7/13/09

8 Islands in a day...Polynesian Cultural Center

I was a tour guide at the Polynesian Cultural Center while I attended BYU-Hawaii. I became friends with many of the students who came from the Polynesian Islands and worked at the PCC to help pay their way through college. I was fascinated by their culture and by how friendly and talented the Polynesian people are.

The PCC has 8 Polynesian Islands represented where you can participate in activities, see shows and learn about the different cultures.

Canoe Ride in the Lagoon


Figian Village
Learning to use the Derua, a bamboo percussion instrument

Samoan Village
This is one of my friends I met while working at the Polynesian Cultural Center. Kap works at the Samoan Village and is the fire dancer at the evening show. When I met him he had just arrived from Samoa and barely knew English. He's now the star at the Polynesian Cultural Center!

A few years ago he was on a show called Man Vs. Beast and beat a monkey up the coconut tree... Go Kap! He's also a very talented artist and sell's his artwork at the PCC.



                                         Climbing the coconut tree

Tahitian Village

   Learning to dance in Tahiti


Aotearoa (New Zealand) Village
                                                              Tititorea- stick game

                                                                  Twirling poi balls

Canoe Pageant



Horizon Evening Show



                                               My friend Kap the Fire Knife Dancer

3 comments:

gramyflys said...

Looks like you had a marvelous time in Hawaii...Charlotte looked absolutely adorable! I clicked on Kap's site...WOW..what a talented man. Glad you had fun...Are you home?

Prêt à Voyager said...

wohoo! i've been there :)

how cool you got to meet so many interesting people there!

anne

Karla said...

Love the PCC, so much fun! Hey I wondered if you had gotten an email letting you know that Dana Thompson passed away on July 8th. Judy is having a celebration of his life on July 27th, I will be down there and am going to go. I just loved Dana, he was the nicest. My email is usherk@broadweave.net, I can email you updates if you aren't getting them.