The Luau

On our first night in Maui we went to the 'Feast at Lele'. It was an amazing luau with a 5 course dinner and all you could drink. James and I drank virgin pina coladas, and all sorts of wonderful combinations of pineapple juice, coconut cream and strawberry puree. It took place at sunset on the beach traditionally used by the Hawaiian royal family for entertaining. It was beautiful

The dinner was set up in five sections. The first, appetizers, were sweet potato chips with a island mango salsa- soooo delicious!

Then they took us on a 'tour' of four Polynesian islands. The first course was food cooked in a Hawaiian style (the pulled pork was from a pig that had been placed in an underground oven and baked all day). In each course we got to try 3 different 'traditional' foods. It was delicious! They accompanied each course with the traditional dances from each island.

The next island was New Zealand. The food was amazing again and the dancers were wonderful. They painted their faces and did an intimidation dance that was used to hype them up for battle and scare off their enemies. I could see how this could have been very effective!

Next was Tahiti. The food was good and the dances amazing. I loved the headdresses they wore. They were all so beautiful. The dancing was so graceful and mesmerizing to watch. It was wonderful.

Last was Samoa and the fire dance. It was great- although the pictures are a little hard to see. It was pitch black by this point and James and I were so full we were uncomfortable! And we were incredibly tired! I felt so old that I was falling asleep at the table and it was only 7:00pm (mind you we only got 5 hours of sleep the night before and we were still on Calgary time...)

It was an amazing night and I am really glad we splurged on such a cultural feast!