To Hawaii!

 After the Pike Piddlers Festival, Trish and I drove over to Atlanta where we spent the night and then flew directly to Honolulu on Monday.  What an easy way to get here!

Yesterday all day was spent at the Polynesian Cultural Center on the Northeast side of the island across the mountain from Honolulu.

The Polynesian Culture Center is next door to and operated in conjunction with Brigham Young University Hawaii.  The Center opens at 12:30 each day so that students who work here can go to their classes in the morning and then work for the afternoon to support themselves as students.  It is a wonderful and beautiful place.

There are six villages here each one patterned on a different island in South Pacific Polynesia.  Students from these islands work in the villages presenting programs, foods, and art work native to their homes.  The natural environment is stunning and the interpretations are friendly and educational.

Here  we saw a traditional Tahitian wedding engagement and ceremony.  The costuming is fabulous and the actors are happily skilled.

We finished the  afternoon with a gigantic luau centered around roast pigs.  Then the evening concluded with a show including everything from hula to fire batons, as well as the story that they all combined to portray.

If you visit the island of Oahu, the Polynesian Culture Center is an excellent way to spend a day.  We chose the Ambassador Package which gave us our own personal guide for the day.  This was really worth while as he enabled us to do and see twice as much as we could have managed on our own.