Christmas Eve Day @ Rotorua
Tamaki Maori village*****
It is a cultural eye opener and also an entertaining night indeed! We chose to take this tour during christmas eve, partly because they serve the buffet style hangi meal. Woohoo! Well, it is quite expensive for this 3 hours experience with meal but we got a 15% discount from Lake Taupo I-site from original price of $110 pp. The shuttle bus driver is Tata, a really funny guy. We would assume that we are in a waka, canoe during our journey from Rotorua to the village. And the spirit was brought up when all of us 'paddled' together! By hand movement and shouting... Hehe.
At Tamaki village, we are welcomed by the village chief.
We went around their village, being demonstrated how the Maori's dance Haka, play games, carving, the tattooing and combat training. The tattoos on their face actually represent different values and attributes of their family and ancestor. Nowadays, the young people in this village has only temporary tattoos on their face for the tour purpose because they won't be able to find a job with drawings on their face. But they say it will be a matter of few years of getting older before the real tattoo is being drawn.
Ooh, Peter even got the chance to play in this Maori kid's game, where each people hold a stick. When the leader shout 'ma...' means right, and (...?.) means left. So all the kids have to go left or right according to the command while letting go their sticks and grab others' stick according to which side they go, whoever who drop his stick will be eliminated. The last man standing is the winner. It was an exciting game, and Peter did it! He's the winner with his agility and long legs! It is usually a game of about 100 kids, so we can only imagine how exciting that is! We'll have to play this back in Malaysia some time.. Lol.
Hello Chief!
Then we witness the lifting of the hangi from the 'earth oven'. This is Maori's traditonal way of cooking, where they burn the stones real hot until it became white stones then stacks of chicken, lamb, potatoes and kumara are placed above these hot stones and covered with dirt to seal in the heat. So the hangi will have the smoky earth flavour. Looking forward to that!
Before dinner, we were led to the meeting room to view the powerful Haka dance and other shows for 20 minutes. Very fierce faces and also the beautiful smiles the ladies have. The Haka dance is the war dance, performed before going out for combat so the moves are strong and their eyes popped out real big with tongues sticking out, as if want to eat their enemy!
The Hongi ritual.. When Maori greet one another by pressing noses, the tradition of sharing the breath of life is considered to have come directly from the gods.
The dance really brought out their spirits and portrays really well how strong a man/ woman can be. It is inspirational how the Maoris can continue their traditional cultures until today even with the blending into modern society.
Yay dinner time! We chow down on the hangi lamb, chicken, potatoes, kumara, carrot, salads, mussels, and fish. The fish is really not nice. But the rest is quite alright. We have not expected much from the dinner since we have seen average reviews about the food in trip advisor. But overall they are good. The dessert, Kiwi Pavlola is really good, so sweet yet yums...
Our all time fav, Kiwi pavlova! Crispy meringue and cream topped with kiwi and passionfruit syrups =D
We end the night with a round of Xmas songs where everyone joined in to sing together and feel the Pakeha's (white people) culture. The 'waka' back home is even more fun and hilarious. The bus driver had us, the tourist from all over the world, singing in own language the songs that we can think of. So from Malaysia, only the both of us Malaysians in the bus, we sang Rasa Sayang. Yea, we know it's not originally from Malaysia, but there weren't any Indons on the bus, so nvm la! Lol
Then Tata the driver just keep teasing the Aussies, when it is their turn to sing, he just horn non stop. He said they really like Aussies, especially when NZ win OZ in rugby and volleyball! Then we came to a roundabout, and he sang the 'yippie yai yai' song, and he keep turning around the roundabout as he sings the song. OMG, we can just laugh non stop at his jokes. We had such a great xmas eve! Although this whole tour is rather commercialized, but the whole experience is really good and we get to feel the life of the Maoris!
