Thursday, October 4, 2007

Day Four- Polynesian Hawaii

Michael and I traveled the scenic roads once again to go up to the north shore of Hawaii on Monday. We were going to the Polynesian Cultural Center ultimately, but thought we would first drive up past the center and try to locate one of the beaches that the TV show LOST was filmed on.

This was probably the worst of our days weather wise. There has been a lot of "liquid sunshine" as the locals call it when it is lightly raining out but it is still sunny. On Monday, there were more clouds than I had seen since arriving, but they were in patches.
Michael and I did find the Famous Kahuka Shrimp Truck, as recommended by one of the guys at Mike's work site, so that we could try some Hawaiian native shrimp. We shared a plate of the coconut style shrimp for lunch as it lightly sprinkled.

We drove as far north as the famous surfing beach Haleiwa, where we stopped to watch a bunch of surfers catch some waves.

We never were able to find the LOST beach. I will spare you all of they puns and elementary humor that this concept brings to my mind.

We drove by several farmstands, finally stopping at one to buy a fried banana, "super sweet corn", and some prickly red fruit.

We stopped on the side of the road by Waimea Bay Park Beach so I could snap a photo of another scenic beach.

We spent the remainder of the afternoon and the evening at the Polynesian Cultural Center. The center was opened by the Mormans and they bring in students from all of the cultures that they exhibit at the center. The students teach and perform at the center and also appear to get free, or at the very least subsidized, education from the Brigham Young University- Hawaii campus. The center celebrates not only Hawaiian culture, but also other Polynesian cultures including Fiji, Tahiti, Tonga, Rapa Nui (Easter Island) and Samoa. They have an IMAX movie about saving the coral reefs. I really enjoyed the moai stone statues in the Rapa Nui cultural village. Here's my attempt at trying to be artistic with the faux Easter Island stones. We ate at the Hawaiian buffet before staying to watch the evening show of Polynesian dance. This show included more Samoan fire knife dancing.

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