American Memorial Park

On our last weekend we spent some time at the American Memorial Park in Garapan. It has a nice museum that's free, and a beautiful big park and beach. We enjoyed it for a couple hours but then while settling in on the beach it started raining! So it got cut a bit short, but still nice. Then we went home and swam in the hotel pool one last time.

Goodbye to Saipan!

What can I say? It was an amazing time, too short, but it'll still be nice to get back home and see family and friends. We've been away too long. But still, we make time for a little vacation in Japan on the way home for both our birthdays :) This is us on the plane! Byebye!

PHI - Dandan

Just a couple snapshots of nothing in particular... just to have a memory of what the place looks like! It's a very neat, tidy, clean, open, airy place. Very nice.

Goodbye to Poon's

One of our favorite lunch spots -- I snapped a photo of the menu so we can remember it! Tasty and inexpensive foods there!

Big Bug

I think it's some sort of grasshopper thingie. Though kinda scary compared to the little green ones I've seen before.

Jabbers the Toad

We see Jabbers every single night. I picked him up tonight, and he didn't care for it, but I put him back. And I washed my hands.

PHI Display

Snapped a photo of our advertising of the pamphlets in the PHI display case. Hope people love them!

Teddy Bears

We also went to the I <3 Saipan store where we came across some scary teddy bears. One was alive but the others were stuffed. And then a shark tried to eat Stan.

Saipanda Goodies

There is a lot of Saipanda merchandise, but not what I wanted!! We looked around for a long time and found no figurine, toy, miniature, stuffed animal, anything of the Saipanda like the giant statue!! I settled for a keychain for my Saipanda birthday present.

Saipanda - Goodbye!

We went to visit the Saipanda to say goodbye!! It's sad to be leaving (but not because of the panda).

Jen's B-Day - Street Fair

My birthday fell on a Thursday, which is street fair day, so that's what we did! It was a pretty fun time, there were lots of dance groups performing, and the same good food as usual. I had a special banana shave ice too :)

PHI Photo Shoot

We of course took many photos as our 6 weeks wound down at PHI... it was sad to say goodbye!! Everyone was so nice and welcoming there! This was the silliest of the photos... :)

Sunflower Seeds

This is a package of sunflower seeds. I wouldn't have known if not for the sticker the store added to the front. They looked a bit mutated too... long, skinny things with almost no salt. I miss the regular kind!!!

Final Project for PHI

This is a sneak peek into our last project at PHI pharmacy -- it was a good and useful project, but it took down quite a few trees in the process, and lots of toner. We printed out all these patient information leaflets, made packages of them, and delivered the packages to all the clinics on the island. It was a lot of work, but pretty cool too.

Foooood.

Two meals clumped together in one post here. For a change, made dinner at home, which was some stir fried fish and veggies. It turned out pretty good! The other meal was a treat from our boss when Stan stayed home sick and I had no lunch date. It was from a Filipino place called Jhem's. It was a bento with fish, veggies, tofu, rice, soup, and iced tea. It was a very nice gesture :)

Tiny Car

This was a tiny car we saw. Yes, it was tiny. And cute.

Monday - Lunch at Saigon (Once again!)

Hey, we love this place. I had the barbecue chicken on the vermicelli noodles today, TASTY! Stan had the spicy chicken and vermicelli, that he has had before, so I spared him the photograph. They also surprised us with a new kind of kimchee, made with celery and cucumber, I loved it! I don't care for the papaya one too much since it's so hard, but the new mix was nice. And of course, the endless iced tea with sugar syrup YUM.

Speared Pig Cloud

We were walking along on the evening of Halloween and saw a cloud that looked like a pig getting speared. It was a very nifty cloud.

Sunday - Beach Front Walk

We took a walk on Sunday night along the nice paved walking path on the beach. It was a beautiful night out and got some photos of the last of the daylight. We also bumped into one of the pharmacists and her husband out there watching the sunset too, small world!! It was a pretty laid back Halloween but still nice :)

Hippie

I put together a "costume" for Saturday night, and we went and checked out a costume party at the local bar (Godfather's). It was too packed to even find a place to stand, but it was fun to see all the costumes there! There was a giant drunk cardboard-box-robot, a huge teddybear, and all the bar staff were mermaids! It was worth a peek but not worth the effort to squeeze in for long, so we came back home and had a drink and took photos :)

Chamorro Punch

This appears to be a rip-off of Hawaiian Punch. Except they took the name of the local indigenous people and replaced "Hawaiian" with it, Chamorro! I did not try it, but it has the same color. Anyway, I thought it was neat since it's obviously a local specialty :)

Eight O'Clock

This appears to be a powdered drink mix. I have no idea why it's called Eight O'Clock. That is a time, not a drink variety!

Foodream

It's a food, it's a dream, it's Foodream! And they have such a clever slogan "Our dream is to bring you the most satisfaction and beyond happiness." Indeed, Foodream, indeed.

Cute Little Cookie Jars

They are cute. They hold cookies or candies or something. That is all. :)

Pocari Sweat

Seems like this is similar to Gatorade but it had the misfortune to be named Sweat. I don't care to drink sweat so often... sorry, Pocari.

The Darker Side of Broadway

Our boss gave us free tickets to a really cool (if small) musical performance held at the American Memorial Park's auditorium on Halloween-Eve. It was a musical review of songs from three great, "dark", Broadway Musicals. Jekyll and Hyde, Sweeney Todd, and Wicked. I loved it!! It's surprising to see such great voices and acting talent in a tiny place like Saipan but very inspiring!! Makes me want to see more plays and listen to more show tunes :) I especially liked the song where Jekyll and Hyde confront one another, it was well acted and lighted to make it seem like two people in one great actor/singer. The guy playing Sweeney Todd was also extra creepy. Cheers!