Hawaii 2009 - Day 2

Day 2: March 23, 2009

Riz was up early as usual

and so was mom

Palladia was airing a Kanye West Concert

Xavi and I got up soon after

We've got a pretty nice hotel room. You walk out on the balcony, look to the right, and...

...you can see the beach :)
Plenty of other nice views from our balcony as well

Put another TIZ sticker to good use...

After getting all washed up and dressed, we were off to the Polynesian Cultural Center, about an hour-and-a-half away near the north-eastern shore.
Lots of nice views along the way...

Xavi had a nice nap along the way

Just outside the window was the ocean

And before we knew it we arrived at the Polynesian Cultural Center

What exactly is Polynesia? Well, it's a triangular section of the Pacific Ocean that consists of 6 island nations

including Samoa, Aotearoa (New Zealand), Fiji (didn't know that), Hawaii, Tonga, and Tahiti

The center reminded me of Marine World back in the "Africa, USA" days, only instead of animals, the theme was Polynesian culture. Pretty dope.
Here's an interesting tree I found

We decided to go on a short canoe tour around part of the center

This guy pushed the full boat around

After that we watched a show about various Polynesian instruments and dances

even got a picture with the dancers

After that we walked around a bit more and came across a spear-throwing contest...

You hold the midsection with your left hand to aim, and push it up with your right hand


fun stuff.
And after that, my camera died :( Two bars suddenly became a blinking single red bar, and before I knew it, that was it.
That aside, we continued around the park checking out all the neat stuff they had to show, from a boat parade that included dance showcases of each individual Polynesian culture; to an IMAX movie about the decay of coral reefs around the world, and what we can do to help slow or prevent it; and later that evening we enjoyed "Horizons", a Las Vegas-scale set of performances of Polynesian music, culture, and ritual. Pictures are on my mom's camera, I'll work that out later.
By the time the show was over, it was 9pm, and we got back to the hotel at 10:50pm. Wash up, sleep sleep, because the next day we'd go to visit Pearl Harbor.

-nesqu!k