The North Shore!

Our first adventure of the day- finding a seal sunbathing in Waikiki!

 

All the girls with Queen Lili'uokalani

At the beautiful state capitol building....

A group photo in front of one of only two palaces in the United States!

All the "men" with King Kamehameha 1

Enjoying time with each other on the "long" bus ride to the North side of the island

Yesterday's blogger, Lise-Maria (Norway), enjoying Dole pineapple whip

A lot of us got bracelets with our Hawaiian names written 

Our new hero-- the Japanese drummer at Tonga!

Learning to HULA!

Smiles...

Hang loose (shaka)

Wouter (Belgium) was called up to show off his Tahitian dancing skills

(Ever seen the funky chicken?!)

As was Gilles (Belgium)...

Getting tattoos in Fiji

Aloha!

We just came home from another amazing day in this beautiful paradise called Hawaii! Today we were introduced to the unique and wonderful Polynesian culture. We started the day off with breakfast at the beach where we found a very big seal just relaxing in the sun. 

After the beach we went for a bus ride around the island. Our first stop was at the state capitol building where we took lots of pictures, and where our amazing bus driver explained us a lot about the building's architecture and history. The second stop was at the Dole plantation, where we ate a lot of typical hawaiian fruit, and got to buy some nice souvenirs. Many of us got bracelets with our hawaiian names, and tattoos (fake, of course). We also got to try some yummy pineapple ice cream!  

We returned to the bus and went to a small town in the North Shore of Oahu. It is a beautiful town with only a few restaurants and shops. Some of us bought amazing hamburgers with pineapple or avocado and others ate at a fantastic seafood restaurant at the beach. 

After lunch we had the opportunity again to go shopping for some souvenirs before the bus left. We continued to follow the shore to our next stop, a local surf beach which had already "acted" in some movies. We watched  pro surfers ride waves and had to realize that we probably needed a little bit more practice before we can call ourselves pros.  

Soon we were back on the road on our way to the polynesian culture center. We passed by many beautiful beaches and Ronda, our bus driver, explained to us which famous contest is held at each one.

After a bus ride filled with, more or less good, singing and a lot of partying, we finally arrived at the Polynesian Cultural Center. First we saw a Tonga show where they used people from the audience to play the drums. It was so hilarious, many of us were crying (mostly because of the Japanese guy that didn't understand too much of what was going on...) We got some free time before we went to a hula dance lesson from a very handsome guy. Then we went to the Tahiti island for another show, it was a dancing show. Two of our guys were picked up to dance on the stage. They did an amazing job, and they really made a show out of it!

 Then some of us went to try to climb up palm trees or spin funny looking sticks which none of us was good at... We also went to an another show where a guy spoke very many languages and made fire with sticks and opened a coconut((. He was very funny! Thru finally we went to an amazing buffet dinner, they had soo much food and we could choose everything we wanted. After dinner we went to a dancing show in a huge theatre. They had some pretty good dancers, they even danced with fire (and stepped and sat on it...). It was a long show, and we were all tired after after a long fut FUN day. So some of us fell asleep on the bus back, but some kept on singing and having fun. When we got the question "who wants to go straight to bed?" and I am sure all of us raised our hand :)

Jonas Germany

Hanna Norway

Simone Netherlands