Tuesday, January 15, 2008: At Sea.
Bob: After breakfast and walking 3 miles on deck we decided to try out Hula and Tahitian Dancing with Ambassador June, a lithe Polynesian woman who I later found out had been hula dancing from the age of 3! Fortunately, she was an excellent instructor and she cheerfully and carefully taught us the set of graceful choreographed movements that told the story of each song. Since the hula was used to preserve oral traditions in the pre-written-word days of old Hawaii, the combination of movements and music to convey a story was probably developed in part to facilitate long-term memory and accurate recall of historical material. Whatever the origin, the graceful movements and transitions reminded me of classical ballet but it was easy enough for beginners such as ourselves to learn relatively rapidly. The movements and fast pace of some of the songs were sufficient to give us a light aerobic workout, too, which was a bonus. We rested by dropping in on another Pacific Whale Foundation talk about "Cetaceans of Hawaii" where we could sit down for a spell. The presentation was on the toothed cetaceans including orcas, dolphins, and certain types of whales that I had never heard of. The pictures were great and the presenter, a volunteer named Louise, knew her stuff, but there is not a lot known about some of the species as it turned out. Returning to the Outrigger Lounge we joined a craft session where we decorated foam sun visors. I put "BOB" on mine, mainly so I could always identify it, but I also took advantage of the available materials to dress it up with some foam fishes and blue glitter. The instructor, Joyce, liked what I had made and showed it to the rest of the class so my sun visor, if not myself, had 15 minutes of (very limited) fame. I was kind of embarrassed but I'm still kid enough to enjoy having my work praised by the teacher! |
Monika: Another day at sea and another day full of crafts and Hula dancing. In the morning we made sunvisors with flowers. We then learned three Hula Dances and in the afternoon we made Leis out of Kukui nuts. |
Bob: We rested a bit after lunch, but turned out again to try Ambassador June's afternoon session on making a Kukui nut lei. Word about June and her classes had obviously spread, because about 900 people were in that theater making leis out of hollowed out black Kukui nuts. Since the theater only holds 1000 to 1100 people, the ground floor was packed and even parts of the balcony were occupied by folks busily threading black Kukui nut shells onto black ribbon. Monika finished hers, but I made a couple of mistakes so I held off finishing mine until later. On the way out we bought some kits with beige and brown Kukui nuts (the unripe nuts are beige, medium ripe nuts are brown, and fully ripe nuts are black, according to June) so that I could try making a necklace with contrasting colors later that evening. |
Monika: June our Hawaiian and Tahitian Ambassador not only showed us how to make the leis but also told stories about the Kukui nuts, and how she was on a conference call with NCL headquarters when she told them, she needed 50,000 orchids and 40,000 Kukui nuts. When they asked her whether she couldn't make it cheaper, she told them then the leis would look cheap. So they gave in and let her have all the supplies. And they all were needed. The day before, when we made the orchid leis, we were in one of the larger bars and it was overflowing with people sitting on the floor. So today's Kukui nut leis class was moved to the theater that holds about a 1000 and it was almost full. 900 people, that is almost half the passengers, were there to make a leis and there were indeed enough supplies for everyone. After we each had made our leis, June sold kits of different color Kukui nuts, shells, and silk flowers for more leis. Of course, we bought several different ones, and as soon as we got to our room, Bob made himself a lei of white and chocolate color nut with a shell in the middle. Very pretty. |
Bob: Before I could find time to work on my necklace, though, we had dinner and attended the Broadway Revue type of song and dance show put on by the Pride of Aloha resident troupe of entertainers. The troupe consisted of eight dancers and four singers, specifically a tenor, baritone, soprano and mezzo-soprano. The performance consisted of songs lifted from current Broadway hits like "Mama Mia", "Hairspray", and "Wicked, among others. The changing of costumes for each number and the alternation of singing and dancing numbers to allow those kinds of costume shifts was exactly like the performances we had seen on other cruise ships. Although there was no attempt at any real thematic integration or development of the numbers, the performance was high quality and since each number stood pretty well on its own feet the melange was still quite enjoyable. Besides finishing a Kukui nut necklace that evening, I also finished reading Cornwell's "Lords of the North", a Macho myth if ever there was one. But women have romance novels with love, romance, marriage, and "happily ever after", so it seems only reasonable that guys have their Macho myths with a lot of swords, fights, drinking, wenching, and carousing. The hero ended up the novel with a new girl, more money, honor avenged, and only slightly more bruised and battered than when he started it, so it was the guy version of "happily ever after"! In any case, I could relax and turn in for the night. |
Monika: Neither of us was really hungry, so we had a small dinner up at the buffet and were rewarded by a glorious sunset. Of course, our cameras were just clicking away. But the sun set very quickly. We are close enough to the equator for this phenomenon, which is disconcerting to someone growing up in in northern Germany were the sun takes its sweet time going below the horizon. The evening show was the first production number. It was called On Broadway, and had tunes from different Broadway shows. The cast was the normal cruise ship cast of 4 singers and 8 dancers and the show had the normal number of lots of costume changes and very energetic dancing. The singers were ok. So a good time was had by all. |
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