The Micronesia Nostalgia Tour 2006: Guam

Much like Shelly felt in Palau, I was excited to be back on Guam. It was my home for three years in the late 1990s, and I had kept in touch with a number of friends I was looking forward to seeing again. While on Guam, I made most of my income by writing about tourism and construction, and I was especially interested in seeing how those industries were doing.

Guam is truly a tropical paradise. It serves as a great tropical destination for much of Asia, especially the Japanese, more than a million of whom flock to Guam every year for a bit of sun, sand and the ability to say they had visited America. Guam, as the slogan goes, is where America's Day Begins.

The sand was great. It was nice to be back in America for a few days. But the sun was missing. "It's the first time we've had rain in two months," the hotel staff assured us as we looked at the beach out the lobby's rain-streaked windows. "It will go away."


And it did, mostly. And with as much shopping as we wanted to do, to buy all those things we can't buy overseas, a bit of rain didn't really cause us any problems.

It did, however, rain on our trip to Ritidian Beach at the northern tip of Guam. The land is a national wildlife preserve, the beach is among the island's most beautiful and the current among the most dangerous. It's also blissfully deserted most weekdays, making it a great place for some private time on the sand.


Due perhaps to its isolated location, it's also a great place to look for shells.


It's also a federal crime to take any of them home with you.

This trip to Guam was the first time I had been on the island without a car, so we hopped aboard the trolley and played tourist for the first day. It's tough to get around Guam without a car, though, so we picked one up for the rest of our visit.


Shopping took us from the Micronesia Mall, where we found a hip carabao, to the world's largest Kmart. Because I profiled the Guam Kmart way back when, I know this was, at least in the 1990s, a true statement. Because of the vagaries of trans-oceanic shipping, the store has a huge warehouse floor built under the main sales floor. Kmart is as crowded as ever, and even sells groceries now.


Thanks to my friend Val, who I used to work for at the Pacific Daily News, we found a good deal at a hotel in the tourist district, which allowed us to walk to dinner most nights. In turn, walking to dinner allowed us to drink more beer and wander back home rather sliding behind the wheel and menacing Japanese pedestrians. Walking to dinner also allowed us to ponder just what kind of strip joint calls itself Wet Kitty. I mean, are the strippers all whiny and complainy, like Mister Tanaka was the one time I had to give him a bath?


We ate like we were American again: Mexican, Italian, Subway (the one time I went to Subway in Manila, well, was the last time I went to Subway in Manila) and, of course, the Hot and Spicy Spam Fried Rice at Shirley's, an extremely popular local joint along the lines of a Denny's or Perkins.


Like elsewhere in the USA, it is elections time on Guam. Elections on Guam bring about a proliferation of billboards unlike any I've seen elsewhere in the States. The primary election had been held just prior to our arrival on island so while there are probably a few less billboards now, most of them will probably stay up well beyond the general election.


With a rental car, we were able to tour the entire island, including the bay at Umatac (where Magellan landed back in the 16th century), the old saltwater swimming pool at Inarajan (where, to nobody's surprise, I tripped and fell on the coral limestone structure in the background of this photo), Asan Beach (where American marines and soldiers died in droves while recapturing Guam from Japan during World War II) and the Rotating Pope in Hagåtña. John Paul II rotated only briefly while I lived on Guam; he now appears to be facing the cathedral in Hagåtña more or less permanently.





When the sun finally came out, we had an awesome view of Tumon Bay from our hotel room. Thanks again, Valerie!


Best of all, I was able to see loads of friends at the newspaper and at the Lutheran Church of Guam, as well as a good friend who went to grad school with Dad back in the 1960s and a former coworker who is now working for TSA at the airport and recognized me while screening my suitcase.

The Micronesia Nostalgia Tour 2006: Palau

Welcome to Greg and Shelly's Micronesia Nostalgia Tour 2006, where vacation took us to our old stomping grounds, Palau and Guam. Shelly served in the Peace Corps in Palau from 1996-1998; I worked on Guam from 1997-2000. It was the first time either of us had been back since leaving. It was good to be back.

* * *

Our trip got off to a rocky start at the airport in Manila, where security officials have taken the prohibition of liquids to the extreme, at least on international flights to the USA. My 1.5 ounce bottle of eye drops was taken at the first security checkpoint. The yogurt which was missed at the first checkpoint was taken at the second checkpoint. We removed our shoes twice. Our bags were searched by hand twice and x-rayed once. At least we were helping George W. Bush win the war on terror. It's so much easier to focus on the potential instruments of terror rather than on the people who to cause terror. Memo to the White House: I'm not planning on bringing down any planes, and neither is Shelly. Tell our allies to lay off a bit, okay?

Once onboard, I settled down and began to enjoy myself, much to my wife's relief. Continental Micronesia has some of the friendliest flight attendants in the world, and it was wonderful to be back in their hands. Plus, redeeming our OnePass miles for travel in Micronesia is without question one of the best value frequent flyer awards around, as long distances and small passenger loads make air travel in Micronesia ridiculously expensive.

Things got better inflight, as the flight deck announced that since we were a bit ahead of schedule, they would be treating us to an aerial tour of Palau. Palau is one of the most beautiful countries in the world, and flying over the thousands of islands reminded me of just how beautiful it is.

Palau has changed so much since the last time I visited, starting with an airport that now boasts its own jetway. The last time I flew into Palau, we disembarked via the air stairs and walked across the tarmac. This is not a bad way to enter a country, unless it's raining. I was also interested in seeing the winglets on Continental's 737-800, which reduce drag and make the plane very fuel efficient. I had read about and new they were quite tall, but this was the first time I had actually seen them in person. And this brings to a close the boring airplane-geek portion of this blog entry.

Our itinerary for Palau included a stop at all of Shelly's old haunts. After checking in to our hotel ("We don't have any electricity at night," the clerk told us, "but we can give you a fan hooked up to a generator." This earned us a free room upgrade so they didn't have to run power cords into the less-expensive rooms.), we hit the street and found a book sale benefiting the Palau Association of Libraries. Since several of Shelly's Peace Corps friends were involved in improving the country's libraries, we stopped by and bought a couple of used paperbacks.

Further down the road, we discovered that Koror now has a Mexican restaurant. A decade ago, the ten-year-old in Shelly's host family referred to tacos and burritos as "Taco Bell food," because he had only seen it on TV commercials -- and when Shelly made tacos in the kitchen.

It turned out that the hotel we were staying at was owned by the guy who publishes one of the country's three newspapers, Tia Belau. Shelly dug right in.


Our first full day in Palau took us to Carp Island, a rustic resort island that caters to divers and, therefore, leaving the island mostly to us non-divers during the day. Carp Island also gave Shelly the opportunity to pick up some smoked fish from Yano's store in Koror, which the island dogs enjoyed as much as we did.

What goes well with smoked fish? Chunks of taro and raw okra fit the bill.





Not too far from Palau -- at least not in Pacific Ocean terms -- is Yap, one of four states in the Federated States of Micronesia. Yap is known for its stone money, huge, round carved stones, invariably with a hole through the center. Much of Yap's stone money, which still has value in the Yapese economy today, was quarried from Palau and carried on outrigger-style canoes hundreds of miles to Yap. Carp Island has two pieces of stone money that never made it Yap, including this one.

Being a small island, Carp has its own power supply. The sign nailed to the building makes it seem a bit grander than it really is. (It's hard to read, but it identifies this building as the Carp Island Power Plant.)


Our last order of business while waiting for the boat to Koror was the construction of this luxurious ocean-front sandcastle. Shelly was in charge of the design, engineering and construction, while Greg handled the excavation and landscaping duties. We were hoping to make a killing on its sale, but then the tide came in and changed our plans.



Our trip back to Koror was sunnier than our trip to Carp had been, so the boat driver took us on a brief tour, including a trip through the rock islands -- lumps of eroding, forest-covered coral limestone -- and the beaches where Survivor Palau was taped.





After the extended beach time at Carp, we spent a day roaming around Koror, eating SureSave fried chicken...




...and going to Palau's new national aquarium, which has done a great job of putting fish in what seem to be very natural environments. One of the displays features Palau's stingless, freshwater jellyfish, which evolved from stinging, saltwater jellyfish after being trapped in a lake in the rock islands. I believe it's still possible to swim with them, though neither of us have done so.



One of the more astonishing sites in Palau is the new national capitol building, which was due to open just after our visit. Built in what can only be described as an American style, the building is gorgeous, but feels out of place in Melekeok, on the rural island of Babeldaob.





Next up, Guam!

Time Machine

The Time Machine stopped by our house yesterday, courtesy of Brad and Mom.

Some time ago, Brad took on the project of whittling the Family History as Presented in Slides down to a manageable number -- which happened to be somewhere north of 200. He turned to Mom for underwriting the project and, since they did all the real work, I'll take on the role of PR Flack, shamelessly promoting my past, adolescent geekiness included.

Putting aside the unfortunate junior high years for a moment, I was a cute kid. In 1969, when I was just 21 months, I was already learning how to ride a horse. This is no longer part of my skill set.


By the time I was 3-1/2, I was already wearing suits, preparing for my big legal career. Now I wear shorts whenever I can. This green ensemble from 1971 probably got me beaten up.


By the time 1975 rolled around, I had settled on blue as my favorite color. It didn't really matter what shade of blue, as long it was blue. "Hey! The trim on your lunchbox matches the color of your shirt," said my lovely bride last night. Yeah, that's exactly I was going for...


By the time I was in 3rd grade, I was a four-eyes, so to speak, with a charming pair of black-rimmed glasses made especially for an eight-year-old. I really like Brad in this picture. I'm not kidding ... with his pose, his stylish combination of plaid, a turtleneck and shiny black shoes, and his apparent lack of interest in me, he could be a model in, say, a 1977 issue of GQ.


In 1981, when I turned 14, I was working hard to cultivate the geek look. I was also, apparently, an Iowa State fan back then, though I believe I have repressed those memories.


Just three months later, at Christmas, not only had I perfected the geek look, I had also adopted the sullen teen attitude. I'm sure my parents enjoyed this phase of my life as much as I did.


Lucky for me, I started wearing contacts in ninth grade, so by the time the 1984 VEISHA parade in Ames rolled around, I was one stylin' guy, at least as far as my eyes go. I'm not sure what I can really say about wearing purple wool on a sunny day other than, "I had no choice."


Somehow, my nearly non-existent marching skills didn't keep me from landing in the Hawkeye Marching Band. Odds are, I'm hung over in this Saturday morning pre-game photo. Believing in keeping traditions alive, I spent most home-game Friday nights with a couple dozen other band members, wandering through the bars of Iowa City, playing the Iowa Fight Song and singing bawdy versions of other schools' fight songs (Hail, hail to Michigan, the cesspool of the east!) in exchange for free beer. Creatively, we called this activity "Beer Band."


And, most unfortunately, Brad made sure to include this 1986 photo of me in my brief mustachioed period.

* * *

The CD brought along some old fashion memories, as well. I'm sure my father's leisure suit was all the rage in 1977 -- in fact, Mom says he wore it frequently -- but I don't remember the Leisure Suit Lynn era. You'd think with those silver-dollar-size white buttons, I would have been scarred for life.


Remember when people got dressed up for a flight? I don't, but I've heard about it. There's another picture of my grandparents and Mom and Dad at O'Hare International Airport where Grandpa is also wearing a suit. He was dropping Mom and Dad off. How times have changed.


And here's a side of Mom I've never seen before, doing a pretty good imitation of a 1963 pin-up girl. Frankly, I find this photo to be just a bit too much Back to Future, where Marty meets his mom when she was in high school and finds out his mom was, well, cute.

* * *

We're off for a week's holiday to Palau and Guam, visiting old friends and seeing how the islands which were our homes in the late 1990s have changed. Posting will likely be erratic for the next couple weeks ... not that it hasn't been recently.

My 9/11 Story

Living overseas, I've actually missed most of the media-encouraged remembering of the five year anniversary of the attacks on New York and Washington, but I've heard a few podcasts and read a few stories online. In the interest of contributing to the overload -- and since I lived in Washington on 9/11 -- here's my story:

I was heading for Milwaukee the morning of September 11, where I would be working at the National Newspaper Association's annual convention and trade show. My flight, as I remember, was due to depart around noon, so I was home watching the Today Show that morning at a time when I usually would have been on the subway on my way to work.

After the first plane hit the World Trade Center, I called my boss and told him to turn on the TV. While we were talking, the second plane hit. It was all so strange, and my mind -- like so many others' -- hadn't really caught on to the terrorism angle yet. Looking at my watch, I thought to myself that I should probably leave for the airport a little early, as there might be extra security checks that morning.

At that point, I never would have thought that the airport would be closed and that some of my coworkers, who were already in Milwaukee, were going to be stranded in the midwest for a few days. One of those coworkers is from New York; her father worked in the World Trade Center. (He was okay, fortunately.)

So, I grabbed my box and my suitcase, hailed a cab and headed south through the streets of Washington, bound for the airport. The cabbie was listening to WTOP, Washington's all-news radio station. He appeared to be Middle Eastern, and I found that I didn't know what to say to him, even after he said it was a terrible thing that happened in New York.

We were on the Rock Creek Parkway and had just rounded the curve by the Kennedy Center when we saw the huge plume of dark smoke rising across the river. Although we didn't know it at the time, a plane had hit the Pentagon just moments before we came around the curve. The top of the plume was still well-defined, and the crash had not yet been reported on WTOP.

This was where I made my second foolish decision.

"Do you want to go home?" the cabbie asked.

"Nah, let's keep going," I said, partly out of a sense of duty to get to Milwaukee, and partly because I wanted to see what was going on, rather than watch it on TV.

A few minutes later, he dropped me off at the airport and immediately picked up a new fare. They had just locked the doors to the terminal, and the guy who grabbed my cab was one of the lucky ones who could get out of the area quickly. My cab must have been one of the last ones to get onto the airport property before they shut down the access roads and herded us all to the Metro station, where I waited with my box and my bag for a train to show up. (I had avoided Metro that morning specifically because of my box and my bag, and here I was, with both of them, waiting for a train.)

I tried to call Mom, I tried to call Shelly, I tried to call my boss, who was only five or six miles away, but none of my calls would go through. Eventually, a train showed up, we crowded on, and went just two stops, stopping before the Pentagon. We went back above ground, where Metro was organizing buses to another subway station. The roads were chaotic that morning, and my bus driver had to pick his way through side streets and alleys to make any progress at all. The trip between subway stations, which should have taken 20 minutes or so, took nearly three hours.

Once aboard the bus, I finally was able to get a call through to Mom. Not knowing how long it would take to complete another call, I had her call Shelly and my boss, just to let them know that I was okay. I've thought back on this many times since 2001 and thought, of course I was okay. I wasn't at the Pentagon, and there were no other attacks in Washington, so why wouldn't I be okay? But being on the bus, all I knew was rumor from those people who managed to make phone calls: a bomb had exploded at the State Department, a plane had hit the White House, the towers in New York had collapsed and people had jumped 90 stories to their death.

That evening, walking down Connecticut Avenue, talking to Shelly on the phone, Washington was eerily quiet. There were few cars on the road; people were walking and talking to each other, watching the fighter planes overhead. I began grinding my teeth in my sleep, a response to stress that lasted for three or four months afterwards, and doing some permanent damage. I watched Sabrina, the Teenage Witch Goes to Europe, or something like that, on TV Friday night, simply because it was the first non-9/11 program to be on my non-cable-equipped TV since Tuesday morning.

I eventually made it home, some five hours after I had left for the airport. It was a traumatic day for me, but it was nothing compared to what others went through.

Mmmmm...Ube

I've lived in the Phililppines for nearly a year, and I only just today finally tried that staple of the Filipino desert, ube ice cream.

Ube, pronounced something like u-bay, is really the purple yam, or taro root, and it's used to flavor everything from ice cream to cake and candy. You can, no kidding, buy a box of Betty Crocker Ube Cake Mix at the supermarket, if you're so inclined.

I probably avoided ube ice cream for so long because of its color. It's just so incredibly purple. (This photo has been minimally photoshopped, but only to lighten it up, not to alter the purple color. That's really what it looks like.) From my Western perspective, it's an unnatural color for food, and visually unappetizing.

One of Shelly's coworkers and a couple of customers were in town today, and conversation led to ube ice cream and its alleged deliciousness. Since they were coming over for dinner, Shelly added ice cream to the menu.

Dinner itself went well, though I found myself nervous cooking for customers. I have cooked for most of Shelly's coworkers who have visited the operations here, but never the company's customers before. For some reason, I decided to make a Filipino dinner instead of an American dinner, which only heightened my sense of unease. (We had chicken adobo and rice for the main course, then I curried some slices of pumpkin, chilled them, and served them cold; blanched some asparagus; and stir fried some greens with garlic, fish sauce and soy sauce. It actually turned out pretty well, I think.)

And then Shelly brought out the ice cream. It was very purple. But it was also delicious.

Shoes, Shoes, Shoes

There was a time that, when you thought of the Philippines, you thought of Imelda Marcos and her shoes.

Imelda, wife of former president Ferdinand Marcos, president from 1965 to 1986, is still seen, from time to time, around Manila. Some 200 pairs of her shoes are still seen every day at the Marikina Shoe Museum. Scattered among the shoes are photos of Imelda and Ferdinand hanging out with world leaders. After doing some work at church to set up the ECW's new used book exchange, we headed to Marikina to see the former first lady's shoes.

Marikina is well-known in the Philippines for making shoes, and a part of the museum is dedicated to the craft of shoe-making. The tall post in the center of the photo is covered in "shoe lasts," the wooden models of feet that shoemakers use to make their shoes.

Field Trip

With Shelly working from home today, I had a day with the car, so I headed into Manila heading, eventually, to run a couple of errands and do some of the touristy things that Shelly had no interest in.

After doing the work I needed to do, I headed to Makati and parked the car near the Metro Rail Transit System's Ayala Station. (There's a photo of the station at this link, by the way.) I had no particular destination in mind, but hadn't ridden the Manila mass-transit system yet, and thought I should take a ride from one end of EDSA to the other. I took a brief stop to shoot a couple of photos at the Araneta Station.

Outside the Philippines, Araneta Coliseum is perhaps best-known for hosting the 1975 Muhammed Ali-Joe Frazier "Thrilla in Manila." It's also known as the largest indoor facility in all of southeast Asia. Several months ago, we went to the wet market that's at the lower right of this photo. For the unitiated, a "wet market" is the place to buy your meat, fish and vegetables if you want to avoid paying supermarket prices. Do to my wife's background in the meat business, I am prohibited from shopping at these places, as the meat is generally plopped into an unchilled pile, then cut atop a wooden cutting board with a knife that isn't cleaned between customers.

Just for the sake of completeness, here's a shot from the other side of MRT's Araneta Station. With the MRT ride taken care of, I was off to the Museum of the Central Bank of the Philippines, popularly known as the Money Museum. We tried to visit once before, but the museum is only open Monday through Friday. Getting through the imposing gates of the Central Bank compound was easy -- the guards asked me if I had a valid ID, but didn't want to see it -- and the musem itself was interesting, if you're into the history of money.

For example, did you know that in 1998, President Joseph Estrada issued, in honor of the Philippine Centennial celebration, the largest legal tender note in the world? It's worth P100,000 -- about $1,925 -- and measures 8.5 x 14 inches, the same size as a sheet of legal paper. The bill features his swearing in ceremony, and is certified by the Guiness Book of World Records as being the largest in the world, topping, according to the museum, the 1 Quan note issued by China in 1368. Only 1,000 of these bills exist, so grab yours now, fold it up and stuff it in your wallet.

The P200 note -- a bit less than $4 -- debuted in June 2002. Not to be outdone by the man she replaced, new president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo had her father, former president Diosdado Macapagal, on the front, and her swearing in ceremony on the back.

Money in the Philippines vividly illustrates the close relationship between the Philippines and the United States. This P10 note from the 1930s features George Washington (the note is "payable in silver pesos or legal tender currency of the United States"). And the current P100 note actually has the American flag on the front, in a depiction of the July 4, 1946, ceremony when the Philippine flag went up over Manila, and the U.S. flag came down for the last time, making the Philippines truly independent.

Air Pollution

I took the Mazda in for an oil change recently. We get the oil changed at the Mazda dealer, and it works pretty much just like it does at home: I take the car in, sit and read the newspaper, tell them go ahead and change the air filter "if it needs to be changed," read some more, pay the bill and go home.

And afterwards, just so you know they actually did change the air filter, the service department gives you the old filter to take home. And then, if you're curious about this sort of thing, you open the box and look at the air filter. And you are instantly amazed by how polluted Manila air is.


It's no surprise that Manila's air features more pollution than anywhere else I've ever lived. When driving towards Makati, it's often smoggy, sometimes so smoggy that you can't really see the skyscrapers looming in the distance. But when you actually see that pollution in your air filter, it's kind of sobering.

The "Ber" Months Are Upon Us

The "Ber" months are upon us, and that means it's time for Christmas music in the malls.

Yep, Christmas music. And Christmas tree displays and "Pre-Christmas Sales." Appearances by Santa himself can't be far behind.

In the Philippines, Christmas is fair game once you hit the months ending in -ber, which is how I came to hear Silver Bells, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Winter Wonderland and oh-so-many-other Christmas songs on what would be Labor Day weekend if we were in the States.


I would think that my father-in-law could score some big points with his boss if he launched this kind of program at his bank in Colorado. I can see the ads now: "Apply for your Pre-Christmas Installment Madness Loan at every Colorado Rockies game! Hurry, because this promotion only lasts until September 17!"

Um, no.

***

Happy Birthday, Brad!