Tiffany and Greg Around the World
It’s time again for another foray into our tiki-style Christmas carol extravaganza!
This time with a little help / good natured tomfoolery from our friends Rod & Elizabeth, who we just happened to stumble across during a visit back to California…
(hey, what!? We all happened to both be back in CA at the same time? As we already told you all, in the sailing world it was just a matter of time and proximity.)
They were even nice enough to teach us that cold war Christmas classic…
Auckland, New Zealand
You’ll be happy (or envious, probably both 😉 to know that by the time December rolled around down here we managed to get full swing into summer.
And while it’s not exactly Florida temperatures, the added sunshine mixed with a stubborn defiance of the weather that the Kiwis must have inherited from their British ancestors makes for another warm-weather festive season.
Tongatapu, Tonga
We ended up at this luau & Tongan food fest put on by a local entrepreneur in an Oceanside cave. Just getting there reminded Greg of one of hazards of land bound life outside America…
Seriously, either there’s something in the North American water supply or all those growth hormones we keep feeding our cows and plants are rubbing off because back home Greg is able to pass though most passageways without being actively molested by the ceiling. A feat he has a much more difficult time with everywhere else in the world.
Remember how in Vava’u we noticed that the men’s dances had a lot more movement than the women’s? Yeah that’s because the men’s dances in Tonga were actually used for the teaching and practice of armed and unarmed combat.
Remember that this is your last chance to enter the draw for the Lonely Planet book:
Click here for the rules to enter the drawing!
And so begins a new era of our journey, with Brian and Motor Vessel FURTHUR! (Yes, Brian is a Deadhead. He’s such a big fan, he named his boat after their bus. Personally, I had no idea that they had a name for their bus, but the tie-dye printing on the stern for the lettering of FURTHUR clues you in that this is going to be a fun ride!)
Papeete, Tahiti, Society Islands, French Polynesia
As previously mentioned, music is a major part of these peoples’ lives.
Outside the market and along the main drag of the city is a bank that more importantly serves as the unofficial gathering place for the Papeete street band. Guitars, ukuleles, a guy with a plastic garbage can bass and a bottle cap maracas. We already knew Polynesians had a knack for musical adaptation and the Tahitians did not disappoint. This informal gathering of street performers have been playing daily long enough to be in most of the tourist and travel books as a recommended destination. They’re really that good.
Listening to these guys inspired us to learn more about their version of the ukulele. As we mentioned before in our virtual ukulele Christmas card there are 2 kinds of ukulele: the Hawaiian and the Tahitian.
The ukulele Greg carries around is the “tiny guitar” that most Americans think of when they picture island music. It is thicker and produces a lower note. Most Polynesians refer to it as a “Kamika” due to the fact that a popular brand of Hawaiian ukulele is made by that brand. It’s like calling a cotton ear swab a “Q-tip.”
While in Tahiti we picked up a Tahitian ukulele for Tiffany. This ukulele is longer than the Hawaiian and much thinner. It is made out of solid wood and though both have 4 stringed notes and both are tuned to the same notes, Continue reading “Ukulele 101”
The past year has been an adventure beyond description and we are blessed to have the chance to make this dream come true. Thank-you all so much for sharing it with us. Your comments and emails have been a real encouragement for us as we have strived to maintain this video blog in a part of the world that doesn’t exactly lend itself to high speed internet…or any internet for that matter. Your questions and comments on the blog, Facebook and emails have been great, please keep them up!
We’re still out here exploring the south pacific, in the coming year we hope to see an actual continent again (no rush on that though!)
If I could offer you one thought for the coming year it’s this: According to the people I talk to out here travelling with me, very few people who set out to do a trip like this actually accomplish it. The number one reason has to do with health and often it is simply because they waited too long. They bodies gave out before they were ready.
I know dropping everything isn’t in the cards for everyone and grabbing a piece of your dream now, however small, at least gets you going in the right direction. Upon seeing some of the marvelous islands we’ve been to, one of my fellow crewmen (woman, actually but crewwoman sounds funny) has gotten into the habit of says “Good work God.” God has indeed done some awesome work on this little ball of rock we call Earth…and the only way you can experience it is to take the first step now. Simply said: it’s awesome out here.
Until then, we’ll keep blogging as long as you keep watching!
-Greg & Tiffany
Here’s Tiffany with her new Polynesian ukulele (not to be confused with a Hawaiian ukulele) and a nice, cheap, fresh baguette in Tahiti, two key pieces of Polynesian culture.
Here’s Greg smirking next to the tiki we’ve been calling “tripod”, one of the gods from Rarotonga in the Cook Islands with his Hawaiian ukulele. Um, they put this tiki, in all his glory, on their $2 coins…
Now that hopefully you are hidden from the cold somewhere up there, hunkered down with the family against the rage of old man winter, let’s set the proper Christmas tone for down here. It may be freezing where you are but here in the Southern Hemisphere, it just happens to be the peak of summer. Christmas is bit more of 4th of July picnic and cold beers than hot coco time around the family hearth. It leads to situations that can are very unusual to our Northern hemisphere Christmas expectations.
Oh, and these people have never eaten pumpkin pie (much less Key Lime pie). Seriously, how do they live?
And as a final Christmas treat for you all, my favorite video of the previous entry: the out takes. You’d be surprised how much goes on when you’re trying to record Christmas songs.
Stay warm! We are 😉
-Greg
Merry Christmas everyone!
Wanting to share a little of our tropical Tiki-lounge style of Jesus day with you, Tiffany and I whipped out the ukuleles and played some classic Christmas carols.
PS: In case you are wondering, Tiffany is playing a Polynesian ukulele, which obviously we got in Polynesia. I am playing a Hawaiian ukulele, which not so obviously, we got in Florida. They are both different instruments and are supposed to have those separate sounds. More on that later, for now, enjoy the music:
Santa Claus is coming to town
Jingle Bells:
Jingle Bell rock:
We Wish You a Merry Christmas
PPS: In case you were wondering why we picked those songs, well, they were the easy ones. 😉
Thanks for sharing in our adventures and we pray your homes are at least aglow with the season if not with the actual sunshine. Here’s to a tropical Christmas!
-Greg
(Continued from previous post… Fatu Hiva, French Polynesia)
I wandered out into the village our last night in town with my trusty ukulele and by using equal parts luck and my limited knowledge of the French language, ended up finding a group of guys hanging out by their pickup truck playing music while their spouses served dinner to some other cruisers. The words “restaurant” and “living room” are rather synonymous here.
Not being part of the dinner group I sat down with the guys and lent one of them my ukulele, which they in turn informed me they called a “Kamaka”. Their ukulele is actually an 8 stringed instrument (4 paired strings) that sounds somewhat similar to a banjo, except with an island flair.
Ok, so you heard them at the end of the video, they wanted me to play. Play my ukulele (kamaka, whatever) with a group of people who invented the instrument on a tiny little island in the middle of the South Pacific? Can you say once in a lifetime brag-to-other-people’s-kids-because-I-don’t-have-any-of-my-own opportunity? Heck ya! Only one minor SNAFU. You have to understand, I started learning this instrument a month ago. I’m mostly self taught (though my friend Rod did give me a heck of a boost to get started and Tiffany assisted when I wasn’t too embarrassed to ask.) This is my first instrument…I can’t even read music! (Likely they couldn’t either, but that’s aside from the point) and this is exactly the second time I’ve played with someone else. Notice I opted to not cover the previous little “incident” in the blog.
But there was no way I was letting this opportunity pass me by. If these guys voted me off the island, then so be it, at least I’d swung the bat…or strummed the kamaka as the case may be. Overall, I think I did OK. I’m playing the lead (and speaking broken French) at the beginning.
There, it may not have been great but you know what, how may of you have been told by a Polynesian musician in response to your playing, “good music”? That’s what I thought. Obviously, I still need practice and for a guy who learned strumming about 2 weeks ago, I think I did OK.
We wrapped up the evening with the leader of the group, Serge, showing me that some songs are universal. There was a little Eagle Scout inside me that was very happy to hear this,
Guess which song I’m learning next?
– Greg
