Polynesian Culture

Yesterday, we spent the day on the north shore of Oahu, visiting the Polynesian Cultural Centre. This was recommended to us by a friend, and on their advice, we bought the supreme ticket, which gave us our own private tour guide and premium reserved seats to all of the shows during the day. The centre is on 42 acres so we did a lot of walking and it was quite hot.  

We found out that the staff at this centre are all students of Brigham Young University - Hawaii. Students here study in the mornings, they work at the cultural centre acting as servers, tour guides, and all of the entertainment.  Many students in the pacific and French Polynesia, 1300 in total making up 70 percent of the staff.  Funds and tips raised assist the students financially through their studies. Students work 20 hours per week during school terms and up to 40 hours on school breaks.  

Let me tell you these are very skilled and talented young people and the shows in all of the 5 island areas represented were very good and educational.  We learned about places like Tahiti, Fiji, New Zealand, Tonga and Samoa. On this trip of ours, we will actually be visiting Tahiti, Fiji and New Zealand.

Grace was our tour guide and she is from Fiji. She started by getting us our private canoe ride to the far end of the park.  She met us up there and would book our seats at one show, then while we were watching it, she would be running off reserving our seats for the next show.




While walking with her we learned a bit of her culture, and she answered any questions we might have.





There was also more Hawaiian Bowling here, which Dave was doing at the Paradise Cove Luau. Nothing like we have back home.





We finished off our tour with a wonderful buffet luau, and a great table location to watch the evening entertainment before seeing the final show, Ha - A Breath of Life.  We were not allowed to take any pictures of this final show but let me tell you it was spectacular. 




Tomorrow will be our last full day in Hawai'i, we will spend some time on the beach then enjoy an evening dinner cruise. We will report on this tomorrow before we set sail for Australia.

Mahalo!!

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