Blogging from Guam: travel

Showing posts with label travel. Show all posts

Saturday, January 30, 2010

At the beginning of 2010, Brian and I, our friend Julie and her parents, and our friends Cat and Jimmy spent a couple of days in Fiji. Our trip consisted of relaxing at the resort, an inland cultural tour, and a day on a sail boat. Our friend Julie is quite the jokester. The entire trip she would say, "I bet you 1 Fijian dollar that you won't ..." (One Fijian dollar is worth about 50 cents.)

The Fijians used to be cannibals. Actually, the last practicing cannibal died in the 1950s...so pretty recently. Most cannibal meals were for revenge or ritual and not for basic sustenance. For instance, there is a true story of a Christian missionary who was eaten. It is a huge disrespect to ever touch a chief's head. The missionary grabbed a comb that was in the chief's hair and that was the end for him. They ate him, everything. They even tried to eat his boots without success. The surviving boots are in a museum in Fiji. This occurred in the 1800s. Another odd cultural fact is that the chiefs could have multiple wives, AND all of his wives were buried alive with him when he died.

Today's Fijians appeared to be pretty poor. They have an unemployment rate of 30%. (These trips always remind me how much I have to be thankful for!) Lots of Indians live on the island too. The original Indians in Fiji were imported by the British as slave labor to cultivate sugar cane, and today many of their descendants remain.

Here are some photos from our trip:

RELAXING AT THE HOTEL

the nightly fire dance

sunset from our hotel

Brian and Jimmy played chess and had too many beers while Cat and I went to the spa...

some chess pieces were missing, so they had to substitute beers

cooling off in the pool

INLAND VILLAGE CULTURAL TOUR

we saw a ton of waterfalls traveling inland on the "long boat"

packed in on the "long boat"

a quick swimming spot on the way to the inland village

one of the villagers waiting for our arrival

Cat and I posing with some villagers

this was the village's health clinic

along the path in the village

doing one of their war dances

lunch in the village (probably where we all picked up the stomach bug)

the villagers farewell song

SAILING

our boat anchored in front of the island where Castaway was filmed

Julie was driving the sail boat!

at an island stop along the sailing trip

part of our crew (Cat, Jimmy, Brian, me and Julie's mom Sue)

Monday, May 11, 2009

A Weekend in Manila, Philippines

So, I just need to get off of this island sometimes. I've been desperate to go somewhere, and it didn't matter where. Maybe this was due to the anxiety I was feeling about turning 30?

On a recent afternoon walk, a friend mentioned shopping in Manila, and that was exactly the answer that I was looking for! Four of us planned to fly into Manila on a Friday night and leave late on Sunday night. Unfortunately, one of my travel companions was concerned about being detained, due to our US passports, for possible swine flu, so it ended up just being three of us in the end. We had a pretty nice Thai hotel reservation and a driver set up for the entire weekend. The Thai hotel had a fantastic spa, and we set up a massage appointment as soon as we'd checked in. Our driver, Rone, filled our days with sights and shopping. He was great; he bargained for us, translated, watched us like a hawk for pick pockets, and showed us around the town. Shops ranged from Banana Republic to a bartering market.

Brian Fletcher, a guy that I went to high school with, moved back to the Philippines about 4 years ago. He now he lives with his extended family in Manila, but he had lived in Savannah with his mom and sister when we were in school. I emailed him about our trip, and he picked us up for dinner on Saturday night! We had a great trip and here are some photos from out trip:

some shell fish for sale outside the Mall of Asia (largest mall in Asia)

these lanterns were everywhere and they are made from Capiz shells

Rone, Sarah, and me

a fountain at Fort Santiago

a church window

Cat was contemplating getting a boob job at the mall (right next to the burger place!)

Sarah, me, and Cat

another photo from Fort Santiago

this was a Jeepney and they basically work like mini buses

the Manila Cathedral

this was on a major road. notice the baby in the lady's lap on the passenger side!

Sarah, Cat, me, and Brian

Sunday, January 4, 2009

Chuuk (Truk Lagoon)

Brian and I just returned from a quick diving trip to Chuuk. During WWII, Chuuk was a large naval base used by the Japanese. On February 17 and 18, 1944, the US Navy began "Operation Hailstone" over Chuuk, and this operation sunk over 60 Japanese ships in the shallow Truk lagoon. Most of the ships are large cargo ships and many of them are still very intact, just as they were when they sunk in 1944. Brian and I dove in and around 7 ships and one Japanese Bomber plane. Diving through the boats still filled with cargo, we saw telephones, gas masks, sake bottles, cases of sake, bombs, tons of rifle rounds, a bike, toilets, teapots, dishes, a truck, spare plane propellers, a zero, and other stuff. It was kind of eerie to know that so many people had gone down with these ships. According to our South Pacific guidebook, this battle represents the largest Naval loss in history.

The coral growth on the wrecks attracts schools of fish. There were magnificent soft corals that I had never seen before all over the boats. We saw several sharks, tons of tuna, and an eagle ray.

While diving through the cargo holds of the Fujikawa Maru, my dive watch notified me that I needed to get a little bit shallower or my body would absorb too much nitrogen. I began to go up a level on the boat (the beams that separated the different floors of cargo areas were still intact but the floor was actually gone). I rose to the next floor of the boat while Brian and the divemaster stayed in the lower hold. When I popped up at the next floor, a small (5 foot) reef shark and I were in a room together. We've seen many sharks and I've never worried about them, but I have also never been alone in a confined space with one. I thought to myself, "I can either go back down with the dive guide and Brian where I may die from nitrogen absorption or I can stay in the room with the shark." I decided to stay with the shark, and I tried to flatten myself up against the wall while the shark started darting around looking for an exit. He finally found a way out (up) and left me in the room alone to calm down!

a toilet from the plane below