Thursday in Hawaii Polynesian Cultural Center

This is our host for the Polynesian Cultural Center~DG. He is actually from Mongolia. The young people who work and entertain here are on scholarships at BYU-H. Their work at the center is how they pay back for the education they receive. We bought the package where you get a guide/host to take you around to all of the events. This was a good thing because they is lots going on and your guide can get you to all of the good stuff in a timely manner.
Since I Had never been to PCC, I had no idea of the immensity of the place. There is a man made river that winds through recreated villages of Tonga, Fiji, Samoa, Taihiti , New Zealand and Hawaii. In each village they have a presentation of some of their culture complete with native costumes and ,sometimes, native food.

In the mid-afternoon, each culture represents itself on a barge as they parade by. This is Hawaii and represents the royalty. Most of them were dancing as they went by and-although you can't see it in this pix, there is a young man guiding the barge with a pole as he stands on the back of the barge.

The Samoan group had quite a lively dance going and they pitched their 'driver' off the barge right in front of us!

When we asked if it were accidental or staged DG shook his head and said 'you never know with those Samoans~they love to play jokes!'

This is the 'show' for Tonga. There was a huge and elaborate drum show where they invited several people to come up and help. The guy with the yellow lei is from Japan and the 2 guys in the back are from Canada and Ohio respectively.

The T0ngon is the red was very fun with his demos of the drums and his working hte crowd in general. I have come to believe that all of the Polynesians are 'hams' after visiting PCC. These guys really knew how to work the room.

Peggy and I go a photo op with the Samoan presenter. He is not dirty on his legs or his abdomen. Those are tatoos made up of very fine points. Towards the end of the presentation, he had cracked a coconut with his forehead. There was an older gentleman in the background just before our pix who was questioning the demo. He said that he could detect 'scoring' on the coconut which cause it to break open easily. We were all shaking our heads because another Samoan had just climbed the coconut tree in the village and brought it down before our eyes before the guy husked it and cracked it.

This is the New Zealand Village. Do you all remember when Sister Riley taught Becca and Allison to do these dances?

This is the entertainment at the luau. There were many hundreds of people sitting behind us there all seated at tables with real dishes and table cloths and decorations .

The evening show was spectacular. So many dances and wonderful costumes. THe shoe told the story of a Polynesian couple and their journey through life. Dances and costumes from all of the cultures were used. The costumes were incredible and the dancing was wonderful. These young people really do a great job with all that they are asked to do.

Hawaii Day 3 - Pearl Harbor

Our agenda for day 3 was to visit Pearl Harbor.

Having watched several movies and read many books and articles on the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941 I thought it might be a little anti-climactic to visit the location. It wasn't. Many others who were there that day have written about it and only partially succeeded in describing the feelings of the place. I don't expect to have much success in describing it either. It is a very somber place. I guess you just have to go there to understand the feeling. There are many exhibits at Pearl Harbor. Here are some pictures of some of the more significant ones.

The most significant loss of life occurred on the battleship USS Arizona. She sank in less than 10 minutes and carried over 1,000 sailors down with her.

The Arizona memorial is built above the bridge of the sunken ship. A white buoy marks the bow and stern. Oil still leaks from the hull. There is an odor of diesel fuel at the memorial because of this. The majority of those killed were never recovered so the memorial is their only recognition.

Inside the memorial a wall lists the names of all those who went down with the ship. Only about 1/3 of the names are visible in the photo.

The buoy marking the bow of the Arizona is barely visible in this photo. The war in the Pacific began with the sinking of the USS Arizona. The war ended on the decks of the USS Missouri in Tokyo harbor on Sept. 2, 1945 after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The battleship berthed next to the Arizona and shown in this photo is the USS Missouri.

Besides the USS Arizona there were dozens of other ships, large and small sunk on Dec. 7. This memorial is to the sailors aboard the USS Oklahoma. It is somewhat difficult to see but the white columns each represent an individual. There are hundreds of them.

In addition to memorials honoring those killed on Dec. 7 there are also memorials honoring others who died in WW II. This memorial is to those who perished in the submarine service. The highest mortality rate of all services during WW II was among submariners. Each marble monument in this circle represents a submarine lost in the Pacific. There are about 90 of them. In most cases they were lost with the entire crew aboard.

One of the exhibits is a WW II submarine that survived the war. It is the USS Bowfin.

A self guided audio tour is provided which takes you through the ship and describes much of what life was like in the submarine service.
There were 2 aspects of the submarine that were startling. The first was how complicated a machine it is. This is just one of probably a dozen different areas of the boat that were 'control centers' for various things. The submarine is a mechanical marvel. It is amazing that they worked!

The second startling fact was how cramped it was. About 15 men slept in this space. You can see almost half the space in the photo. There were fewer bunks than men. Since the boat ran 24-7 never more than half the men were sleeping at any one time so there were only bunks for about half the number of the crew. Everywhere in the boat you could easily see how men would literally be crawling over one another all the time. It was difficult duty to say the least.

I was surprised at how much of the submarines fighting occurred on the surface. About half the ships sunk by this submarine were sunk by surface gunning without use of torpedoes. Somehow I forgot to take a picture in the torpedo room!

When all was done, it was a very interesting and sobering day. Unfortunately WW II didn't end fighting. It seems like freedom is something that requires a constant vigil to maintain and a willingness to make enormous sacrifices to enjoy.

Hawaii!! Day Two

We took tons of pics of the guys surfing on the Bonzai Pipeline. It was fun to watch them catch wave after wave. They were so far out that it was hard to get a good pix. Lots of long boards and lots of boogie boards and several body surfers of all ages.

Shark's Cove at Sunset

Shark's Cove in the daytime. This is where we did some snorkeling. Craig traveled the farthest and saw the most stuff. There was a reef of somekind to the left and out to sea more in the pix. The waves would crash over the reef and a lot of young guys were out there playing in the waves on the reef. Yes, I did try snorkeling~it took me a LONG time to get used to wearing that mask and then putting my head down in the water but I did see some fun stuff. Dad was extremely patient with me. As our knees and feet passed over the coral rocks, we got the strangest little swollen cuts on our bodies. Dad got a rather long one that took a few weeks to heal.

This is Turtle Beach. Aout 11 am everyday, these big sea turtles swim up onto shore and bury themselves in the sand to 'bask' (as stated on the sign). It is fun to see them in the surf as they bob and play around before they come up. Then they use their flippers to crawl along in the sand to get to the perfect spot. The minute they are settled, the turtle protection volunteers place the red rope around them and allow NOBODY with 6 feet of the turtles.

They are very passionate about their work and know each turtle by name and how old they are. Some turtles even have little locating devices placed on their shells.

We visited here several times. One of the times, I was standing close as a turtle came up and reached my hand out to help the volunteer lady as she was scurrying around trying to place the red rope before anybody could get to the turtles. She was SO appreciative that I was her very best friend for the rest of our time there. She invited me to join their group if I was going to be in Hawaii for a while and made sure that we had the very best photo op before we left.

The volunteers were very helpful with information but very passionate about their work!

Our second day is Hawaii was beach day. We visited Turtle beach, Sunset Beach, Hukelau(sp) Beach and many more. We snorkled and swam and generally just enjoyed some of the excellent beaches on the North Shore. I believe that this was also the day that we ate shrimp from one of the shrimp farmers along the Kam Highway. As you travel along you see lots of ponds of water along the Highway with grassy banks and little ramadas with picnic tables where you can order fresh shrimp. It was delicious!

Hawaii !!! (first day~October 5)

Here we are at the Dole Plantation which we visited in the afternoon of our first day. We are ridiing the cheesy train that takes you through the plantation. The plantation is fun. It is like the Tillamook creamery on steroids. We had the pineapple ice cream and bought souvenirs, walked through the beautiful botanical gardens and worked out way through the biggest maze in the world. The locals informed us that they had never been so hot. Evidentally, the Tradewinds neglected to show up the week that we were there. That should explain why our hair was plastered to our heads (except the Bush) and we have that wonderfully shiny characteristic to our skin!

This is the house we rented on Laie Point. The pix is taken from the balcony looking towards PCC and the BYU-Hawaii campus. It was a really nice house. Peggy did a great job of arranging things.

Here we are at Waiamea Falls Park which was a lovely botanical park/gardens with this waterfall at the back of the park. There were lots of gorgeous trees and flowers to enjoy on the 1and1/2 mile walk. You can tell it is still rather early in the day because the hair plastering effect has not yet reached it's prime.