Day: September 7, 2006

This is the second part of my final entry to chronicle our adventures on Guam.
This adventure was to hear our favorite band on Guam play, MOJO. Two of the members are friends of ours whom we met through the numerous multi-sport events on the island. This first one is Eric.




This is Mark (kinda scary picture, huh??) 🙂

Once we shipped all our stuff last week, we had to move into a hotel, and thanks to Anna’s friends at the SandCastle, we got a very nice room at the Hyatt. Here’s the aerial view of the hotel.

This is the view from our hotel balcony.

While we didn’t have a ton of time to enjoy all the amenities, we did make it down to the pool area a couple times. On the way down, you cross over a large koi pond, where this little girl and her mother were feeding them.

Here are the playful and colorful fish up close.


Then, down to the pool area.

When I arrived down to the pool, I found this stunning woman reading a book next to the pool.

We also found that there was a Japanese film crew doing what looked like a reality couples show in the pool as well. As far as I could tell, two couples would get on the floating raft, wrestle to get someone off, then music would play and they would dance. Then the process would repeat.
Here’s the setup.

First though, they had to get in the water.

Then, the dancing.

Finally, the wrestling.

It was rather entertaining, even if I couldn’t understand a word that was being said.
So, after baking in the sun (as well as bemusedly watching the Japanese TV show) and getting one last swim in the ocean, we headed next door to watch the SandCastle’s Magic on Ice dinner show. As usual it was very entertaining. In fact, our friend Lisa (who’s a dancer in the show), even gave us a little signal to say hi while performing.

This is the lobby of the SandCastle, and if you want to see a Vegas style show on Guam, this is the place to do it (ok, so it’s the only place, but it’s quite good!).

Here are some of our friends from Guam who came to say good-bye. We were fortunate and had several opportunities to say good-bye to friends (although these are the only ones pictured).

These are the really hardy friends that came to say good bye at the airport at 4:00AM!

So, that was the end of our time in Guam. We already miss our wonderful friends and the beautiful island that we were fortunate to call home for a short while. Who knows, perhaps someday we’ll be able to come back and visit. If we’re really blessed, we’ll have a chance to live there again.
So, until the next adventure in Los Angeles (our first stop back on the mainland).
–Jim

Well, it is with great sadness that we departed the beautiful island of Guam. We were fortunate to call the island home for two years. It is now time for us to move on to the distinct Deutschland. However, here are some parting pictures from our final days on Guam. Since we had to cram in a number of “must-do” activities, I’ve made this a two-part entry.
First, there was one golf course that I needed to play before I left. That was Mangilao Golf Course. It is the best course on the island, and if you can believe it, I hadn’t played the entire time. So, we rectified that on the last weekend.

As you can see, it was a truly beautiful course. I am starting off with an aerial view of the signature hole, #12 (the tee box is on the lower right side and the green on the left).

This is what the view looks like from ground level.

Here I am attempting to reach the green.

Here’s Jon hitting from the drop area for those of us who didn’t reach the green on the first shot.

Here is a shot of Col Westa and I on the #12 green.

Again on #12, with Jon.

Here are a few images of other amazing views around the course.




No, he may not have the best form, but at least it went in the hole!



This is JT blasting his way out of the sand and on to the green.

You may have noticed on the last post, my friend Rory left a comment that he was the one who flew our office around the island to re-enlist Raven. Well, since I was completely oblivious to that fact, I had to make up for my ignorance and fly again. This time it was Rob who really helped make that happen (thanks again, Rob!). So, off we went to fly around the island … again!
Here is Rory, who yet again, showed us the best parts of Guam.

This time around however, I was able to focus on the scenery a lot more and had a much less windy seat, so I could also focus on taking more pictures. That’s me on the left, in one of the jump seats with a whole open doorway to myself.


This is the northern end of Guam.

The water is always so clear on Guam.

Here’s Rob.

This is another beneficiary of the flight, my friend Gordon.

This is Two Lover’s Leap. As you may know (and Wikipedia informed me), it’s fairly common to have a place of great height so named in honor of a romantic tragedy legend where star-crossed lovers leap to their mutual demise. This place on Guam is one of those locations.

No leaping here, as these Japanese tourists speed through the harbor.


Here’s Rob again.



Here are the guys checking out the sights as they passed under us.


The next post will conclude our time in Guam with a few pictures of our favorite Guam band, MOJO, as well as the activites in the resort we stayed at.
–Jim