I've been in Guam for almost two weeks now! Guam is just as beautiful as the pictures. The beaches are incredible, the people are friendly, and I can't complain about the weather.
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| This is the weather almost all the time. No complaints. |
I don't have a permanent place to live just yet, but I have found roommates! One is another biology master's student who is also starting this semester, so that worked out well. My other future roommate is a master's student starting the environmental science program this semester. Hopefully we'll get out apartment situation figured out within the next few days!
So where have I been living these past two weeks? Possibly the nicest apartments on the island! A friend from college has been stationed here with the Navy for the past year, and he generously offered to let me crash at his place and borrow his car while he's out at sea for a few weeks. The apartment is right on the beach and overlooks Tumon Bay. It's huge and has a spacious balcony and great views of the bay. I am not even on a couch--I've got a proper bedroom with a bed. I am very fortunate to have friends who make sure I'm taken care of, even in the furthest corners of the earth!
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| This is the view from where I'm staying. Preeeeetty spectacular. |
So what have I been up to for these past two weeks? A lot, actually. I've mostly been running around exploring. I've also had to take care of a lot of school-related stuff, like getting a tuberculosis skin test, a court clearance, a police clearance, and so on. But that's boring so I'll talk about it in a different post. For now, let's talk about the gorgeous island of Guam!
TUMON
Tumon is the main tourist village of Guam--no, really, they're called villages here--and it's where I'm currently living. It has lots of high-end shopping and high-rise hotels.
The village is right on the bay and the beach is pretty spectacular. Clean blue water, perfect sandy beach, protected from currents and waves. It's also not crowded at all, by virtue of being over a mile long. If you walk along the beach, you'll see lots of local families playing in the water and having big barbecues. Stop and chat with people and you might even get offered some food!
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| This beach is reeeeeally long. |
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| It's also more-or-less patrolled by these dudes. |
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| There's a few of these little barbecue sites. Most are taken early in the day, so I was surprised to see an empty one! |
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| How cute is that? A little staircase to go over the top, in case you don't want to get wet or go through that tiny cave. |
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| There are lots of trees with fruits I don't recognize. This is one of them. |
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| That's some... interesting beach attire. A lot of Asians are very anti-sun, but that's a lot of black! |
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| More sun-phobia. |
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| Click to make me bigger! Taken on the southern end of the beach. |
There are no restaurants on the beach, only hotels, apartments, and two public parks. This is the nicer of the two parks, right next to the Hilton on the southern side. It has covered shelters and barbecue pits!
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| And short, spongy grass. |
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| Either bring a grill brush or wrap up all your food in tinfoil. |
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| You can rent this out, I believe. Maybe for dancing? |
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| Such a nice beach! |
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| Click to make me bigger! |
Because flights to Guam are so cheap, a lot of Japanese and Korean couples come here to get married. Unlike Western weddings, Asian weddings tend to be shorter and sweeter--and waaaay cheaper. Most weddings are done as packages, with every detail taken care of, right down to the rented bridal dress and posse of photography professionals. So easy! Why hasn't this caught on worldwide???
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| I usually see at least two couples taking wedding photos every time I walk along the beach. |
The shopping in Tumon is mostly uber-expensive high-end stuff, which is popular with the Asian tourists because there isn't any sales tax here. Benefits of being a territory! However, within all that super-overpriced designer crap, there is a Godiva shop that sells somewhat-affordable chocolates and the best chocolate soft serve that has ever graced my taste buds. I'm now on their frequent-customer list--which is not a card or anything, just a list they keep on a notepad. That's Guam for you!
Tumon is pretty chill, and lots of people from other villages come here for the bars and food. It's close to the airport, and it's also where the "World's Largest Kmart" is located.
KMART
Can we talk about that Kmart for a second? I was pretty excited before I got here because I was expecting a massive, sprawling, mall-sized Kmart. It turns out that the title of "largest Kmart" really means "largest Kmart not including Super-Kmarts."
Since we only ever had Super-K's near my home (mostly closed now), I was already used to gigantic Kmarts. The only thing that's huge about the Guam Kmart is the huge disappointment I feel about it.
TWO LOVER'S POINT
At the northern tip of the Tumon Beach is a cliff, as you can see in the photos above. On the top of that cliff is a popular tourist attraction called Two Lover's Point. I don't know who those two lovers were, but it's definitely a nice view.
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| You have to pay $3 to go up there. Maybe on a nicer day I'll go back and pay, but for now I took photos from the side. |
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| You can see a lot of the island from up here! |
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| A closer look at Tumon Bay. Interesting point: the color changes aren't an effect of the camera. It was raining in the south (the right side of the photo) which is why it looks so much darker over there! |
RITIDIAN POINT
Ritidian Point is at the very northern tip of the island, right next to the Anderson Air Force Base. It's gorgeous, but DANG it's hard to get to. Not hard to find, but hard to access because of how terrible the road is. Even in a Jeep, I was driving about 5 miles per hour the whole way. It took about 45 minutes from leaving the main road to get to the parking lot--and it's less than 5 miles. We're talking potholes you could build a hot tub in. I honestly do not know how people in little compact cars and Cubes got down there. Such brave souls.
Fortunately the horrible ride was rewarded with gorgeous views of a pristine beach and mountains! (Or, like, tall hills. Maybe a mesa? I never took a class in land formations.) Remember that beginning scene from Jurassic Park 2, where they're on that remote tropical beach with jungle behind them? And then everyone gets eaten by tiny dinosaurs? Ritidian Point is a just few dinosaurs short of being Isla Sorna. I love it!
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| Crowded beaches? Not on Guam! |
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| The water is so clean and clear! |
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| Is this a mesa? I never learned my land forms. |
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| Beach selfie! |
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| View of Ritidian Point from a pull-off on the way there. |
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| Tell me that doesn't remind you of Isla Sorna from Jurassic Park 2. |
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| Remains of some old structure, maybe a pier? |
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| Gorgeous protected cove! |
CHAMORRO VILLAGE
Let's be real, Chamorro Village is a total tourist trap. It's a bunch of people hawking overpriced souvenir crap made in the Philippines. It's basically a big craft and food fest that happens on Wednesday nights in Agana (also spelled Hagatna), which is south of Tumon. I went because I was told there would be good food--but the lines were so ridiculously long that I didn't get to try any! I honestly would not even recommend this to tourists.
The only good thing was a really cute cultural show by local kids, with lots of traditional dancing and singing and even some fire-twirling! They also do some cool dancing with sticks that looks similar to swordfighting. It starts around 6:30pm and it's free, so check that out, but feel free to ignore everything else there.
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| These girls look like high-schoolers. They were cute and good dancers! |
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| They had several costume changes. |
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| At the end they go around and grab tourists to dance with them, and then they pose for photos. |
A few more tips for the market: keep in mind that you can buy almost all of that stuff cheaper at the ABC stores in town. If you're not a skinny, short Asian girl, don't bother looking at all those cute sundresses. They aren't going to fit you. You will only feel fat and disappointed. And for the love of all things holy, do not try the "coconut sushi." Ewwww.
MANGILAO
This is the village where UOG is and where I'm going to be living soon. It's pretty small but it's got a proper supermarket, a Taco Bell, a bank, and a few gas stations. You know, the essentials. There are lots of wild chickens and a few wild dogs running around.
On my second day here I toured a bunch of apartments (I tried to be very expeditious when I arrived here... with zero results, but more on that a different day) around Mangilao, so I got a good little introduction to the village. There are good streets where wealthier people live in condos with pools, and then there are slum streets that are unpaved and look like a typhoon recently hit.
Classes at UOG have started, and they all seem solid. I'll post some more info and photos of the university soon.
I like Mangilao because it's quiet, small, and fairly safe. I mean, there's the expected property theft and vandalism, but not much in the way of violent crime (robbery, rape, murder, etc.) so I feel like it's pretty safe. That said, I'm going to have all of my mail sent to the Marine Lab.
SPEAKING OF CRIME...
My soon-to-be roommate and I actually had a bit of a crime incident right when we arrived here. When we went to the Chamorro Village on Wednesday, we were immediately approached by a drunk, dirty, homeless-looking man. He came up to the passenger window and asked for money. When we politely declined, he reached in through the window and grabbed my friend in what appeared to be a drunken attempt at groping. He got a little more aggressive than I generally like my homeless drunks, and I had to get out of the car and forcefully ask him to leave.
He seemed pretty pissed off, which is why I'm pretty sure he's the thief who took an auxiliary cable and a bag of flour from my car. Seriously--somebody stole a bag of flour! Now I've gotten smarter and I don't leave anything in the Jeep, because it's open-air and therefore not secure. Apparently thievery is a big problem here, so lesson learned!
That said, almost everyone I've met here has been super nice. And a few days ago I accidentally forgot a few things in the car, and when I came back 20 minutes later they were still there, so it's not like the thieves are prowling around parking lots checking for unlocked doors or anything. But it's better to be safe than sorry, and I'll definitely be more careful with what I leave in sight in the future.
Overall, I've had a great time on the island so far! People are super friendly and helpful here--it actually reminds me a lot of Michigan in that sense, just with much better weather and a lot more Japanese cars. I'll post again when I get moved into my apartment!
Cheers,
Ashton
