Hawai'i Trip, Day 3, June 16, 2018

The morning is taken up with a visit to Sea Life Park. Everyone recognizes the name because it was the setting for the movie 50 First Dates with Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore. There aren’t many people at the park and the open-air amphitheater where the dolphin show will take place is empty when we get there. We fill it up. The show is entertaining though I expect there are students wondering if this is kind to animals; making them do tricks and behave like humans for our entertainment. We have at least an hour to walk around after the show and the bird cage attracts many students. The park provides you with small sticks of seeds to feed to the birds and to encourage them to sit on the stick while eating. They are a beautiful assortment of blues, whites, and rainbow colors. The sound is deafening and not a few people come out after being pooped on by a bird. No surprise in a busy cage of birds!

The orchestra students leave the park first at 10:45am to get lunch at the food court in Windward Mall. This time I find dumplings and try two kinds – plain and chili pepper hot. We then head to One Kalakaua Senior Living for a 1pm performance for the senior residents, arriving at about 12:45pm. Already, many residents have found seats and are anticipating the concert. The news has spread that the students have come from the best high school in the country and all the way from New York on the mainland. The ladies, in particular, are very impressed. One asks how come our school has so many Asian students. She says the group looks like it is from a local Hawaiian school. I'm not sure if there's disappointment in her voice or reassurance that there are Asian students everywhere in the country.

This is the students’ first performance in Hawai’i and they tune up and jump in without any hesitation. You might not even know they hadn't rehearsed in many days. The music, as always, is compelling and beautiful. As we wait to start I meet a few women. A woman named Molly tells me that she worked for a year at the Brooklyn Public Library. She is very chatty and after the concert comes over to tell me how much she has enjoyed hearing the students. She asks if they are planning to play anywhere else and I mention the next day’s performance at a local mall. She says she will come hear them again. She also wants to hear our steel drum band.    

The apartments at One Kalakaua Senior Living are either rented or purchased. As Molly tells me, “You know, Chinese like to own things so they can pass them on. My apartment is going to my niece.” She is the eldest of eight children, never married, and she refers to her niece often. The majority of the residents at the performance are Asian. It feels so familiar, the senior home and the people. A man asks about the financing of the trip. He can’t get over the cost of bringing so many students from NYC to Hawai’i. It is easy to see him calculating the price in his head.

After leaving the senior residence we make a quick stop at the hotel and then walk to the community center. Two professors that Tim knows lead us in a workshop on Hawai’ian hula and mele. The hula we learn is while sitting down (hula noho) and holding river stones (ili ili) in each hand to create a clacking sound. Each line of the mele is sung first in melody and then again in harmony.

The fluidity of the movements and the lilting quality of the music combine to draw you into the story. The professor keeps reminding us to smile, not an easy thing to do while concentrating on movements, words and music!

Dinner is at Beijing Waikiki, a more formal Chinese restaurant. We have a whole section of the restaurant and the meal is served over several courses on a lazy susan. It is all delicious even though the students seem to find only a few dishes they like. Of particular note is a platter of chicken and mu er (tree ears). The squid is also very good. The night before the choir had eaten at this restaurant and there were no provisions made for vegetarians. When we arrive one table has a piece of paper on it that says, “Vegetarian.” It is a nice effort even though it turns out that the table receives all of the meat dishes and only one completely vegetarian dish of stir fried vegetables. One teacher goes out to get a few students French Fries because they say there is nothing that they like to eat.

Bed check is at 10:30pm.