Apia Harbor, Guam: We spent the day in Guam with friends. It was our third visit to the island and we had an excellent time.
The day started with getting approved by customs and passport control, which went well for us. It went not so well for others who didn’t go early.
We had no trouble linking up with our hostess, and she took us to see the new museum of the Chamorro people in what we think of as Agana. It was a knockout, really well done, any city could be proud of such an edifice.
There we learned they are now calling themselves the CHamoru and calling their capital Hagatna instead of Agana. You read that right, they’re capitalizing the first TWO letters for reasons unknown.
They have also named the governor’s palace for former governor Ricardo Bordallo. He is a convicted felon who committed suicide rather than go to federal prison for election law violations. Honoring him is an OOG ... “only on Guam.”
Later we saw the public space art in the new hospital, done by Judy Flores. She’s a local artist noted for her batik creations. And we drove by the mall which features one of the larger Macy’s complexes around.
We dined on Shirley’s renown Spam fried rice and finished it off with cinnamon rolls from a local baker. It was more fried rice than I could eat at one sitting, I had leftovers for supper.
The balance of the afternoon was spent gabbing; catching up on old times, swapping ‘war’ stories. We got back to the ship at 6 pm and All Aboard was at 6:30, a long day but a good one.
The weather was warm but not too hot, the humidity was high but not unbearable, and it didn’t rain although this is the rainy season. Our hostess who’d been semi-crippled was just off her crutches and drove us around.
It was a good day for two people who lived here for a year back in the mid-1980s, when we were visiting faculty at the University of Guam. The lady we visited had taught here then, her son married a local and her grandkids were born here so she stayed, happily. While she gets off-island every year, Guam is her home and she’ll die here.
Next stop ... Honolulu ... a week from now. Between here and there, seven sea days and a midterm election back in “the world.”
