Hafadai Beach (Main Wing) Saipan

... session than the day before. I left around 2:45 to get ready for the Hash.

The Garapan Bank of Guam parking lot was supposed to be closed for a car show. As a result, we were supposed to meet in the parking lot on the roof of DFS. I dropped the car in the DFS employee parking lot and left the keys with Suka as I cut through DFS toward the roof. I was early, but people ...

... anyway with a little bit of likely misplaced guilt about missing some work hours, but the frustration made it easy.

The goodbye dinner was at Restaurant 360 (map pin), the rotating restaurant where I proposed to Suka. Although I know Esther through the Hash, this was not really a Hash gathering, something that will become important in a moment.

I sat at a table with a minister friend of Esther's and his family. Many of the people at the ...

... Bruce and I had gone caving before, we went off-road to see the cave, and I wanted to show her the tunnels/hallways in the rock there. Just like Bruce and I had done, we got completely turned around in the hallways and accidentally backtracked north on the road. The jungle is much denser now than it was then.

We then continued down the road toward the top of Naftan Point (map pin is roughly where Suka is kneeling in the photo). It was a beautiful rain-free day ...

... Suka felt a little bit of a sore throat and it was a bit rainy in the morning.

The Hash was a late one. It was a combined regular and Full Moon Hash, but it started early because of the festivities later.

The event was the departure of Droolbag and Skybeam (a.k.a. Alan and Stephanie). The trail was set by Ciega and Mutt. It was up around Mt. Topachau, where many of Droolbag's trails were set. It followed the XTERRA bike trails for major segments. They ...

... so I took a bunch of screen shots, 16 pages to be exact. A couple of things I can't get until I get home, like copies of my apartment lease agreement and the official certificate of compliance with Mass. health care coverage laws. And there's a final category that we just have to address with letters of explanation, some notarized for as much authenticity as possible. We can't get more than three months of her phone records because of the ...

... and then the letter told them they passed. She was also told that if they were going to deny, they would have denied right there. From the interviewer's manner I had the impression that he was not authorized or at least was not planning to approve then and there. They can't just give it to you straight, can they? So we decided to start checking the mailbox (map pin) daily starting Wednesday. I went in to check it ...

... They have great Thai food for reasons that will become apparent in a moment. They also have a good selection of drinks. Bill is a friend of Travis's. Bill has a bar on Guam and the bar/restaurant in Saipan. These are really owned by Bill's wife, a Thai lady whose sister and brother-in-law are actively involved. Bill's main thing is one of the top hazardous materials remediation firms in the western Pacific. However, tonight ...

Once we left Rose's, we stopped by Suka's friend Lin's house. Lin is Suka's replacement at Global. They have known each other for a long time. He has been part of her computer support assistance, as well. Lin and his wife just recently had a baby. The baby was sleeping quietly in mom's arms when we got there, all cute with the little mittens to avoid face scratches. Lin had some mahua for us ...

... nine months of the last two years in Saipan explains part of it. Relocating to Boston with strong roots and a house in Detroit is much of the rest. I've only really started to feel settled in and familiar with Boston in the last couple months. And staying in the same apartment building in one of two rooms with Suka has made Saipan very familiar. Anyway, I'll take a bit of latitude on the definition of "home" for the time being.

... the Korean restaurant photographing most of the light pictures. I skipped a couple of generic and repetitive flower pictures, but otherwise got them all as well as a couple of other displays. I'll let the captions speak for themselves. The map pin is set at the large creche display location near the apartment.