Friday's Lunch

We tried what can be called "our favorite" place today once again! Saigon Vietnamese restaurant with the $5 lunch special. I had the barbecue chicken which was soooo tasty, seasoned bits of chicken with veggies and rice with dipping sauce! Stan had a DELICIOUS spicy chicken noodle dish where they mixed thin noodles in with veggies and chicken and spicy tasty sauce. The soup was different today, it was egg drop, which is my ultimate fave as far as asian soups go. Even though I really don't care for their kimchee, the endless sweetened iced tea and the tasty soup and main dishes for $5 will keep us coming back many times I'm sure :)

Russian Signs at the Street Fair

Two Russian signs and one Russian boy :) Stan was so cute while he read the (sort of) phonetic spelling of "Sashimi Sushi" in Russian which came out sounding like a baby voice "saseemi soossee"

Apigigi

Apigigi -- local food made from coconut wrapped in a leaf and barbecued

I was very curious about this, so after staring at the poor folks in the booth for five minutes and taking their picture making it, I bought one. It was super tasty!! It was like gummy coconut goodness inside that leaf.

Food, Glorious FOOD.

More from the Thursday street fair, I just felt this amazing, weird, yet tasty food needed more attention. I'll list some of the stuff here!

Barbecue squid stuffed with rice

Fried mochi (sweet rice dough filled with sweet beans and coated with sesame seeds)

Steamed dumpling (Soft dough filled with meat)

Gyoza (Pot sticker fried with meat and vegetables)

Fried spring roll

Fried dumpling

Sweet and sour pork

Street Fair!

Pretty cool local street fair tonight in the touristy district near the Hyatt in Garapan. There were souvenirs, produce, entertainment, and most of all FOOD! And so cheap and so tasty foooooood. Most every restaurant has a deal $1 for one item or $5 for six items.

Bunches of local young people put on a show for the crowd with dancing and singing. Some of them were pretty good, and all of them obviously put in much time practicing, so good job!

Saipanda Strikes Again!

... as a bus. Kinda weird but cute :)

Shinsen Sushi Lunch

Tried out this sushi restaurant for lunch today. The prices weren't so cheap as other places for lunch, and the food was mediocre. I got to try something I've been curious about though, the soft shell crab. They just take the entire thing shell and all and bread him and fry him and chop him and serve him. It was all right, though it tasted more like breading than crab, and he had his guts still in there which was weird. Stan's review of the sushi was that the rice wasn't the best quality, and he wasn't impressed. It was still pretty so I snapped photos. It was $9.50 for the sushi plate and $8 for the crab.

Big Bugs

Venturing out after dark today to see the movie The Town (which was excellent by the way), we came across a huge katydid (huger than our friend who lives permanently outside our door) and a creepy looking praying mantis! We don't see these kind of things back home.

Beautiful Blossoms

Just pretty flowers. Not sure what kind. In the gardening scheme at the Aqua Resort.

More Russian Language Spotting!

It's like a scavenger hunt to find the Russian words on this island! Wherever tourists are expected, that's where we find them. The Aqua Resort had a bookshelf of various language books including Russian of course, and the pool rules were posted in 4 languages, including Russian, Japanese, and English. Stan took a minute to study them and made me sound out the word that means narcotics. :)

Disability Conference

It was a good opportunity to represent PHI Pharmacy as a medical supplier and get our faces out in the community, being the new kids on the block so to speak. Ginny, Fern, and Manny were so helpful hauling stuff back and forth and keeping us company during the day!! It was held at Aqua Resort which was very nice, and they fed us a big tasty high quality buffet lunch and light refreshments the entire time.

More Creature Friends

There's a light outside our door that attracts plenty of bugs and plenty of things to eat those bugs. There are dozens of geckos of all sizes all around the alcove with our door and inside the unit even. We have a resident stray cat around here too, who's pretty cute and very talkative. We can hear him coming a mile away! Meeewww, meewww, yadda yadda. :)

Real Aloe Vera Bits!

I saw an ad in a local magazine for this stuff and randomly found it at the little store in the hospital today. This drink was so good. Like, epic yum. I think it's because it's made with real sugar, rather than the corn syrup stuff. It's green tea flavored like white grape, but it just tasted like juice. The floaty bits tasted like grape too and were the texture of grape bits. I really enjoyed it, and only $1 at the hospital gift/snack shop. I think I'll have another next time I'm there. It's a product of the Philippines, as a random factoid!

Big Boy Bird Bus

Well, the name says it all. Pretty crazy looking vehicle to pass on the way home!! I want to ride!

Lost Doggie

This stray dog was stranded on the island between lanes at an intersection. He didn't seem to mind, laying there peacefully. Hope he made it out of there all right.

Betel Nut

This is apparently a big issue here, on the scale of tobacco use. There are signs over the hospital and in the car that picked us up from the airport warning not to chew betel nut. This phenomenon involves a nut that grows on a palm tree, that is sliced and chewed along with pieces of betel leaf and/or tobacco leaf and lime juice for flavor. It supposedly has a mild peppery taste and is known to be a human carcinogen much the same as chewed tobacco is. It also has an added effect of dying the teeth, gums, and lips red, and producing a large quantity of reddish brown spit (as found in all the hospital's restroom trash cans).

Russian Tourists?

We're seeing a bit of the Russian language around the island, apparently due to a large population of Russian tourists. Though I haven't met any, it's still good. It makes me practice my language skills by sounding out the words, and makes Stan transform into teacher-mode!

Saipan Vietnamese Restaurant

Tuesday's lunch -- we found the $4 lunch special! I had the chicken curry (pictured) and Stan had the pork curry (looked almost the same). It came with papaya kimchee (identified by the employee). We also added on some spring rolls, fried and tasty though with unidentifiable fillings inside (Stan speculated stray cats or dogs, but I begged to differ). The nice lady there asked where we were from and when we told her why on Saipan, she brightened up and told us she remembered the previous students from our class (You guys are memorable!!), "Two guys first, then two girls, then you two, right?" I think I preferred this curry to the stir fry from the other place, but the addition of soup, endless iced tea, and dessert made the $5 Saigon lunch a bit better in my book.