Old Lahaina Luau (Miles to Date: 19950)
It may seem that we are addicted to going to presentations on timeshares nowadays but our intentions are purely mercenary, so yesterday our visit to the Kaanapali Beach Club was purely for financial gain. In fact we got $250 value worth of tours by sitting through a 90 minute sales presentation. Seemed good value -and because we know the system we manage to cut through most of the sales pitch. Whilst the grown-up Hoblets are subjected to yet another timeshare pitch Jack and Emily get to play mini-golf and Laura sits down and chills out reading magazines and books. Once we finally escape it is time to hit downtown Lahaina, we park up the car at our resort and walk into town. Whilst being extremely touristy, with more than a healthy sprinkling of restaurants and gift shops it is a fun place with lots going on … without being too tacky. There is also often a cruise liner parked off shore bringing hundreds of additional visitors to land. Despite this, and we are not usually touristy types, we actually like Lahaina town. Laura and Emily love all the gift stores, and Karen likes visiting the stores selling jewellery and pottery. Jack and Mark mainly endure the process.
Today we rose early again because we had booked ourselves in a breakfast luau at the Old Lahaina Luau, considered by many to be the finest and more traditional luaus on the Islands. A luau is simply a Hawaiian feast and usually involves dance and music in the form of hula. At this breakfast luau the food was not particularly traditional – or at least we’re not sure that scrambled egg and bacon is a hugely traditional dish here. Anyway it is probably just as well as we may have had a riot with Emily and Laura if it had been poi (made from taro) or poke (raw tuna). It was a buffet breakfast so as usual we ate too much. Our table was made up for 8 people so in addition to the 5 of us we had 3 little girls from Colorado, all around Emily’s age,Mara, Kira and Anna who were with the neighbouring table of grandparents and uncles and aunts. Emily was delighted with 3 new friends to play with. Towards the end of the meal we were treated to some traditional music and hula dancing, even with the brief explanation behind the music we could not make head nor tail of what was going on in the songs. The Old Lahaina evening luaus are more of a dinner – cabaret event with nearly 250 people but the breakfast luau is more intimate with only 80 guests, the reason being is that this is more of an interactive event. After breakfast is over we are divided in to 3 groups and taken off to “stations” where we are to learn more about Hawaiian Island culture.
The first station we stop at is dedicated to the music and the hula dancing. We are introduced to the different type of hula movement with hands, feet and body movement all being used to tell a story. The dancers themselves look somewhat miserable, so we suspect that they are bored by having to continually having to perform – only later do we learn that it is normal for the dancers to have a serious expression on their faces when they perform. It was nice to see later when they did a contemporary hula later and their faces lit up with joy. After the introduction to the movements of the hula we were shown the various instruments available to the dancers; from small drums to simple stones used as a form of castanets. Now equipped with all the knowledge required to successfully perform the hula it is our turn. We are broken up into 3 smaller groups where we are taught our moves – which is surprisingly difficult. After 5 minutes we are bought back together for a grand performance – and never have you seen 25 more uncoordinated people embarrass themselves like this in public. Fortunately nobody else was watching.
Our next station was an introduction into the history and culture of the people of Hawaii. The original settlers here were from the Polynesian islands of the pacific, who first colonized the islands around A.D. 300 and 600. We are shown a schematic of the layout of a native village, which was built around streams and rivers flowing from the mountains down to the sea. Around these streams crops of taro, sweet potato and other imported crops were grown and harvested. For the men agriculture was a major pastime, and must have been jolly hard work as the tools they had to care for the crops were primitive. We had a chance to see and handle these tools as they had examples to pass around. The women’s work was just as hard (although I am sure the men would argue differently) as they had to prepare the food and create cloth from the plants, usually by continually bashing at them with a wooden stave. The Polynesians also introduced new live stock to the islands – in particular the pig which was a staple part of their diet. The other main source of food was fish and we were given a demonstration of a weighted cast net, but they also used spears frequently to catch the fish. As a finale we had the opportunity to try out some traditional food – poi (pulverised taro plant) and raw yellow fin tuna. It was actually very good but not to the children’s liking.
The final station was to introduce us to the art of Hawaiian warfare. Not surprisingly this turned out to be Jack’s particular favourite section. On display were a number of spear, swords and clubs of various shapes and sizes. Some were very basic wooden instruments but others had been embellished by adding stones and sharks teeth for destructive power or feathers for decoration. A number of these weapons were demonstrated by the Old Lahaina Luau cast members, but Jack was all of a quiver when he actually got to handle some of the weapons himself. As well as being shown weapons we were given a talk on the life and role of the warriors in the ancient Hawaiian society and some tales of the great warriors and battles – we all to a man and women were enthralled (with perhaps the exception of Laura who was getting a bit fidgety by this stage). At the end of the presentation we were allowed to try throwing spears at a tree target – the children in the group of course were up there like a shot … Jack and Emily had about 20 throws. Eventually the more circumspect adults were coaxed into trying their spear throwing skills and fared little better than the children. If we had had to catch our own breakfast using these traditional methods we’d have been one hungry group of grumpy natives.
Three hours soon shot past and it was time to say goodbye to our new friends and the wonderful staff at the Luau. We would recommend this to anyone visiting Maui and wanting to find out more about the culture of the original inhabitants of these islands.
It may seem that we are addicted to going to presentations on timeshares nowadays but our intentions are purely mercenary, so yesterday our visit to the Kaanapali Beach Club was purely for financial gain. In fact we got $250 value worth of tours by sitting through a 90 minute sales presentation. Seemed good value -and because we know the system we manage to cut through most of the sales pitch. Whilst the grown-up Hoblets are subjected to yet another timeshare pitch Jack and Emily get to play mini-golf and Laura sits down and chills out reading magazines and books. Once we finally escape it is time to hit downtown Lahaina, we park up the car at our resort and walk into town. Whilst being extremely touristy, with more than a healthy sprinkling of restaurants and gift shops it is a fun place with lots going on … without being too tacky. There is also often a cruise liner parked off shore bringing hundreds of additional visitors to land. Despite this, and we are not usually touristy types, we actually like Lahaina town. Laura and Emily love all the gift stores, and Karen likes visiting the stores selling jewellery and pottery. Jack and Mark mainly endure the process.
Today we rose early again because we had booked ourselves in a breakfast luau at the Old Lahaina Luau, considered by many to be the finest and more traditional luaus on the Islands. A luau is simply a Hawaiian feast and usually involves dance and music in the form of hula. At this breakfast luau the food was not particularly traditional – or at least we’re not sure that scrambled egg and bacon is a hugely traditional dish here. Anyway it is probably just as well as we may have had a riot with Emily and Laura if it had been poi (made from taro) or poke (raw tuna). It was a buffet breakfast so as usual we ate too much. Our table was made up for 8 people so in addition to the 5 of us we had 3 little girls from Colorado, all around Emily’s age,Mara, Kira and Anna who were with the neighbouring table of grandparents and uncles and aunts. Emily was delighted with 3 new friends to play with. Towards the end of the meal we were treated to some traditional music and hula dancing, even with the brief explanation behind the music we could not make head nor tail of what was going on in the songs. The Old Lahaina evening luaus are more of a dinner – cabaret event with nearly 250 people but the breakfast luau is more intimate with only 80 guests, the reason being is that this is more of an interactive event. After breakfast is over we are divided in to 3 groups and taken off to “stations” where we are to learn more about Hawaiian Island culture.
The first station we stop at is dedicated to the music and the hula dancing. We are introduced to the different type of hula movement with hands, feet and body movement all being used to tell a story. The dancers themselves look somewhat miserable, so we suspect that they are bored by having to continually having to perform – only later do we learn that it is normal for the dancers to have a serious expression on their faces when they perform. It was nice to see later when they did a contemporary hula later and their faces lit up with joy. After the introduction to the movements of the hula we were shown the various instruments available to the dancers; from small drums to simple stones used as a form of castanets. Now equipped with all the knowledge required to successfully perform the hula it is our turn. We are broken up into 3 smaller groups where we are taught our moves – which is surprisingly difficult. After 5 minutes we are bought back together for a grand performance – and never have you seen 25 more uncoordinated people embarrass themselves like this in public. Fortunately nobody else was watching.
Our next station was an introduction into the history and culture of the people of Hawaii. The original settlers here were from the Polynesian islands of the pacific, who first colonized the islands around A.D. 300 and 600. We are shown a schematic of the layout of a native village, which was built around streams and rivers flowing from the mountains down to the sea. Around these streams crops of taro, sweet potato and other imported crops were grown and harvested. For the men agriculture was a major pastime, and must have been jolly hard work as the tools they had to care for the crops were primitive. We had a chance to see and handle these tools as they had examples to pass around. The women’s work was just as hard (although I am sure the men would argue differently) as they had to prepare the food and create cloth from the plants, usually by continually bashing at them with a wooden stave. The Polynesians also introduced new live stock to the islands – in particular the pig which was a staple part of their diet. The other main source of food was fish and we were given a demonstration of a weighted cast net, but they also used spears frequently to catch the fish. As a finale we had the opportunity to try out some traditional food – poi (pulverised taro plant) and raw yellow fin tuna. It was actually very good but not to the children’s liking.
The final station was to introduce us to the art of Hawaiian warfare. Not surprisingly this turned out to be Jack’s particular favourite section. On display were a number of spear, swords and clubs of various shapes and sizes. Some were very basic wooden instruments but others had been embellished by adding stones and sharks teeth for destructive power or feathers for decoration. A number of these weapons were demonstrated by the Old Lahaina Luau cast members, but Jack was all of a quiver when he actually got to handle some of the weapons himself. As well as being shown weapons we were given a talk on the life and role of the warriors in the ancient Hawaiian society and some tales of the great warriors and battles – we all to a man and women were enthralled (with perhaps the exception of Laura who was getting a bit fidgety by this stage). At the end of the presentation we were allowed to try throwing spears at a tree target – the children in the group of course were up there like a shot … Jack and Emily had about 20 throws. Eventually the more circumspect adults were coaxed into trying their spear throwing skills and fared little better than the children. If we had had to catch our own breakfast using these traditional methods we’d have been one hungry group of grumpy natives.Three hours soon shot past and it was time to say goodbye to our new friends and the wonderful staff at the Luau. We would recommend this to anyone visiting Maui and wanting to find out more about the culture of the original inhabitants of these islands.
No comments:
Post a Comment