Hawaii 2: Polynesian Cultural Center and Hanauma Bay

 Thursday morning, January 23, 2025, we awoke on the northeastern shore of Oahu to another sunrise out the window.

It wasn't quite as spectacular as the first morning there, but still wasn't bad. This picture reminds me of my Grandpa C. B. Wilson. He was an engineer, and once when he was riding with my parents, they came across a sunset silhouetted by a power plant with hundreds of geometric shapes. "Look at that!" my dad commented.

"Yep," C.B. said. "There's a lot of money tied up in there." (He saw the power plant but missed the sunset!)

Hau'ula trail

Since we were awake bright & early, Linette and I went with Sandra and Dave on a 3-mile hike (the Hau'ula trail) that had been recommended by Jared's mission friend's dad who used to live on Oahu.

I thought the hunting sign was funny. Apparently the ferrel hogs are not good for the environment, so people are encouraged to hunt them. According to this sign, you can use rifles, shotguns, handguns, knives, spears and archery(!).

There were all kinds of trees and plants along the hike.

Some areas had soft needles that made our footsteps silent.

Things got a little muddy along part of the trail near the stream.

After about halfway, we finally had a couple of places where we could look out. Before that, we were surrounded by trees.

I'm not sure how this tree grew like this!

This path looked like the ruins of a man-made fortress wall, but I think it was just natural.

I found a nice seat tree.

Eventually we caught a glimpse of the ocean as we hiked back down towards the start.

These trees had interesting rows of knobs where there used to be branches.

The trees were so tall!

So were some of the plants!

These roots were interesting to me. It seemed like these trees could walk around when nobody is looking.

It was a beautiful hike, and we were so glad we went.

These flowers were so pretty.

A bunch of chickens were hiding out in this secret tree fort.

Polynesian Cultural Center

After our hike, it was time to go to the Polynesian Cultural Center.

When we were at the temple visitor's center the day before, we watched a movie that told about how early members of the church built a chapel there, which later burned down in a fire. It was going to cost $50,000 to rebuild it, and that was way more than the little congregation could come up with.

As they prayed for help, a little miracle occurred. The people noticed that tourists really liked watching them do their traditional fishing ("hukilau"), as well as their dancing and music. So they invented the "Hukilau" song and dance, and started sharing these things with tourists as a way to raise funds to rebuild the chapel. This grew and developed until it ultimately became the Polynesian Cultural Center.

Now the center preserves and shares the culture of several Polynesian islands. It provides an amazing experience for visitors while also providing jobs for the students from those islands to pay for their education at BYU-Hawaii. It's a wonderful win-win situation.

At 11 a.m., the "Hukilau Marketplace" opens up, where you can get food and shop for Hawaiian-made crafts and even ukuleles.

I got some Korean food, and Linette got some shrimp tacos, which was her go-to for the trip.

I also saw some ice cream made with fruit from the island, served in a home-made waffle cone, so I gave that a try as well.

Then we found a seat to watch the opening show, featuring people from all six of the islands. (A couple clips of this show are included in the highlights video that I'll share later on, below).

I thought it was cute that the sisters all had a flower in their hair. (Left side means they are married).

We took a canoe ride to the far end of the waterway.

Here are some coconuts in a tree. Apparently more people die each year from getting beaned on the head with a coconut than from shark attacks. So there are usually warning signs around a coconut tree.

This double-hulled canoe is named "Iosepa" ("Joseph" in Hawaiian). It was built in 2001 and is occasionally taken out to sea.

We saw some hula at the Hawaiian village.

This is breadfruit growing on a tree. There were a bunch of fruits in Hawaii that I hadn't seen before.

In Tahiti, we saw a marriage ceremony. When asked the question, the bride and groom both shake their heads "no." That is because the question is, "Will you ever leave your spouse?"

At the New Zealand village (called Aotearoa by the Maori people), they called me up to play a stick game where they throw one or two sticks at a time to me, and I have to catch them and then throw them back where they came from. I did ok!

Here's a video of me doing the stick game with them:

And here is a 15-second video of the warriors sparring with each other with spears:

In the island of Fiji, they had tattoo stamps (that wash off). Here are Sandra and Linette tatted up.

I got one on my ankle.

This guy demonstrated how to rip the husk off of a coconut, then hit it in a certain spot with a rock to break it open, then scrape out the flesh and squeeze it (either with a cheese cloth, or with the fibers from inside the coconut husk). The result is coconut oil that you can use for cooking and other things.

Here's an 11-second video showing the guy cracking open a coconut with a rock:

The Fiji area also put on a show for us as well.

Here's our group posing with one of the fierce warriors from the Fiji presentation:

I compiled a video with some of the highlights of the various performances throughout the day. It includes a bit of the opening boat show, some hula from Hawaii, drums and dancers from Tahiti, part of the Tahitian marriage ceremony, and war chants and dances from Fiji. It is about 7 minutes and captures some of the spirit of the day.

In the Samoa area, a guy showed us how to make fire out of a coconut. They rubbed a stick in a groove until it smoldered. They the guy ripped open a coconut and transferred the smoldering to the fibers, after which he could wave it and make it burst into flames. Here is a video showing parts of that process, along with how they climb coconut trees the old fashioned way:

Next, we saw a fire dancer out on the lawn. It was pretty good, but they said it would be even better when it was dark.

Here is a short video of his performance:

We still had a few minutes before it was time for dinner, so I went and took a free ukulele lesson from the nice senior sister missionary there, and we sang "You Are My Sunshine" together.

The buffet was wonderful. The building was really cool, there was some live music going on, and there was a huge variety of food there, so we could try lots of things that we had heard of.

Due to booking our tickets pretty early, our seats were on the third row for the big extravaganza that night.

We couldn't take pictures during the show, but it was amazing! The fire dancers blew me away. Several guys made a pyramid while spinning their fire sticks. There was a gal who was the star of the show, and at one point, she spun one pair of flames in each hand at the same time, really fast. It was incredible.

We posed with a couple of the performers after the show.

That was one of our favorite days of the trip.

Friday morning, Linette got on her laptop at 5:30 a.m. to do her seminary class from Hawaii. (That's about what time we often woke up anyway, due to the 3 hour time difference).

She also managed to squeeze in a run at the beach before we had to leave at 8 a.m.

We decided to book spots at Hanauma Bay for snorkeling that morning, since we hadn't been able to snorkel yet. The scenery on the "windward" (east) side of the island is spectacular.

Hanauma Bay is a great place for snorkeling, due to a barrier reef and bay that keep big waves from coming through.

Sandra and Dave had never been snorkeling before, but they brought their own gear. So after the orientation video (basically, "Don't step on the rocks, because they're actually coral!"), we got everyone equipped and then went out to see some fish!

Meanwhile, Linette, Lori and Jim hung out at a very nice park overlooking the bay.

By the time they did all the orientation stuff, we only had about an hour to snorkel before we had to head out, but it was still really fun.

We saw quite a variety of fish. Here is a 10 minute video of the most interesting stuff I captured with my underwater GoPro while we were there:

Linette saw us as we walked back up the hill and took our picture.

I returned the favor.

I'm glad we got some snorkeling in. We were able to shower and change at the restrooms there so that we would be ready for our flight.

From there, we headed straight to the airport, where we returned our rental van (from Turo.com), and boarded a Southwest flight to the big island. 

In the next episode, we explore Volcano National Park and explore a beautiful garden.