Pasifika 2012

[vilakins]

On Saturday we went to the annual Pasifika festival. We missed it two years ago because we were out of town, and last year because it rained. This time it was grey (like most of our summer) and humid but the rain held off till Sunday. Maxx (public transport) wasn't running buses from Newmarket as in other years so we had to drive to a train station, wait ages for a train (most were cancelled last weekend; great planning, guys) and then a crowded bus, then all that in reverse going home. I think we spent more time in transit than actually there. :-P

Pasifika is held at Western Springs, a lovely big park with a lake. Various Pacific islands set up "villages" all round it so people can do a circuit visiting them all. They have dancers, demos, and lots of yummy food to try, the highlights for me being "te baan", Kiribati pancakes filled with fresh grated coconut and te kamamai (coconut syrup). We took coconut buns and Cook Islands poke (paw-kay) home with us. Poke is usually made from cooked bananas and coconut cream; we also got pumpkin for its rarity value.


Weaver from Kiribati. I'm very pleased with how this came out.


Dancers from Tuvalu. Their distinctive skirts are made from hand-dyed pandanus leaf strips.


Tongan dancer.

I wish I'd got more of the various dancers but it was hard to even see some of them let alone get close enough to get a decent photo, or I just enjoyed them too much to get round to taking a photo before they finished.

Comments

[watervole]

I love those trousers that the weaver is wearing.

[vilakins]

Me too! I had some black ones with splashes of colour on them and I miss them.

[van.livejournal.com]

Looks very cool. I love that sort of stuff. Such a shame it was such an ordeal getting there and back.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Yeah, our public transport isn't that great anyway and there's no parking when 1000s go to the festival. But it's worth it. :-)

[linda-joyce.livejournal.com]

That looks like my kind of day out.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

They had a sign up saying "Set your clocks to Island time". :-)

[ultrapsychobrat.livejournal.com]

Great pictures!

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[elmey.livejournal.com]

Those Tuvalu costumes look incredible! Is that beading or weaving on the pennants? The food doesn't sound bad either ;)

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I imagine it's weaving.

The food was great; I like the chicken curries, traditional foods like poke, and ice cream served in a half-pineapple. :-) Kiribati always seems to have the best though.

[azdak.livejournal.com]

Oh yum, all that coconut..! The dancers are beautiful; so is the weaver. It seems to have been worth the effort of getting there (just).

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

It's always an effort because it's so hard to find parking and 1000s are going there at the same time. We still do it though. :-P

[quabazaa.livejournal.com]

Wow that sounds like SO much fun! The Kiribati pancakes sound amazing :)

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Kiribati always has the best food! They seem quite different from all the others with their poke and chicken curries and what they call "heavy suppers" (supper = meal). One year they had this really delicious tasting plate with about six delicacies.

[vjezkova.livejournal.com]

Oh fantastic, so exotic for me, the colours and there must have been yummy smells too, yum yum!
BTW, I heard that President of Kiribati is going to buy some land in the Fidji Islands to give his people new place - theirs is disappearing under the sea level!
Thank you for sharing!

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Probably; a few of the lower-lying islands had displays about that.

[sheenaghpugh]

Those pancakes sound yummy! No wonder the islands have galloping diabetes...

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

The poke's pretty sweet too. It'll take us a while to get through what we bought, at a couple of tablespoons each evening.

[imhilien.livejournal.com]

It sounds like you had a good time (apart from getting there).

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it was good, especially since it wasn't as hot as usual.

[luinielle.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for posting these photos - they're wonderful. Looks and sounds like a great time.
I had a good chuckle over your poke description - in Hawai'i, poke (poh-keh) is a raw fish appetizer. :o) I think I much prefer the Cook Islands version.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Yes, I saw that when I looked it up in Wiki.

If you want to see more islandy goodness, see the other three entries under that tag (http://vilakins.livejournal.com/tag/pasifika). :-)