Visitors!

This week, Stacey will be visiting us along with 3 of her friends from college. We picked them up on Friday and have been doing some touristy things as well as spending some time on the beach. It's now Sunday and I think we've worn them out already. Future visitors from the mainland beware the "wall of tiredness" that you will hit after a few days here!

We've gone to the beach and taken a somewhat disappointing hike to the Dragon's Nostrils (they weren't spraying at all). Of course, there are still several days left to go places, but the biggest thing we've done so far has been half a day of touring the Polynesian Cultural Center (PCC).

The PCC is run by the Mormon Church as a way to preserve the Polynesian cultures, but also as a way to give young Polynesians a way to earn money to attend the local campus of Brigham Young University. The students work at the center and attend classes during the week.

There is a village for each of 7 Polynesian centers with demonstrations and activities. We attended demonstrations from Fiji, New Zealand, Tonga and Samoa before making our way to the Luau - which was very good. The Samoan demonstration was how to build a fire (so you can cook, of course!) I was reminded of Tom Hanks trying to build a fire in the movie "Castaway", but this guy made it seem effortless!

The Island of Tonga featured drumming demonstrations and speaking with hand clappings. I took pictures while the girls gave it a try. The Master drummer was a hoot and everyone had a great time -that's the Tongan way - being happy and having a good time!


At the end of the day, we settled in for the "Horizons" show which highlighted dance and traditions from each culture. There was a lot of singing and even fire dancing! I posted some fire dancing pictures from our luau in Maui so I won't post another series right now, but this show was fabulous!

I'm not sure what the girls intend to do this week, but I'll let you know more about it with pictures in the coming days!