Saipan Day 3 - New Years Eve

Day 3 - December 31

This was the first day JM and I just randomly picked a beach on the tourist map of Saipan and drove over to it. Laulau Bay was a recommended snorkelling site. It was our first adventure on the mopeds, and we loved it!! So much fun driving around on those babies.

We arrived at the very private Laulau beach in the mid-afternoon and it was gorgeous. There was not a person in sight, and we did not see another person for the rest of the day. We got our snorkel gear on and hit the water. It was a little rough though, so we chose to stay closer to the shore. The waves on the break were a couple feet high and we were a little afraid of getting caught in some rip tide, especially me because I'm not a strong swimmer. Hours passed and we saw so many fish!! We swam all the way out to the reef where the fish were colourful and abundant. There was even a mama fish protecting her rock. She kept aggressively swimming at us when we got too close. We saw lots of coral and sea urchins too.

After the best day yet, we got dressed up and headed into town for a romantic New Years Eve dinner at Aglaia and then we crashed a beach party to celebrate the start of 2013! It was so much fun.


Lau Lau Beach

Brain Coral

Yellow fishy!



Protective Mama fish

Yellow fish are my favourite!

 (Sadly, we did not have an underwater camera, so those are not our pictures, but ones I found on the internet of exactly the same fish we saw!)

Getting ready for NYE

Lista!

Fancy drinks at dinner

Coconut sashimi

Beef with mushrooms and onions (AMAZING!)

Pineapple fried rice

Party crashers

Leaving his heart on the dancefloor

Video of the countdown - our last moments of 2012!

Map of Saipan for Day 3 - including our hotel, Laulau beach,
and the hotel where we partied for NYE

Saipan Day 2 - The First Beach Day

Day 2 - December 30

Jean-Marc and I got into a routine pretty quickly. We would sleep in, eat some breakfast in our room (something we bought in town the night before), get ready, and head out for lunch and the afternoon. Our first beach day was at the Main Beach in Garapan. We found some chairs and relaxed the afternoon away and watched the sunset. We had bought some cheap snorkel gear in town and decided to try it out in the large bay. This beach is protected by a huge natural breakwater, creating a calm, shallow area all along the west coast of the island. We discovered that we really liked snorkelling and, after acquiring a tourist map of the island, we decided to explore the island ourselves and scoot to some of the remote beaches for snorkelling.

Main Beach

Relaxing on the beach, while JM is being a creeper

JM attempting some jumping shots

Nailed it.

We also developed a night routine that included returning to the hotel to shower and heading back into town for dinner at a restaurant, usually recommended by TripAdvisor. That night we ate dinner at Shenanigans, a restaurant on the main strip that had amazing pasta dishes and burgers. We loved it.

We topped off the evening by having pedicures to make our feet look dashing.



Map of Saipan with the Prince Hotel and the Main Beach in Garapan

Saipan Day 1 - Travel and Hotel Fiasco

Hi All,
For our Saipan trip we took so many pictures and did so many things that we are going to split up the posts by day. To summarize briefly, the trip was amazing. The weather was unbelievable for the entire time, 27ºC and sunny. JM and I learned that we travel well together and we both really enjoy snorkelling. We spent most of the vacation finding private beaches to explore and snorkel just off shore. There are lots of historical WWII sites on the island and we also toured around some of these. Overall, the vacation was exactly what we needed.

  

Prior to Day 1

The day before we left for Saipan, I received a troublesome email from Expedia. It went something along the lines of, "Unfortunately we cannot confirm your hotel reservation, please call us immediately". Even though the hotel had been confirmed weeks ago, Hotel Galleria realized last minute that they had overbooked. They were willing to refund 80% of our hotel price, if we stayed at the Prince Hotel. Upon searching for the Prince Hotel, there was little information on the Internet. We took a gamble because there were literally no other options. Every hotel room on the island was booked.

Day 1 - December 29

We arrived in Saipan at 3:30am after a long night of travel. The Hotel Galleria staff were very nice and apologized for the error. Over the week they were quite accommodating, paying for our taxis to and from the Prince Hotel and the airport. The Hotel Galleria is located in the downtown area of the main city, Garapan, and we chose it because it was so central. The Prince Hotel is located about 3km down the highway and off the beaten path. It was nice that they recognized how displaced we were. But this hotel mishap also encouraged JM and I to rent scooters (lil' mopeds) so that we had the freedom to come and go as we pleased and tour the island on our own. This was the best decision we made.

Our room at the Prince Hotel was very basic. It was part of an old apartment complex that used to be for those who worked in the clothing sweatshops. There were some hotel-like rooms for rent, and others were actually rented out as apartments.


Hotel room facing the entrance

Hotel room facing the window (a little dark)

The view from our room

Our first day was spent sleeping in like crazy. We eventually got up and walked the 3km into town and explored a bit of American Memorial Park, where we found this cool tree inside a tree!

Here is a map of Saipan where I marked all the places we visited. I have highlighted the two places we were on Day 1, the Prince Hotel and American Memorial Park. You can find the virtual map here.

Cheonan Christmas

Merry Christmas!! Our day was special, even being so far away from home. Last night we spent the evening eating and playing festive games with my Flipside Fitness crew. This morning we decided to be just us. We skyped with our families as soon as we got up. Then we ate some breakfast and opened our presents. Jean-Marc got me an iPad stand so I don't have to lean it against various objects or my laptop while I'm Skyping back home and a couple books. He had previously told me about one of them, the Omnivores Dilemma, and I am looking forward to reading it. I also got JM some books that I ordered from the USA, one from a philosopher that he really likes, and a good quality knife set for the kitchen. Which he proceeded to cut himself with before he even got it out of the box.

Rather than going anywhere tonight, we decided to host a dinner party for those who, like us, cannot go home for Christmas, and/or have no where to celebrate. While Christmas is not as popular a holiday here as it is back home (in Korea it is supposedly more of a couple's holiday rather than a family one), it is still a national holiday, so everyone gets the day off.

There were 11 of us in total; two of my Bugil colleagues, one of my boxercise girls, six Nigerian exchange students who we met playing frisbee and JM and me. JM and I cooked 3 chickens and stuffing and everyone else brought different dishes to compliment: quinoa, potatoes, chicken skewers, and many desserts. We played a board game called Life's A Pitch where you must pitch your answer to the person who reads a scenario. Whoever gives the best pitch in the judge's opinion (which could be funny, plausible, clever, or just plain silly) is deemed the winner of that round. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and it made for a very fine evening with good company and lots of laughs.We hope everyone back home also enjoyed their day.

Merry Christmas!

Team JMS

 

Santa came!

Jean-Marc, those knives are sharp!

Christmas Dinner 2012

 

Samson Family Christmas Tradition: Meat Pie!

Announcement: We made delicious meat pie from scratch!!!

Being away from family and all the holiday traditions is hard, especially Christmas. At least I get to go home in January to see my family, but I know Jean-Marc is bumming because he doesn't get to.
The Samson Family has a few traditions that I learned of last year when I spent Christmas with them. They always do a puzzle. Some 2000 pieces are laid out on the dining room table and for the month of December everyone who comes over adds a few pieces. They also bake spring rolls and meat pie which they eat on Christmas Eve after midnight mass.

Jean-Marc and I haven't done any baking in our Korean apartment. Baking supplies aren't the easiest to come by and our oven is small. But I really wanted to give JM a little taste of home for the holidays. So he got the recipe for the meat from his mom and I looked up how to bake a pie crust from scratch. With a wine bottle for a rolling pin, we hand made 3 miniature meat pies which we ate with relish, pickles and mozzarella cheese (a tradition of JM and Michel).

While they weren't exactly like Momma K's meat pie, they were soooo delicious.  I'm very happy we laboured over them.

Happy eating everyone,

Jennika

 

The end of the year!

The school year is wrapping up at the GLP. Classes have been done for a week, but the system here is a bit curious. We teachers not only have to finish grading lab and assignments, and mark final exams, but also write progress reports, submit performance based materials, and submit syllabi for the school calendar and another set for the AP curriculum. Basically I have been running around like a chicken with its head cut off. But now I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and it looks glorious.

Mike the headless chicken.

On top of that, today I was a member of the disciplinary committee. This was one of the longest hearings during the busiest time of the year. For me, a new teacher, it was interesting to witness, but it could have waited. Our school has a very judicial approach to the whole affair. Students write a letter detailing the event, and there is a committee meeting where the facts are presented. Each student gets to explain themselves, and their mentor also speaks on their behalf. Furthermore, everything is done to keep things as confidential as possible. Very different from my experience as the student council president in my high school, which was confidential, but not nearly as supportive for the defendants. I applaud the other committee members for their dedication to the protocol. It was my initiation and they helped me through the whole thing.

This was also the last night for Wednesday night suppers with my colleagues  We went to our favourite bbq place. We talked about computer programming, patents, and some politics. Just a great end to the year. It is a tradition I will miss over the next few weeks.

Actually a picture of a NY Korean bbq place.

Well that is enough for now.
JaM's