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Published: January 12th 2007
Decided to follow my Doctor’s advice and get some exercise, walking. Went to the Ala Moana Shopping Center and apparently every Tuesday and Thursdays, at 12 noon, the Polynesian Culture Center put on a mini-show to encourage customers to come to their show located near the North Shore in town called Laie about an hours drive from Honolulu. I hear mix reactions form tourists who’ve been there, some saying it’s a waste of time and others who really love it. For myself, I’ve seen Polynesian dances often and never tire of it. The dances are often very lively and music quite pleasing to the Western or even I imagine, to the Eastern ear.
The Samoans have their flaming knife twirling and tossing dance, which one must see at least once in their life to believe what a person can do with one or two flaming swords. The Tahitians have their sexual tantalizing gyrating hip dances accompanied by hypnotic drumming, the Tongans their fun loving, flirting type or warrior dances and the Maoris of New Zealand their Poi Ball twirling and Warriors Haka, now popular with many football teams. In the Poi Ball twirling, imagine if you will a ball the
size of a tennis ball, attached to a foot and a half braided yarn. The dancer has two of them in each hand, holding the ends of the yarn. She starts moving her hand in an up and down motion. One ball in her right hand starts spinning clockwise and the other simultaneously is spinning counter clockwise. The same is happening in her left hand. She doesn’t just stand there twirling the poi balls, but dances around, rotating left hand and right hand to front and rear of her.
After the show, I decide to walk around in Waikiki instead of the Shopping Center, which is quite large, yet too heavily shaded. It’s a beautiful sunny day, so thought I’d work on my tan which trying to bring my cholesterol down at the same time. Haven’t been to Waikiki for a while and noticed many projects that were behind construction boards were now visible and ready for occupation. One was the site of the old Waikiki Theatre, which used to have an organ player playing before each movie and as you look up to the blue ceiling, you could see clouds moving from front to back. Waikiki once had
3 theaters, but now they have none. The style of the shopping complex built in it’s place does resemble the same art deco design of the theater which I imagine was built in the ‘20’s or ‘30’s.
Next was the Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center built during the ‘60s resembling a heavy gray fortified fort. Apparently that was the popular design of that era, a wasteland of non-creativity. Little by little the center is being remodeled to at least add some kind of character to it’s appeareance. However, I expected something more tropical or Hawaiian, but it looked like any other continental style. Then, it was the Lewers St. Project which included whole blocks of redevelopment. Gone were the hodge-podge look and a more organized and uniformed appearance was being created. In fact the area was just in the news tonight, because of a ground breaking ceremony for a proposed 37 storey luxury Hotel to be built by none other than Donald Trump, himself. The structures happily did have a tropical or Hawaiian theme, with curving overhangs which are supposed to resemble waves. Many who have been away from the islands for a couple of years, particularly may be interested
in the changes in those areas.
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Sidewalk Waterfall Fountain.
