Guam Vacation Day 4

Dear Friends, Family, & Readers:

     Since I am done grading and tutoring students for the day, I thought I would update our blog and talk about our Thursday in Guam.  One of the first things we did on our Thursday after sleeping in late and watching cable T.V. at our hotel was to go to the Ramada hotel down the road to swim.  The Days Inn, Guam has a deal with the Ramada that allows guests to swim at their pool.  The pool isn't anything special, but it was fun to relax in the sun and swim in water that was not salty.  We had fun just being together and reading the complementary paper that comes with being a guest at our hotel.  

     After the pool, we decided to drive around and in the process we stopped at Ritidian Beach at the northernmost point in Guam.  We went there because the friends we had met (Glenn & Sandy) told us that it was one of the beaches they were most impressed with.  In order to get to Ritidian Beach you have to drive on the incredibly bumpy and hazardous road that goes around Northwest Field (which used to land B-29 Bombers during WWII) and when the road abruptly ends there is a road that goes to the left and is nicely paved.  This road leads to Ritidian Point and snakes its way down to the end where the beach is located.  Ritidian was the location of a large Chamorro settlement 600 years before the Spanish arrived in 1521.  To the Chamorro it was called "Litekjan."  From 1668-1690 (22years), the Chamorro population on Guam dropped from 12,000 to only 2,000 due to the Spanish Chamorro War and European influenza.  By the 1680's, the Chamorro had abandoned their village at Ritidian.  Today, this beach is a beautiful white sand beach with virtually no litter on it.  While we were there swimming/snorkeling and just enjoying the sun there was a Korean orchestral group there having a lot of fun and being really loud as kids are.  Besides that minor annoyance of people having a good time, the only other thing is that the beach is relatively shallow.  My suggestion to anyone who goes there in the future is to bring some sort of shade as there is virtually no shade on the beach and unlike Saipan the beach is wide and if being in sun directly is not your cup of tea... bring something.  Luckily I brought an umbrella that made our time there a little more bearable.  It would make a great picnic area.  Oh, and one last thing I forgot to mention is that because this place was made a wildlife refuge in 1993 it is only open from 7:30am-4pm.

     After deciding to leave the Ritidian Beach area, we drove to a lookout point that the rangers at the War in the Pacific Museum told us would be beautiful and informative.  The first place we stopped was the Asan Bay Overlook Unit (so named on the map).  This overlook was where Japanese were positioned to shoot at Americans arriving at the terribly exposed Asan Beach where the Americans landed.  At the memorial is a list of military personnel that died in the battle and there are depictions in metal plating that show the forced labor of the Chamorro under the Japanese and the emancipation of them by the U.S. forces.  I was also touched by the marble monument dedicated to the local islanders who died at Pearl Harbor, of which there were twelve.  Having visited Pearl Harbor, I feel that their particular sacrifice was extremely sad and worthy of remembrance it it jump started a nation into a mode of industry and defense not often seen in history. We then drove further and found another overlook from which we could see Tumon Bay.  The picture is of the Tumon Bay area (if you visit Guam this overlook is not named to my knowledge so you just have to find it).

     After viewing such beauty, we got back in the car and Kara let me stop at a museum that only cost 3 dollars to enter.  I cannot remember the name of the museum but it was pretty cool.  They had all sorts of donated WWII automobiles and fully restored military vehicles used during the war in the Pacific.  I chose to share some of the historical pictures of people and things rather than the vehicles for the blog as I believe the people are more important.  Since Kara wanted to wait in the car and read, I promised that we would next try and find the Latte Stone Memorial Park in Guam.  Luckily, it wasn't too far from the museum we visited but was a bit tricky to find.  

     The last part of our day was meeting up with Glenn and Sandy and two of their three kids at the California Pizza Kitchen in the Tumon Bay tourist area.   I hope you enjoy our pictures. Remember to click on the pictures to view a larger image.

     

This is the view of Ritidian Beach from the beginning of the
road that snakes its way down toward the gate and entrance
to the beach.

A view of the gloriously clean and awesome beach of Ritidian.

Who else but Kara and I at Ritidian Beach, Guam (no idea why
our hair is so frizzy...)

A picture of the sign at the Asan Bay Overlook Unit showing
tourists what they see in the distance.  This is the same view
the Japanese gunners would have had of our troops landing
along the beach exposed.  You can see the peninsula and harbor
in our picture below. 

Kara and I at the Asan Bay Overlook Unit.

This is one of the metal memorial depictions at the Asan Bay
Overlook Unit.  It shows the Japanese rounding up the
Chamorros from church and farmland and forcing them to work.
The last section shows the American liberation of the island.

View of Tumon Bay from the un-named overlook area.

Picture I found striking at the $3 museum.
And stay they did.

This is Japanese General Takashi Takashina.
He was the commander of all the Imperial
Japanese on Guam.  He died in battle on July 28,
1944 during the battle of Fonte Plateau. 

This is a picture of Sgt. Yokoi  I mentioned in the
previous blog post. This was taken the day after his
capture 26 1/2 years after the wars end in April 1972.

The kid in me couldn't help but post a picture of the American
Bazooka rounds on display.

Picture of Kara standing in front of the latte stones at the
Latte Stone Memorial Park.  For some traditional locals these
stones may be a sore spot in their memory.  These stones are
original and were moved from their ancestral resting places
after the war because construction of the military bases
needed to occur. These particular stones are probably about
8ft tall.  They were taken from Mepo Village in the Fena Valley
and placed in this location in 1955 & 1956.  Latte Stone construction
occurred from 1100-1700 A.D.

Kara and I have seen this in Saipan, but if you didn't know what
a Chamorro house looked like this is how the latte stones
were used. 

Kara and I with two large hot fudge ice cream desserts from
California Pizza Kitchen (One was actually Sandy and Glenn's
but they wanted us to pretend haha)

Guam Vacation Day 2

Dear Friends, Family, & Readers:

            I am here to update you on our second day of vacation in Guam. Tuesday was the day we traversed the entire south end of the island.  The first thing we did was travel toward Inarajan pool. On our way to Inarajan we visited some of the WWII invasion beaches like Asan Beach.  Upon arriving at Inarajan we saw a little pool with a makeshift diving platform made out of concrete that was rusting and cracking. The waves from the ocean would hit the reef and trickle over into this pool.  There were lots of people there and many pavilions for grilling out and having a good time. Were there fish in this pool?  Yes, the fish eventually get swept over the side into the murky depths of Inarajan trapped until an unseasonably large surf forms on the ocean to provide an escape on a rough day. Videos of Kara and I jumping off of the platform can be seen on facebook for those of you who are friends with us.

            As we continued down the slow/winding road, we stopped at many scenic overlook areas. We had a great time just slowly making our way around the southern tip of Guam. We eventually made it to a seaside bar/grill called Jeff’s Pirates Cove and the museum that is attached to the restaurant. The restaurant had o.k. food, but I felt that it was overpriced for the portion size I received.  I ordered a fish sandwich foolishly expecting to see a large hoagie bun with a slab of fish at the center but instead got a dinner bun with two pieces of fish meat with lettuce on top…the bun was so small that the fish wouldn’t even stay inside the bun while I tried to eat (I almost thought the two pieces were more energetic fried than when they were alive).  I would go to Jeff’s Pirates Cove again if I were only wanting a beer and some chips.  It has some great touristy items in the gift shop and t-shirts, but I was not impressed by the service or food quality.  The other thing that was strange was that they ended their service 10 minutes early just so they could leave work on time.  I saw two poor Asian tourists pull up just as we were leaving, but they were out of luck.  We were also not allowed to go out the front door because the lady had locked it and she told us nonchalantly to go around back through a fenced gate on the side of the building…very poor service in my opinion.  What made Jeff’s Pirates Cove interesting was the museum.  Inside this super small (free $$ to enter) museum was the vast array of island trinkets.  There were glass bottles from Japan and America from the war, WWII ammo, tons of Japanese Glass Floats, and a rather detailed glass display case with many of the shells I’ve collected on Saipan with their known names and scientific classifications.  I would go to the museum rather than eat at the restaurant.

            Lastly, we went to Talofofo Falls.  There are several falls on Guam, but Talofofo is the touristy one. Upon arriving there were pigs in the parking lot wandering around and a complex that used to look really nice, but was falling apart.  We got a local discount for being from the Marianas and enjoyed our ride down on the Gondola system.  There are actually two falls at Talofofo and they are both beautiful.  The falls used to have a little train/monorail like the one we had ridden in Hawaii at the Dole Plantation, but it was extremely run down and probably didn’t work.  There was also a museum with poor depictions and some grammar mistakes.  Below Talofofo one could also see the cave where Sgt. Yokoi of Japan had been hiding for 28 years after the war.  He survived on the fruit, shrimp & eels (found in Talofofo river), and various other unsavory things, and by bathing frequently to avoid disease. 

            I hope you enjoy the pictures! Remember to click on them for a larger image.

Kara, hanging off the barrels of a Japanese Anti-Aircraft
Gun from WWII that was on display at one of the invasion
beaches southwest of Asan Beach.

Inarajan pool taken in such a way as to look beautiful.  To
right (outside the frame) is the jumping platform and
pavilions. I tried to get most of the people out of the picture.
The pool extends further to the right and is fairly deep.

This is Kara and I behind a beautiful scenic backdrop
along Guam's southern tip.  It was taken at the Guam Vietnam
Memorial Scenic Overlook.

Another beautiful view somewhere along the southeastern
side of Guam.

The big sign you see outside of Jeff's Pirates Cove.  For a
while we thought we'd missed the restaurant until we saw
this sign.

One of the pigs at Talofofo Falls parking lot trying to find
shade wherever possible.

Kara at Talofofo Falls (Fall 1)

Grant (me) at Talofofo Falls (Fall 1)

A rather graphic depiction of Japanese ritual suicide that
occurred at the falls during WWII.  Since the American's
were able to land tanks on the island, they had the upper hand.
The Japanese would rather die than be taken alive and dishonor
their country.