;
hula
Image by Proth via Flickr

Festivals in Kauai are a fantastic experience for locals as well as visitors. They have fascinating cultural themes and motifs, tasty food, beautiful music, fun and unique shopping opportunities, and great entertainment. Best of all, the festivals happen year round, in the clean, fresh air, and are easy to find and locate. Most all of them are child-friendly and family-friendly as well.

Kauai has an especially beautiful collection of mountains, beaches, volcanoes, and forest, even in a state known for its beautiful natural resources. Festival themes usually incorporate the beauty of Kauai and some of its more outstanding natural features. Participants in the festival often wear colorful and striking native costumes, host lei making contests, perform traditional music, and dance the hula.

Nothing is more important at a Kauai festival than food. The food is usually delicious, fresh, and simple, and reflects the many cultures of people that currently live in the island. At Kauai festivals you can find Hawaiian, Japanese, Filipino, Puerto Rican and Portuguese cuisine. There are often festivals in Kauai that feature a single kind of food and the chefs known for preparing it especially well.

Local people in Kauai regularly participate in and attend the festivals, giving them an especially authentic feeling. They are not put together just for the tourists. When you go, try to remember that and respect the hard work and effort put into the festivals by the people in the community. It is your opportunity to share in their lives and their unique culture with its great food and beautiful traditions. Enjoy it!

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

{ 0 comments }

Colored locator map for the island of Kauai
Image via Wikipedia

Hawaiian culture is fascinating, but did you know it varies from island to island? Just like accents and pronunciations shift as you move across the continental United States, so too do they change in Hawaii. The islands actually exacerbate this difference by isolating communities a little more from each other, which makes the differences more pronounced.

The culture of Kauai is very laid-back, but the people greatly value their traditions. The larger Hawaiian traditions of hula and Hawaiian music are present there, including the ukulele and other traditional instruments. In fact, Kauai used to have the most important hula school in all of Hawaii, so hula remains very important to Kauai culture and traditions. In fact, Kauai is still kind of a seat of “high” Hawaiian culture, since great effort is taken to care for and maintain the special skills, traditions, and abilities that make up being Hawaiian. When you visit Kauai, remember that even if some of the traditions seem to have been “commercialized” a bit for the tourists, they are still taken very seriously by the local people.

To give you a glimpse of Hawaiian language, here is a list of a few Hawaiian words. Remember that Hawaiian has five vowels and seven consonants: a, e, i, o. u, h, k, l, m, n, p and w.
kahiko (traditional, old)
kahuna (priest, expert in a field)
kai (ocean, ocean water)
a hui hou (until we meet again)
aole (no)
ewa (westward)
kapu (tax, forbidden)
muumuu (long and loose fitting dress)
nani (beautiful)
nene (rare native goose)
kona (leeward, leeward wind)
koolau (windward side of island)

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

{ 0 comments }

Kauai Guru Things-To-Do-In-Kauai Tips Published!

September 29, 2009

Image by Jeff Kubina via Flickr

Exciting news! KauaiGuru had an article published on line about the Top Five Things to Do in Kauai! It is a fun list of ideas and suggestions to help you put together a great vacation while staying in Kauai. The unique thing about the article is that it is designed [...]

Read the full article →

How to Choose Where to Stay in Poipu Beach: Poipu Hotels? Poipu Resorts? Poipu Oceanfront Condos?

August 21, 2009

Image via Wikipedia

Poipu Beach, Kauai is one of those places that is so amazing, so well reviewed, and so talked about that is sometimes feels overwhelming to plan a vacation there.  And the amount of places to stay can be equally dizzying to contemplate.
We’ve tried them all: the hotels, the complex-like resorts, the condo rentals, [...]

Read the full article →