Hawaii Eleven-O: Day 4

We started our first full day in Laie with some good old-fashioned laziness. Well, some of us did at least. :)  George and my dad took off fairly early to go scout out some snorkeling spots, eventually ending up at Kulima Cove, at the Turtle Bay Resort.  The rest of us spent the morning enjoying the view of the ocean and just generally relaxing.  I was able to finish up the book I'd been working on for a few weeks ("The Devil in the White City"), and start my next one ("The Book Thief").  And I hung out with Austin and Elise for a while, too.

Looking back toward Hukilau Beach

Austin spent a significant portion of the morning driving his favorite truck around the patio.

Elise came out to eat her plum next to me

 

And then ended up sharing some of it with her buddy. (A lot of times she refers to Austin as "my buddy".)

Our big agenda item for the day was a visit to the Polynesian Cultural Center, just down the street in Laie, so after lunch we donned our official family vacation T-shirts (pretty much a first for us, unless you count the Wintch Family reunion shirt I got when I was about 4) and headed over to the PCC.  At the PCC they have different areas ("villages") where the different island nations of the Pacific are represented, and they put on shows throughout the day as well as having a variety of activities and educational things to do during non-show times.

Guy climbing a coconut tree during the Samoan show

Fijian Dancers during the double-hulled canoe pageant

Hawaiian hula dancer

The show for the Tongan village featured a drum show where they got volunteers from the audience to drum along with the "drum master".  At the end of each volunteer's turn, the drum master would try to get them to help him with a "Shave and  Haircut... Two Bits!" rhythm. The 3rd volunteer was Chinese and for whatever reason, just wanted to do exactly what the drum master had done, instead of the "Two Bits" part.  It was definitely high comedy as they tried over and over to get him to do it right. He clearly didn't speak much, if any English, but was always enthusiastic in his drumming. :)

China?

The grand finale

Family portrait

At the end of a long afternoon of shows, we then went to a luau buffet where there was plenty of kahlua pork, rice, taro rolls, and other island treats.  Then George took the little kids home and the rest of us stayed for the night show ("Ha: The Breath of Life") that mainly featured the same types of dances we'd seen throughout the day in each village's show, but capped things off with some very impressive work by fire dancers.  Definitely the highlight of the day at the PCC, seeing people spin those flaming batons at blazing speed. Sometimes while sitting on the shoulders of someone else who was also spinning one. Very impressive.

More photos from Day 4