Hawaii (Day 4)

We thought we'd let the Wongs take a break from us so we took ourselves to breakfast this morning. SK's dad had explored Waikiki on his morning walks and suggested we go to an Italian cafe that was in the Marriott on Waikiki for the breakfast buffet ($15). I wasn't too impressed with the breakfast there. It seemed to be a "capalang" (Malaysian term for random mixture of things thrown together).

The Italian food consisted of breakfast pizza, which had some tomatoes, cheese and some sort of green bean thing on it; and roasted red pepper soup. The pizza crust was pale-looking and wasn't crusty at all. I liked the soup, which had a strong roasted red pepper flavor, but it seemed like an odd thing to put out for breakfast. They also had brats with mustard (German), and crepes (French). The crepes were a bit disappointing--my mom-in-law said they were made ahead of time and just reheated on the griddle--and you spread jams on them. There was the usual assortment of fresh fruit.

On our way back to our hotel, we passed by a bus advertising the Polynesian Cultural Center. That was one of the things that the Fodorites (people on the Fodor's forum) said was a good thing to see. I persuaded my husband to do it with me after telling him that yes, we did want to honor Uncle Thomas, but we also didn't know when we'd be back in Hawaii. The luau cost $80 per person (and additional $19 per person for a round-trip coach ride) but we got 10 percent off (I think) off the cost of one package because of Uncle Thomas' Aloha Diners booklet. That package included entry to all the Polynesian villages (which educated tourists on the culture through dance, song, spear-throwing, stories), we could watch the canoe pageant--young men and women in native costume dancing on a catamaran on a manmade stream--and the big Luau with a whole pig that was baked in an "imu" (an oven fashioned out of the earth).

The Luau deserves special mention. There was free-flow guava-mango juice and other drinks on tap (no alcohol). The food was superb--the pig was moist and succulent, lomi lomi salmon (salad with salmon) was tasty, and the poke (po-kay)--marinated ahi--was out of this world. For dessert, there was a coconut jelly dessert that reminded me of a thai dessert--that was yummy, and a moist coconut cake that quickly ran out.

Even though we were eating with strangers, the emcee (Cousin Benny) made it feel homey. We all held hands and said "grace" together, and were told to greet each other by name. We sat next to a couple vacationing from Pennsylvania. I tried to make small talk with them but felt like I kept saying the wrong thing, so we didn't hit it off very well. One gripe--we had our picture taken with an attractive young man and women who lei'd us just before we entering the luau hall but somehow our picture got lost in the shuffle and we didn't get it, even though we were willing to pay $12 or $15 for it.

Another gripe is that we bought a CD featuring Iz--a famous Hawaiian artist--after the luau because it was without tax and so cheaper than at the gift store BUT we discovered soon after that $24 was WAY TOO MUCH. Even the Honolulu airport was selling it for $22!

Our package included the "Horizons" show, which started off sounding like a musical but wound up being a showcase of the different dance and songs of the different Polynesian cultures (Samoan, Tongan, Tahitian, Maori, Fijian, etc.). The show was well-done, very entertaining. The highlight was the fire-dancers, and this stout guy who looked as strong as a horse, who put out fire with his bare hands. It was funny but right after the show, this guy ran out among the people exiting the performance hall shouting "Come see my art!" He had a stand of what looked like pictures of palm trees made painted in some metallic, acrylic (?) paint. He's a talented individual!