Living it Up

Living in Saipan is very different than we expected. Yes, ebb and flow of daily life within this community is different, but beyond that, the way we live out our personal lives has had to change. There are many modern amenities that we no longer have, some by choice others, not so much but we don't regret any of it.

This is our little car. It's a 2000 Toyota Echo. We get great gas mileage which is a necessity because our gas is $4.75 a gallon.

This is our apartment. We live on the top floor, that's our bedroom on the corner. Each of the 2-story buildings in our apartment complex has 4 homes. There are a grand total of maybe 40 units within our complex which makes it a quite little community. We know most of the people who live in the complex and we all watch out for each other. We never met any of our neighbors at our old apartment, everyone was so hushed and hurried.

The view from our front balcony

Looking toward the parking lot... Ah, pretty flame trees.

Most of the houses in Saipan are made of concrete for several different reasons. We live in typhoon country. A typhoon is the Pacific Ocean's version of a hurricane, with high winds and lots of rain. A large typhoon would devastate our little island. If you haven't read before, it is hot and humid here, year round, which means we have bugs, lots of them. In fact, the termites were swarming outside our apartment. It was pretty gross. They would destroy a wood-frame home in a matter of months. So, it looks a lot different than what we'd expect to see with our typical idea of "American" homes.

We have lots of fruit trees growing around our apartments. These are some of the bananas growing just in front of our apartment. Notice how they have more squared off edges? These are what are referred to as "cooking" bananas. They're not sweet and you don't want to eat them raw. The "eating" bananas are round and very short, they're about the size of the palm of your hand.

We also have lemons, oranges, calamansi and papaya growing just outside our windows, it's great. Another aspect of life in Saipan, that has come as a pleasant surprise are the constant flowers. Our climate is so temperate that we have beautiful flowers all year long. This winter, when everything is dead and brown, I am really going to miss these flowers and the wonderful sunshine.

Oh, and we get these almost daily. Wonderful, colorful sunsets.

We have developed a life out here on this little rock. It was quite an adjustment at first, but we've come to love most of it. There is officially less than one month until we come home. It's going to be a bittersweet goodbye.

Flame Trees

It's flame tree season! The jungles that were lush and green when we arrived are now ablaze with red blooms. I

I equate flame trees with blue bonnets in south Texas or the cherry blossoms in Japan. The trees are only in full bloom a few weeks out of the year. There'll be sporadic blossoms through the fall but nothing like the blooms we're seeing now.

The blossoms grow in clusters all over the trees. After the blooms falls, the tree is again filled with lush green leaves.