Beyond the Reef

We went over the reef!! It's awesome out in the open ocean. You get a totally different view of ocean life compared to what we usually see in the lagoon. More to come later, but here's one picture to show some differences.

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.

The Streets of Japan

The streets of Japan were filled with so much to see, especially compared to the streets of Saipan. It was so busy everywhere! Almost every sign was neon and/or flashing. It made for, what seemed to be, a drug-induced stupor as we walked through the city. It was so mesmerizing and yet over-stimulating at the same time.

Most of these speak for themselves, but I'll add little tidbits throughout the post.

All these buildings line the Dotombori River. You can see that every available inch is used for advertising and marketing.

This is Dotombori-Dori (Dotombori Street). It was once Osaka's old theater district which is obvious from some of the buildings. Now, the street is filled with neon signs and restaurants and shops.

This is also where we found the fried squid balls.

An evening view.

This is the Mido-Suji Expressway. It's lined with ginko trees and is home to the greatest concentration of department stores in Osaka, not that we could afford the even window shop...
Our hotel was a half-block west of this street.

Random busy street.

This was the road leading through the cherry blossom festival. It was packed but absolutely gorgeous.

Rainy streets

Walking through Japan was such an adventure. There were so many awesome things we found just by hoofin' it through the city.

This was a rock climbing wall, on the side of a building. Awesomeness!

More on our Japanese adventures soon!

Something new...

One of the things Josh and I look forward to, almost subconsciously, when we travel is discovering little aspects of the culture we're visiting in their food and drinks.

For those of you who don't know, I love tea. Hot or cold. With milk or with out. Always sweet.

When we were in Africa I fell in love with Five Roses Rooibos Tea. It's a red tea that is so different from your everyday black tea. They served it all day everyday, with milk and sugar, at the Third Wave conference. We would all grab a glass and sit and talk for hours with our new friends. I brought a big box home with me and savored every last bag, reliving the memories from that time.

The next year, when we visited Jordan and Israel, we found Lipton Yellow Label Tea. Everyone drank it all the time, with sugar and mint. We spent many evenings conversing with locals over freshly brewed tea, their sign of kindness and generosity. Again, we brought home our own stash to relive those moments through the flavor and aroma of the tea.

Here we are once again, we're on another adventure. This time in Japan. We haven't had the great conversations with locals or made lifelong friends on this trip like the last two and that's alright with us. This trip has been memorable in so many different ways. But we have yet to find that one thing that sticks out to us that we never want to loose. Tonight was our first reminder of that.

Coming from Saipan, I was so excited to experience "big world things": the shopping, the food, the hustle and bustle of a major metropolitan area. I miss the mental stimulation of living in a big city and I knew this would cure the cravings at least for the next few months. Before we left I was looking up all the different American companies that are in Osaka. Starbucks, McDonalds, 7-Eleven, Gap, Claire's, Baskin Robin's, the list goes on and on. I was so excited about being in my comfort zone again I was forgetting to embrace what makes this place unique.

Tonight, we ate at a place called Royal Host. In many ways it reminded us of Denny's or IHOP, diner style meals and service, but it was so unlike either of those places at the same time. The food options were not American, nor were they were not purely Asian either. It was a mix of both worlds, which is kind of what we were expecting. The best part about the whole experience was the drink bar. For about $2 you get unlimited drinks, not just the one drink you ordered, but anything from the bar.

The choices ranged from soda, iced tea or juice, to two dozen different options of hot tea, cappuccino, espresso, regular coffee or hot chocolate. It was amazing! We sat there for a couple of hours trying all the different drinks, watching the rain pour and the wind blow. We still don't have a tea from Japan to take home, at least not yet, but it was a priceless time together.

Sorting, Planning, Packing...

We're tying up the loose ends tonight and packing our bags. Our flight leaves Saipan at 425am (125pm Friday CST). Too excited for words...

And we're off...

The month of March is over and we're a few days away from the middle of April. What a whirlwind the last few weeks have been. March started with a bang, as it does every year, when we celebrate my birthday. Josh and our awesome friend Rachel planned a surprise party for me about a week before my birthday. We had a blast. We went to dinner and then went bowling.

For my actual birthday dinner, Josh took me out to eat at a local resort for their seafood buffet.

The following weekend we were up at an unbelievable hour to watch our friends compete in the Xterra Triathlon. Was it tiring? Yes. Was it worth it? Yes! Our friend Brian came in 10th place overall and 1st in his age group.

Finally, The last two weekends in March were spent with some very special guests.

Kendall, Denise and Trevor came to visit! They were here for about a week and a half. Just long enough to flip their sleep cycle upside down and then head home. We did just about everything there is to do on the island in those 10 days and had a great time together.

We took them to the grotto.

And the tip-top of the island on Mt Topachu.

Of course, we had to take them to Managaha.

And street market. No trip to Saipan is complete with out pictures with the Saipandas.

Friday night is Seafood Night on Saipan. We couldn't let Trevor pass up that experience so the 3 of us went out to the best Seafood buffet on island.

This is a glimpse of Trevor's plate. Pretty adventurous if I do say so myself. He did not hesitate to try all sorts of new things.

Saturday we spent the afternoon at the beach with lots of our friends.

We ended their visit with dinner at PIC to watch the sunset on the beach.

And now we're into April. As of last weekend I am officially CPR/ AED certified. Wonderful 6 hour Professional Development courses. Last week brought the close of our 3rd quarter of school and the official beginning of the 4th and final quarter of the school year!! We have this one weekend at home to sleep and do laundry before we're off again.

Next weekend is the beginning of our Spring Break. We leave before the sun rises Saturday to head off to Japan for the week! I really don't want to have to spend this week at school but, oh well. I am so ready for a new adventure. We'll try to post while we're abroad but there are no guarantees. Sayonara!