weren’t there for long…
• Do try their Pineapple ice cream!
• Definitely go to the Polynesian Culture Center!!!

• Don’t – well I might not suggest taking their tour because it is an extremely long day… but you might like it too…
• I really don’t have too many don’ts.  Maybe don’t forget to eat breakfast if you take their tour because if you hit traffic, it makes for a LONG day and a while between eatings 🙂
• Don’t buy Pineapples at Dole if you are there early in your trip, hop the city bus on your day to come home, run to Dole, buy them then… they’ll be much fresher!

**Sorry this was so long and picture heavy, I was just trying not to have to break it down as much**