Priorities!

Perry and I woke up on our first morning (not exactly refreshed.  Stupid chickens go off so stinkin' early.). I had a list of priorities for the day:

• Beach
• Island Food
• Phone
• Prepare for Doom (but you get that part in another post)

Since my pretty island days were numbered (more later), I saw sunshine, so a water source was a must.  A trip to Guam wouldn't be a trip without a walk at Nikko.  I stopped by the coffee shop and got a fresh mango smoothie (with a 20% discount--I figure they thought I was military as the hotel was crawling with them).  I knew Saipan had really taken a hit in April from the typhoon, but I wasn't expecting the rawness to be in Guam as well.  

If you look closely, the palm trees are either missing palms, or thew ones they do have are brown and dead.  There's also a lot of missing trees. This is from the super typhoon that hit Saipan (but Guam was still close enough for significant damage.)  

The troubles in this world slipped away as I had this view for my Bible study, sermon prep, and the occasional dip to cool off.  

So what's missing in these pictures.  FLOWERS!  This place is always a tropical paradise of rich color.  But since the storm, the color is gone.  The view below is usually just popping with whites, reds, pinks, yellow, etc. (But at least it is mostly green and not totally brown.)

I did find one flame tree busting with color.  (It is growing kind of inside the hotel, which is why it was probably saved.)

I said I had priorities and island food was one of them. There are so many to choose from.  I began with the very first island food I ate when landing on Saipan in 2003--Pancit!  Pancit is a Filipino dish that I absolutely love.

I was able to get a local sim for my phone.  It came with 7 days free unlimited talk and text (including the USA) and data, which you will learn later may be very important.