Tuesday, June 09, 2009

Lu'au at Paradise Cove

After much anguish on my part (would we survive the hour-long bus ride each way? would we cough up the $USD40-60 for a "child's" ticket our have Matilda sit on our laps and eat from our plates?), we decided to go to the Paradise Cove lu'au. We had a great time (and it being not-too-busy, Matilda had her own seat at dinner, and they even gave her some food - fried chicken and rice!).
John and Matilda went for a paddle in an outrigger canoe.
We all got polynesian "tattoos" (with that greasepaint stuff you use when painting kids faces). Matilda got a honu - turtle on her arm.
John got a "tribal" pattern, that Matilda cleaned off during dinner.
I got a pretty Plumeria/Frangipani flower.
Almost sunset ... how gorgeous, and we shared it with just a few hundred other of our closest tourist friends.
Matilda doing the haka. Rather than hours of hula dancing, we were entertained with all manner of polynesian/pacific dancing and rituals.
Come with me, Matilda! The dancers ALL got to know Matilda.
Will you dance with me?
Time to learn some hula dancing. Matilda decided it was HER stage, and she was not going to stand in one place to dance. I'm at the far left of the picture, Matilda's .. not.
We had to get Matilda off the steps before the Tahitian fire dance started. In this spot we could feel the heat of the flames as he twirled the baton around!!

On the bus ride back to Waikiki, our host, cousin Pomai, jokingly talked about a sing-along, and made mention of Old MacDonald's farm. This prompted Matilda to start singing at the top of her voice for the next several minutes. Luckily, she had charmed the rest of the bus (or they had drunk enough Mai Tais and Pina Coladas) by that stage, they all thought she was adorable and were happy to listen to her rendition of eieio. Over and over again. At some point on the drive back, Matilda fell asleep. Yay!

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