Wednesday, June 26, 2012
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HAFA ADAI FROM PARADISE


I know I know, I haven't posted for awhile.  Been very busy getting Audra moved off the island, doing craft projects for the kids Bible Camp (I do go to church on a regular basis here believe it or not.  Audra's friend introduced her to a cool church where nobody is in charge and everyone has a say.  I love it and the people are very welcoming and make you feel like family), getting her car fixed up, and, of course, snorkeling:)  I promise this blog post will not be about snorkeling.........I will cover my latest experience with that next post when I get my new pics developed.


I stated a while ago on Facebook that I would show you all some of the markets here on the island.....well the west side of the island.  I will have to go take more pics of the ones on the other side.  


Most of them are either Japanese owned or Chinese owned and quite a site to see at night.  They are relatively small, although there are some big ones (but none as big as our regular grocery stores back home).  I love going into them and looking at all the foreign stuff.  The packaging is all in Chinese/Japanese so it is difficult to figure out exactly what you are looking at.

Let's start with The NEW XO market.  It is on Middle Road and sits across the street from H-Mart which had a big fire in it last month.  XO Market is big compared to the other markets here and has a variety of stuff in it.  Most of the meat is frozen since it is imported and looks really funky looking in all the stores.  But once you thaw it it looks normal.  I love how this is called the NEW XO Market because I don't think there was an old XO Market.

The next market is called "Happy Market.  I haven't been in this one yet but will go in it soon.  It is right in the down town area of Garapan and is pretty small.  In fact, you can only use ONE food stamp when you shop there according to the sign:)  This has been an on going joke between Audra and I ever since we first got her because all the stores accept FOOD STAMP only, NOT FOOD STAMPS (according to Audra the Asian language does not think in terms of plural like we do when they write so everything that is supposed to be plural to us isn't).

I shop on a regular basis at Twins Market (the other one is on the South side of the island and they look alike).  I stop there every day to buy the island newspaper so I can keep up on all the goings on here.  This past weekend they had the worst car accident since 2008.  Three brothers ran off the road that goes up the mountain and over it to the south side of the island and all three of them died.  The road is paved and in fairly good condition.  It was 11AM too.  I don't know their ages or if alcohol was involved but the cab of the truck was totally smashed down.  It hit a make-shift garage when it went off the road.  Any way, getting back to Twins Market, it is Chinese owned and the cashier doesn't speak English but she knows me so always has my paper ready.  All of the Chinese Markets have the paper lanterns hanging out front and the good luck Hello Kitty inside by the register:)  Twins has a very fascinating selection of various types of Bettlenut for sale too.  It is perfectly legal, a nut from a local plant and is kind of like speed.  I so want to try it but it turns your teeth a very ugly red so I guess that's a good thing to keep me from trying it:)  Cracks me up they have signs posted all over about driving sober but it's ok to chew Bettlenut:)

I found another market that opened up since I was here last time called The Green Consume II.  I think it's supposed to say Consummer but I guess they get the point across.  I haven't been in this one yet but it does look interesting.  I will have to go investigate and see how "green" it actually is.

Now for my very favorite finds that just opened up.......the "PRETTY" line of stores.  There is Pretty Market that is very pretty lit up at night.  Audra and I went in there looking for Doritos one day but discovered it is not a place to get American food, only Asian.  It is very nice inside and clean.  The best part is they have two funky kiddie rides out front I am dying to go on.  One is a good luck Kitty and plays a weird little Chinese song.  I haven't had the guts to hop on it yet but one of these days........  Audra wouldn't let me do it when she was here but now that she's outta here anything goes!

Then, to my surprise, as I was driving down Beach Road past McDonalds in Garapan what do I see but "PRETTY TOURS".  It is lit up just like the other Pretty store.  The store was open when I jumped out of my car to take the picture and I think they were sad when I hopped back in my car and took off:)

The last picture is Saipan's version of WalMart.  It is called Dolphin and has stuff in it like most of our 99 cent stores have in them.  It is always fun going shopping there and looking at all the retro stuff like "Dippity Do" hair gel.  I hadn't seen that for ages.








So that is your tour of a few of the markets I have found here.  This sampling is less than one tenth of all the markets that are on the island.....they are everywhere!  I don't know how they all manage to stay open but they do.  Next time I'll take you on a tour of the vegetable stands.....they are a trip too and plentiful.  A lot of them are operated by the Chinese as well and the veggies are imported from there.  The locals sell their fruit and veggies along the roadside down on Beach Road.


I will end with a picture of one of the daily sunsets.  Every night there is a show as the sun is setting.  I sit out on the balcony and enjoy it.  Gotta love island life!  I am definitely a convert!

Hope you all are enjoying what is left of June.  I only have about six weeks left in Paradise and my heart is getting heavy.  It will be very sad when I have to leave:(


Keep the faith and be nice to one and other!

June 9, 2012

HAFA ADAI!

Yes, yes, I am back and I know you are all happy I am:)  I ended up going back over to Managaha Island last weekend with Audra and two other teachers.  They took their after school "Drama Club" students over there for swimming and lunch.  There were 14 kids, some parents and me.  Some of the kids had never been to the island even though they have lived on Saipan their whole life.  They were thrilled with the experience of taking the ferry boat over there and having a little island to explore.  We rode over on this funky ferry called The Jambalaya trying to look like it is straight out of New Orleans floatin' on down the Mississippi.....gotta love Saipan!  I rode on the bottom section just in case it tipped over.  The dock is at Smiling Cove which is very close to the apartment so I will be sailing on the Jambalaya a lot while I'm here.

I snorkeled on the North Side of Managaha for awhile where all the Japanese tourists go.  I was at the very tip of the Northwest side of the island away from the crowds.  If you get in the mix of all the Japanese swimming around they snorkel right over you which isn't very much fun. The picture below is looking across at the Japanese tourist.  You aren't supposed to feed the fish but they all do.  They have as much fun snorkeling as I do but are a bit more aggressive about it.

 Isn't the fish in the middle beautiful (I like the blue fish too)?  This was the first time I've seen this one.  I couldn't believe how colorful he was. He was posing for me too to make sure I got his best side.  He didn't swim away like most of them do but appeared to be pretty tame.  Probably because of all that food the Japanese tourist feed him:

    

 Here is the blue star fish I told you about in my earlier post.  They are so pretty just hanging out on the bottom of the ocean.  You can enlarge the picture by clicking on it and see the pattern on it's legs.  My friend said when you pick them up they are hard and stiff but I won't touch anything because I don't want to hurt them.

 I didn't see this brown fish right away.  He was swimming by some brown coral and blended right in.  I call them the Rambo fish since they are so well camouflaged




















I see these fish everywhere I go.  Some are more colorful than others.  They
must get fed a lot too because they are pretty tame and always come right up to you looking for a handout.  I've even had them nibble at my fingers.

This picture is of what I call the "fairy" fish.  If you look at the coral clump on the upper left side of the picture you can see all kinds of little blue fish swimming around.  When you aren't near them they swim in a school above the coral but when you get too close to them they swim into the coral and hide.  I have fun watching them!

Another cool experience I had was running across some old WWII wreckage.  There was a huge gun barrel and what looked like part of an old ship.  Plus there was a tank or something like it because it had the track on it instead of wheels.  Someone told me it used to be sitting on the other side of the island but they moved it to the east side to promote growth of the coral that has been destroyed and was a conservation effort too.  There was a beautiful big flat shaped fish swimming around in it that I called the "bully" fish because he kept chasing all the other fish away from where he was eating.  He had all different colors of blue and yellow stripes.  Of course I had used up all my film so didn't get a picture of him.  I saw some other pretty good sized fishies there as well.  I decided to swim further out to the other reef areas and came across some red fish that had huge black spots where their eyes were.  I think their real eyes were below the spots and the spots were a scare tactic for other fish.  They were beautiful.  Then I looked across the way and saw a really big fish (about 4-5 feet long and realized it was a shark.  I high tailed it back to shore and wasn't followed.  Guess he wasn't hungry!

When we headed back to the dock to catch the boat back to Saipan we had some time to kill.  The kids spotted an eel swimming around by the dock so we all sat and watched it for awhile.  It was grey. A  pretty reddish colored one swam over and entertained us too.  The kids loved the show and so did I.  Was really cool watching them.  We saw a couple crabs scooting about too.

I will be putting all my other photos from this snorkeling day on my FB Saipan 2012 photo album so stop by and look at them there.  My little underwater camera works pretty darn good!

My next blog will be about the Agriculture Fair I went to with Audra and Lori and also about different foods and the grocery stores here on the island.  Here is a sneak peak of one of my favorite finds.........it really tastes like bacon too:)  They have several different flavors of Spam.  My mission is to try them all!

Remember, be nice to each other and live for today!  Peace Out