Hawaii is not cheap and although you can occasionally pick up some a bargain, most of the time you should either have to pay that little extra or be prepared for a bit of searching around in order to get he best deals.
By the end of tomorow I will have firmly decided that it is not worth going on most of the package trips, but before I jump ahead of myself let me start by saying that I did not do much in the morning and was met up at my pickup point on time and in yet another of the small mini -buses, not large luxury coaches that they displayed on their leaflets.
I am not sure if it is all Hawaiians have really bad sense of humours, or just the tour guides, as this driver too was as crazy as a loon and was forever telling us jokes that first made us groan, then moan and sad to say for me it put me off listening in the end as he was always starting off a story with things like "and the reason it got its name is ..." only to have a lame joke as the tagline, thus making me unsure if anything he said was true or just a joke that I didnt get.
The map we were given was taking an almost identical route up through to the north of the island, similar to the one that I had taken yesterday, and so for much of it I decided to doze as best I could, but again I could not help but take in some of his oration also. Thus it was that I overheard much of what I heard yesterday, including the origins for the names of the places we were going through, of some of the local legends of how the place was founded and sharpened up a few of the points I thought I had down pat the first time.
Hawaii is a group of 8 main islands, the 9th being in Las Vegas, O'ahu is the third largest island with a population of around 900,000 in its one city Hololulu, which is divided up in districts with Waikiki being just one of them. The largest of the 8 islands, locally called the big island, has a surface area great enough to emcompass all the other islands together however there are far more people living and working in Honolulu than in all the rest of Hawaii put together.
The U.S.A.'s second most exclusive and prestigious University is on the Island of O'ahu, making Yale the third but not quite knocking Harvard off its top spot, and in a quite normal looking building in downtown Honolulu is where Barak Obama grew up, his extended family being able to afford the costly tuition fees of said exclusive university..
Although Hawaii is an American state and English has the first language for over one hundred years, almost all the names of streets, places and greetings are in ancient Hawaiian and all those born here are taught it as a strong second language growing up, able to drop into it with each other as easily as anything.
The rest of the information sort of rolls up into a large mass of unrelated facts and jokes, so not worth retelling here, suffice to say that I arrived at the Polynesian Culture Centre a little around midday.
This place is made up of different lands showing the typical native houses, traditions and dances of the main cultures that made up Polynesia, being Hawaii, Samoa, Tahiti, Fiji, Tongo and New Zealand ( here called by its original name of Aotearoa, being the land of the long white cloud. ). Other smaller island groups are also given some lip service but do not feature as major attractions or lands here in the centre.
Just one of the many insane bits of info that I picked up is that the Samoan islands are divided into American and non-American controlled with locals needing a passport to cross over from one to the other regardless of whether they are born natives or not from either partition.
The sky did cloud over and rain throught the early afternoon, which seriously threatened the rest of the evenings live shows, but thankfully it stopped and dried out by around 4pm, which was a relief as otherwise the shows would have to be cancelled due to the authentic clothes not being waterproof or even decorated with fixed colours ( such modern technique's shunned with a view to keeping the displays as authentic as possible ).
Being with a small tour group not officially linked with the centre was a bit of a downer, as those who were seemed to have not only more time in the centre, but were able to schedule in more of the timed shows held in each of the lands, and by the end of the day I decided that it was better to come alone early than pay a secondary agent to give you only half a day and their own rushed tour of the place.
One example of this was that there were various sports and games on display, like the blunt point spear chucking or shuffle board games, where as we wandered we could see other groups joyfully playing the games, but on our visit to the places our guide showed us how it was played and then moved us quickly on without giving any of us the chance to try our hands at them.
Another minor disappointment was again that no food or drinks were included in the tour and we were just shown where we were to eat and then our guide would wander off, leaving us with the choice of having to pay for a limited selection of foods or go hungry. Being fair there was a main evening buffet that was inclusive but that was not until 6pm and none of us could wait that long.
The displays and shows themselves were very impressive and totally made all the other minor inconveniences not worth worrying about when thinking about the day as a whole. The guy who made fire with friction and a starting stick was very cool to watch, as he started just making a small amount of smoke and then rubbed a dry coconut shy against it til it too began to softly smoke. Then he just slowly held it in his hand while he talked to us, all the while allowing the embers to fully dry out the husk and the second he decided it was time to make the fire bright he just waved his hand quickly through the air and the sudden rush of air would ignite it and instant flames.
New Zealand's hakar dancers were also good to watch, thought the performers were not as tattooed or as dark skinned as the full bloodied Mauri's I have seen on my travels, but nonetheless there was plenty of shouting, crazy eyes, long rolled tongues and slapping of thighs, elbows and foreheads.
It was only when I got to the Tahitian land that I was to learn of the common misconception that the hula dancers with the grass skirts and the fast snaking hips were not Hawaiian. Firstly there were no grass skirts at all, only perhaps reeds, bamboo or long leaves of trees and plants like the coconut or Mango tree. Secondly in Hawaiian culture the Hula was originally a very mystical and revered dance performened only by the most important of male priests of witchdoctors, the women not really dancing until it became more for entertainment many centuries later. And thirdly that the fast snaking hip dance was Tahitian, a group of islands many thousands of miles away, iwith the Hawaiian Hula being instead a slow and controlled movements of their hands, arms and legs as they used their bodies to show visual representations of important concepts in the retelling of a story.
Around 4pm we were all very glad that the rain had stopped as it was time for the daily canoe pageant where each of the island groups put on a dance for us as they twisted and punted their way down a main canal. It was during this show that I took most of my video clips and was amazed that by the end of the day I had used up all of the 4GB memory card in my camera, such was the wonder and entertainment value of the show.
However during our little tour I got chatting to a couple of middle aged women, one Mexican and the other Russian, and the Russian lady who had came before was more than a little dissappointed as this was her second time here, the first being a few years ago and she said that during that visit the shows and displays were all longer and with many more performers, further evidence of the damages and continuing effects that the economic crisis is having on everything, even here on Hawaiian #1 paid attraction.
After the canoe pageant we made our way to the dinner hall, where we were able to get our huge plates filled with the buffet and watch a few more dancers, and the only thing that spoiled it for me was that all the cakes and deserts available were heavily based on coconut and thus I couldn't have any.
Finally around 7pm we sat down for the highlight of the day, which was the full scale dance show, featuring almost a hundred performers as they put on a visual show that matched anything I have seen advertised on broadway and each artist knew their cue and pulled everything off with a style and florish that was magical to watch. For a couple of hours, I along with the rest of the half packed audience were kept in rapt attention as each act outdid the last, which was no easy feat, but I think the one act that everyone wanted to see what the finale of the fire knive dancers.
Anyone who has seen jugglers and magic acts will have seen where the modern artists stole their ideas from, but here in their original setting with proper attire and stage they took on a truly magnificient aspect and when they added in the pratfalls and jokes just to lighten the mood I doubt there was a dry eye in the house. Again the only dissapointment was that despite the place being only half full the organisers seemed to try and fill the auditorium from the back forwards with the front 5 or 6 rows around the entire stage totally empty and yet there was not a single spare seat in the rear 7 or 8 rows.
Despite its few minor flaws, the day was hugely entertaining and being as interested in history as I am, and the fact that I have been to New Zealand and am just about to visit Fiji, I am so very glad that I chose to take this trip and although I suggest travelling up alone and getting their early I would hearily recommend it to everyone that plans to come to the Hawaii and spend more than a day on the island of O'ahu.
The bus driver was keen to get out early as the traffic got quite busy out of there after the show, so while everyone else on the bigger coaches was told to take their time we all rushed like mad fools to the mini-bus, only to be kept waiting by the three rather slow and rotund women who had decided to do a bit of souveneir shopping after the show instead of before and thus kept us behind many minutes.
Although the ride journey was over an hour long, our driver turned the lights off for the entire jouney and gave us nothing to see or do except doze, not the best thing at 9pm when you was just getting in the mood for a big night out on the town, making the most of the little time you had there, and is another reason for going solo rather than booking with a tour group.
Back at the hostel I switched on my laptop for a few minutes to check messages and while I was there I got chatting to the other guests and found out that the lady I was talking to was not only also from England but was sleeping on the opposite bunk to me in my dorm room. As the hostel owners chuck everyone out of the yard after 11pm, and there were not enough plug access points in the rooms to continue using our laptops I suggested that we went and go grab a bit to eat and chat instead as just trying to get to sleep despite not being tired, which she agreed to and so we took a bit of a stroll til we found a well lit diner and stayed there til around 2am shooting the breeze.
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