You down wit' PCC? Yeah, you know me!

The third day we were in Oahu, we visited the Polynesian Cultural Center.  It was one of the highlights of Hawaii for me 20 years ago, and was just as awesome this time.  I love learning about the cultures of each island nation and watching the native dances and listening to the native songs.  I wish we had had more time there.  It's arranged kind of like Disneyland...?  You walk around, visiting little "villages":  Fiji, Tonga, Tahiti, etc. and watch presentations and play games and make stuff.  It's fantastic.

Do you know how much I love the Mauris??  Their chant-with-chest-pounding thing is my favorite thing ever!!!

In the Hawaiian area, we made these fish yoyo things out of palm fronds.  Ben is holding his and posing in front of one of the boats the natives used to use:

I saw on our flight home (the only free TV available was this docuseries on Hawaii) that there has been a revived use of these old boats to sail to other islands like they used to.  I thought that was interessant.  More stuff from the Hawaii area:

The dude in the above picture who is singing and playing the gourd thingey told us that only 25% of the population of Hawaii is made up of native islanders.  He said it's too expensive to live there, so many islanders have to move to the mainland to live.  Isn't that a shame??

Oh, and Ben and I got temporary Mauri tattoos.  Mine stands for strength.  His stands for family, I think:

They had this cool parade-on-a-river thing that was fun to watch.  I watched all of the dancing closely that day, obviously.  It was interesting to see the differences in the style of costume and dance.  The Fijian dance that the men did mimed warfare and battle:

The dancing of the Samoans was just very fun-loving.  They wore tall plumes in their hair and tilted their heads sometimes to make the feathers tilt. 

They also did a lot of hooting and hollering.  So did the Tongans.  I feel like Samoa and Tonga are the party islands.  :)

Tahitians are the ones who have exaggerated hip movements and lots of drum-playing:

We did this luau thing.  It was kind of cool.  It was kind of a taste of the show to come later that evening.  And speaking of taste, man, is their pork salty!!  Of course, my taste buds are still (!) oversensitive to salt and spice.  Four months after my last chemo.  It's crazy how long the effects of chemo last.

Another lasting side effect of chemo:  dry eyeballs.  I have to wear my glasses most of the time.  Contacts obviously irritate the eyeballs.

BTDubs, lais are so itchy!!

 Hawaiian dancing is very smooth and gentle, whether the pace is fast or slow:

The emcee guy for the luau was the cheesiest man I have ever seen.  I was literally like, "Are we at a Vegas lounge show?"  He had that cheesy voice and told cheesy jokes and just... I don't know.  As you know, I have a low tolerance to cheesiness:

There was a little bit of fire dancing at the luau and tons that night at the show (where we weren't allowed to take pictures):

I couldn't tell if the girl on the right had singed her hair off at some point.  I swear I could see shorter hair on her right side, dyed blonde.

I think these girls were Samoan. 

Oh, and...they asked for volunteers to dance the Tahitian style.  I was across from Ben, facing away from him, watching the people pick members of the audience, not knowing that Ben was pointing at me.  And I got picked.  Haha!  I had a blast but looked like such a nerd!  The video is too big for me to upload here.  I'll try to put it on Facebook.

The night show was really, really awesome.  Tons more dancing, singing, fire dancing...  Fantastic.  Such a must-see if you go to Oahu!