Hafa Adai Bra...

After my Valentines blog, I figured I’d be pretty dry on the writing front until this weekend commenced! O my goodness. My weekend started turning quite the direction as soon as I stepped out of work Friday… with bumping into a very well seasoned Chomorran man “basking himself”…his whole self, in my favorite reading spot on the beach behind the school. This spot basically has my name written on it. Every day after teaching grammar and speaking e-v-e-r-y w-o-r-d clearly to my lovely Koreans…I take shelter under the perfect palm tree with a perfect view of the ocean and the Navy ships that float outside the reef. But no… my heavy anticipation of relaxation was turned to panic and laughter as I briskly jogged away from this dude “hangin” out all up in my spot. Hafa Adai bra...Chomorran meaning: what's up friend...

So this Saturday has an ENTIRE blog dedicated to it…I usually write one a week but it was too epic to not tell you about. We started the day out with no electricity…Oh, the joys of a hot sticky room and no shower to take before rushing off to church…which by the way Pastor Carlos, WHAT an amazing message. We had Joeie’s (my amazing friend and neighbor) birthday picnic at Oleai Beach…followed by a quite adventurous caving trip.

The caving trip, along with all of our adventures actually…always start with back-roading threw thick Saipan jungle in Rusty, an old missionary veteran, in other words… rusty-put back together truck, having a piece of plywood and bed liner separating you from the ground underneath…Rusty also includes a sweet skull of a booney dog on the front for added toughness. It has character though. Anyways, we trudged muddily to Calaveras Cave (which ironically enough translates into Skull Cave)…you could guess my excitement at such a terrifying choice of name (This name going along with others like Forbidden Island and even Suicide Cliffs here in Saipan). The cave was super tall once we entered and pretty terrifying, being you had to climb down this dingy, clanky, 50 foot aluminum latter and plunge into complete darkness until your eyes adjusted. Once we reached the bottom of the cave we scurried onto the lip of a huge down drop…where we threw several rocks trying to “guesstimate” the drop down…we got about 20 feet until our rocks kept getting intercepted. Next time we’ll think ahead and bring more flashlights.

NEXT! We were headed down this grass covered path when we ran into some pretty sketchy Russians that spoke no English…we thought they were going to kill us considering the hesitant actions played toward us and the wife sticking a video camera out the window recording the whole thing. But since we had a whole truck full of people in the back…and I ducked for cover allowing David to get shot at first…I ended up safe.  But, turns out….we directed them on their way to “Boird Issland?!” and laughed the rest of the way.

IT GETS BETTER. Our night continued with going to my first “karaoke room” inside the Saipan World Resort. O MY GOSH. For you Asians back home, I had always wondered why karaoke seemed to fascinate you but I totally get it now. We basically rented this square room, with a huge couch, tv, and microphones…add to it sound proof walls…and go crazy. I probably was laughing beyond the point of no return by the time my roomie Priya (an amazing, crazy Bermudian who is quickly beating me in the love of life race) and I were singing Abba’s “Dancing Queen” to the room full of people.

THEN as if the night couldn’t get any better we ventured into the hotel’s karoke night full of Japanese tourists…and as I was brave enough to start the train dance with Tina and Priya... I THEN got elected to sing ON STAGE by the lead singer guy jamming away to some pretty cheesy covers to 60’s songs….while a group of older Asian ladies were quite the hip busters kicking it across the dance floor to some old Japanese guy singing his heart out. I thought this was all pretty funny until the guy convinced me into singing Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance.” The conversation went something like this:

Mullet Asian: “You like sing?”

Me: “No, can you play Footloose?”

Mullet Asian: “NO NO! Sing…you sing...Lady Gaga… good singer…Lady GaGa.”

Me: “No, no sir. I don’t want to sing. I just want to hear the song.”

Is it because I was one of the only American’s in the place…probably. Maybe because of the fact he thought we were intoxicated judging from David, Tina, and Priya’s dancing about like crazos. But, only having pineapple juice and chicken…we found it even funnier. I conquered the ridiculous song and they got the whole thing on tape. I’m sure it’ll surface somewhere on FB for your laughing convenience. OR even on YouTube considering a creeper staff guy was recording me from the side door. I am still laughing.

OH, and we can’t forget the Korean man who caught me on my merry way to the bathroom while I was whistling “I kissed a girl.” He abruptly about-faced it toward me once I passed him and squealed after me. “KATY PERRY!” I, being a Katy Perry fan, knew the chances of her being in this hotel were slim, but I turned around anyway to find the guy and his son looking at me. I don’t think I was dressed up that much, but I guess any American with straight brown hair and any kind of…well...never mind…could look similar. So I pulled off a shrug-laugh, waved, and continued my hustle to the ladies room.

SUNDAY. Today started out pretty normal until we got the bright idea to rent scooters and bop around the island...OMG...I threw Silvia on the back and we named our scooty "Hoss". It was pretty epic going all the way to the north side of the island and driving some pretty back roads...but considering there were two of us..and the getting up the mountain we hit speeds of approx. 15 mph. LOL. I dared to ask a police officer on a motorcycle is he wanted to race...then got lectured in "safe driving" by some random in a red Mustang...need I say more...when you drive a Mustang, don't tell me how to drive. It was all fun and games until poor Joeie ate it...but she's ok.

…laughter is truly the best medine. Ciao <3