Day 4 - January 1, 2013
Happy New Year! Today it was cloudy and since we got sunburnt yesterday on Laulau beach, Jean-Marc and I decided to climb to the highest point in Saipain where there is a 360º view of the whole island, Mount Tapochao.
Being an important WWII site, Saipan has many historical attractions and at the top of the mountain we found lots of information about the American soldiers who fought and conquered this island from the Japanese in 1945. Unfortunately, the weather at the top did not allow us any kind of view. In fact, it was down right nasty up there! It was drizzly, windy, and completely foggy. Kind of funny because we made the 1.5 hr hike for no view at all. It was some good exercise though!
Top of Mt. Tapochao
Map of Saipan, Day 4 - Our hotel and Mt. Tapochao are in red
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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