A cryptic flyer posted on the wall of the Kileau Lodge where we’re staying landed us in what looked like a camp cafeteria watching five hula musicians, several playing the ukulele and about 10 hula dancers perform traditional selections from all over the islands. It was great. The flyer mentioned something about hula at KMC – which turned out to be Kileau Military Camp, which we’d passed a few times while visiting the National Volcano Park and wondered about. We learned that it’s a camp for veterans and active military and their families for R&R. There’s another such camp on Oahu. The hour long performance was free and very entertaining. I was pleased to see that some of the hula dance movements I used to do when fooling around as a kid are pretty close to the real thing. How or where did we learn this stuff as kids (Elvis movies? Hawaiian punch commercials? Hawaii Five O?) Visiting Hawaii has made me realize all the stereotypic pop culture stuff I know about the islands – even though I knew very little about the real Hawaii (including which island Honolulu was on.)
After the hula performance we had an excellent meal at Thai Thai – one of the few restaurants in Volcano.
TakeBetsywithyou 