 |
| Our guide Sesi |
The pageant itself featured long flat canoes that fit 6-8 people representing each culture. The story they acted out in their colorful costumes and beautiful dances told of two people who fall in love but are from different cultures. The families don't approve but eventually learn to work together. At one point, one of the canoes rocked so much that it knocked off one of the young men standing on the ends to push the canoe through the water with long sticks. At the end of the pageant, the canoes float closer to the water's edge and they delight in smacking at the water so that it comes up over the wall and splashes the crowd. As we were led away to the next activity by Sesi, she mentioned how relieved we must be not to have been in the splash zone like that family who took up the entire first row. She seemed concerned when I told her the spray was high enough to sprinkle us too but I just laughed it off. It was an unexpected refreshment on this humid day.
Our next visit was to see the statues like the famous ones at Easter Island. We learned that the hats or hair shown on each statue's head was a sign of the person's importance that the statue represented. The taller their hat, the more important they were. Guess Baltimore wasn't the only one who thought of the "Jack it up to Jesus" beehive hairdo.
Next we were treated to a musical presentation featuring drums, chanting, and the master stylings of the nose flute.
Three guys were requested as volunteers and one of the men had a bit of a language barrier and a tough Korean name to pronounce so they just dubbed him "Mr. Korea."
First the guys were tasked with repeating a series of dance moves. Mr. Korea was the most animated of the group and had everyone rolling with laughter at his energy.
Their next task was to follow along with the pattern the guide played on his drum. Most of the guys did well with this so he added a chant in the microphone to follow the drum pattern.
This guy kept up fairly well. The second guy fared well on the drum pattern:
But when it came to chanting, he decided to do a little freestyle...
...by singing "Who Let the Dogs Out?" into the microphone getting everyone in the audience to laugh and bark in response.
Mr. Korea though channeled Mr. Joe Cool and looked like he was born to be a Polynesian rock star:
Our next stop was to visit a group of students performing loud angry sounding chants along with sharp rhythmic movements and feet stomping. They also demonstrated a routine with rhythm sticks and weighted balls on string.
Sesi then led us to various stations where we could try a routine ourselves using the sticks and the weighted balls on string. Adam and Amy partnered up for the sticks and I paired with Dad. We had to sit facing each other and work out a routine of tapping the bottoms of our two sticks on the ground, then against the other person's sticks, then the two ends of our own sticks together, and finally we had to toss one stick across diagonally to our partner and have them catch it. The process repeats except that the stick tossed the second time is the opposite one. Dad's lack of coordination had me chasing an errant stick a time or two but we soon got the sequence down.
The stringed balls required the same amount of concentration as it took to pat your head and rub your stomach at the same time. At Sesi's guidance we got the balls spinning at our sides in wide circles and then slowly lowered one hand while bringing the other forward so the balls were spinning away from each other so that it looked like the moving wings of a butterfly. I got the timing down a couple times but each time Sesi tried to praise me for getting it, I'd look up at her and lose my concentration. May have taken a few weighted balls to the gut in the process. They sold the weighted balls in the gift shops so you can always take a set home to practice and impress your friends. Just make sure they and all breakables are a safe distance away first!
What's a visit to Hawaii without being subjected to, I mean trying the local delicacy known as poi. It's derived from the taro root and is turned into a paste which can then be made into lots of regular foods like the purple colored biscuits we saw at many meals including the dinner buffet. I'll try anything once, as long as it isn't still moving when I go to eat it. I did try poi when our parents took us to Hawaii to see where they lived before we were born. My mom took way too much delight in duping me into trying it. This is one thing I'm not sure even Life Cereal's Mikey would eat. Adam and Amy tried it this time and didn't find it too bad. They did have a water fountain nearby for those who tried it and needed to clear their palate.
Sesi was impressed at how well Adam and Amy performed when we went to a group hula class next. I told Amy later how Sesi thought Adam had great rhythm in his dancing and Amy busted out laughing.
We left the group behind for a private tour of the various building replicas and got to try fun games like a javelin throw competing against each other. We also had the option of getting a temporary tattoo that featured symbols signifying your position or job. The tattoos were applied by ink being rolled across a strip with the symbols and then the strip was wrapped around your chosen body part. I believe Amy went with the symbols signifying queen while Adam and I both chose Navigator.
I'm glad I thought to ask Dad to take this picture of my tattoo because it soon would become an unrecognizable mess.
Our last country to visit was Sesi's home of Fiji. We had many laughs thanks to this guy who would turn everything into a joke including explaining how he could put out fire with his bare feet because fire was hot like him.
He's also the one featured in most of the promotional material for the center. His comedy continued as two young men sat on each side of him to compete in trying to get a fire started.
It was starting to lightly rain so he told us that we may not get to see "his sons" climb the trees behind the stage only for them to go flying up the tree moments later. It was while we watched this presentation that Sesi ran off and fetched us all ponchos just as the rain started to get heavy. Camera stayed safe under the poncho but alas, my tattoo tried to make a run for it from the rain and my hand and forearm soon looked like the face of someone who didn't think to put on waterproof mascara.
To be continued...
No comments:
Post a Comment