Guam

This kid is a stud. His name is Ben and he totally saved me from just hanging out in the airport all day. 

So what happened is I was trying to get to Manila, but the flight was full. So then I decided to go to Hong Kong instead (this was at like 7 in the morning), and the flight to HK wasn't until that evening. 

So I hopped on couchsurfing and messaged a few people to see if anyone wanted to hang out for the day, and Ben came and picked me up to show me around Guam! It was awesome. 

First stop: breakfast. It. was. so. good. 

yum : )

So this is what I understand of the story: There were two lovers who couldn't be together because the girl was arranged to marry a Spanish captain (because the Spanish were occupying Guam). Her and her lover were chased to the edge of a cliff by the Spanish soldiers. Her and her lover braided their hair together and jumped over the cliff, and ever since Two Lover's Point has been a symbol of true love.

It also has beautiful views.

Someday I'll have to come with a girl and attach our luggage tags here. 

So 90% of the tourists in Guam are from Japan, and lots of Japanese couples actually come to two lovers' point to get married. There are ton of names of people who have come here to get married (the tiles go on and on)

Like two palm leaves coming together to symbolize peace.

We came across an LDS church, so we decided to stop in and say hello! We met a couple members setting up for their Christmas party so we decided to help set up chairs and lights for a little while. 

Next we went to Ben's work Christmas party!!! It was awesome. This is his old boss. Tons of the people at the party were from Taiwan, so that was way sweet!

There was plenty of food and it was quite delicious!

So Ben works at a furniture store. I was exhausted from traveling and was suuuper stoked to take a break on a massage chair. It was wonderful. 

The beach!

Guam's mini-Statue of Liberty

Yep, that's a live water buffalo. And during the night market people take it for rides

View of Guam

The Chamorros (native Guam people) used to build houses on these. That way when there was a tsunami or something, the houses would be up off the ground. 

This was awesome. When the Japanese were fighting on Guam they built a bunch of tunnels to get around in. You can totally go in these! (AT YOUR OWN RISK). So we did. Unfortunately they had most of the tunnels blocked off, but we were able to get around between a few different exits coming out of the hill. 

Kmart!! Guam actually has the world's largest Kmart! 

That's it! I had a great day in Guam and now it was time to head to Hong Kong. I'm happy to have made new friends on this little island, and I look forward to the next time I can stop by and visit again. : )

Tokyo (last day in Japan)

We met up with Manri and went to visit some of the sites around Tokyo.

So you shake this up, pull out a stick with a number, and then from that number you pick out your fortune. 

Mike's was "SMALL FORTUNE" mine was "THE HIGHEST MOST EXCELLENT FORTUNE" and Manri's was "BAD FORTUNE"

Hahaha, it's okay though because Manri tied hers to a pole and that's how she leaves behind the bad luck. 

I think it's good luck to put the smoke on your or something

Sometimes a great picture gets ruined by putting someone in front of it. The next photo is of the same stream, but with me in front of it: 

The Imperial Palace. 

Love these trees. 

Had to visit the Pokemon center in Tokyo. It's mostly just a store for Pokemon stuff, but that was actually pretty cool to check out anyway. 

Denny's! Mike loves breakfast food. Denny's Japan is a lot different than Denny's in the states though. The only breakfast food was on the bottom of the last page: three pancakes. 

I had steak. It was delicious.

That's it! Tokyo was fun, but now it was time to move on. I said goodbye to Mike and Manri. Who knows what country we'll see each other in next!

I hope to see you again too, Japan! I guess I've come two years in a row now. I sure love Japan. This trip definitely reinforced my desires to learn Japanese and live in Japan for awhile someday. 

Next stop: Guam.

To Tokyo!

Today was a travel day from Kyoto to Tokyo. It...was a long bus ride to say the least. I left sometime in the morning like at 9 or so and didn't get to Tokyo until 7pm. 

I think one of the big things that slowed us down is that we took a lot of stops, and they were all pretty long I thought. 

Overall I guess I enjoyed the ride. I hadn't really slept enough and so I needed some more, plus they had Batman Begins in English. I also tried watching an entire anime movie in Japanese...it was exciting at first. It was like I would hear a bunch of japanese then "sumimasen" then a bunch of random japanese, then "arigato gozaimas" then a few sentences later maybe a "watashi wa" or something else. 

Haha, then I got bored and fell asleep some more. 

Made it to Tokyo!! I found Mike with Riki (the friend of Mike's mom who helped hook us up with everyone in the other cities), and his daughter Manri. 

We then met up with Trevor (next to Mike in the photo), who was our host for the night. We went out to dinner with him and had a really great time chatting. He has a lot of interesting things about him. For example, he's the only Puritan I've ever met! He also has a job that puts him in Japan three months a year (one in spring, one in summer, one in winter). Anyway, it was a really good experience meeting him and we got a good night's sleep. 

One more thing. I came across these gems from Mike's day in Tokyo without me: