The Big Fat, Hairy Frog Part 1

I have had problems writing about subjects that are fascinating. I have had writer's block on the DMZ, the weekend Meg and I spent at a Buddhist monastery, and Guam. The DMZ and the monastery were truly special events, and to be honest, I cannot do them justice with my amateur writing skills. I just want to type, "You have to see it, you just have to be there, it was neat." Well, I am forcing myself to write about them right now, in an effort to Eat that Frog.

Guam

Alright I don't remember how much I touched on Guam during the beginning of this blog, but Guam was awful. Guam, the place where Americans first raise, the place where the sun first hits America, the place that isn't really America at all. When I was in Europe, many of the Irish people I worked with would jokingly call America the home of the 48 states, because Alaska and Hawaii don't count. What does that make Guam? Everything in that little island made me mad.

We got off the plane; we had been flying all day. The flight to Hawaii was 10 hours, and then the flight to Guam was another 10 or so. Hell, we even went to Chicago or Houston from Saint Louis before making the flight to Hawaii*. I was on a plane long enough to give Al Gore an ulcer from my massive carbon footprint. We arrived in Guam and immediately went to the airport help desk, because WE WERE IN GUAM. Guam has a wiki page as big as Harrisonville Missouri's. We didn't know what to do; my only information on Guam was my grandpa told me there were no birds on the island because snakes ate all their eggs. Well, I saw birds when the airplane was taxiing down the runway, so that little golden conversation nugget was immediately thrown out the window. No knowledge of the island, and I mean none, but I had a gut feeling that the residents of Guam would be extremely friendly. That's the reputation of island folk anyway.

*It's been a long time since I had to fly all those hours. Now, that I think about it was it Atlanta we flew from or was it Denver...

The helpful man at the desk really did us wonders. We approached him apprehensively, knowing that he spoke English, but having to convince ourselves at the same time.* We weren’t prepared to say the least. We told him that we need to go to this address and pointed at the address on a note card. He told us in perfect English, that we need to go to the Marina hotel. He said that it was 50 dollars a night. We said great! 50 bucks, we'll take. We have made TWO crucial mistakes within 10 minutes of our arrival in Guam.

1. Our first mistake was trusting the guy at the help desk, who spoke perfect English, and may or may not have had the ability to read English.

2. The second mistake was not taking advantage of our free hotel tab, since the teaching academy was going to pick up our hotel tab. I think we didn't really know if the company would pick up the tab, so we just really didn't trust it. Looking back, we placed our faith in the wrong person.

*Maybe it was our apprehension that pissed him off. Maybe he didn't like me because of his secret ability to know that I voted for Bush in 2004, and he hates Bush, and hates the fact that he does not have a vote in the matter. Maybe he thought we were military, and last week some Navy diver just stole his girlfriend, and this diver happened to have an uncanny resemblance to me. I don't know, but I think that he was up to something when he sent us to that shit hole they call Marina Hotel.

The ever so helpful clerk pointed us toward the taxi pick up and drop off place. We were greeted by a friendly Filipino immigrant who spoke like four languages, while being fluent in maybe one of them, and of course it wasn't English. I told him Marina Hotel. He said Hyatt. I told him Marina Hotel, and he said Hamilton. I told him Marina Hotel and he said Marriott. After four more similar exchanges, he asked me if I was sure. He told me that the popular hotels are along the beach. He pointed in the direction of these "popular" hotels and then pointed in the opposite direction towards my sweet Marina. I should have picked up on the many subtle and not so subtle hints that the Marina was away from the action, away from the good beaches, and more likely than not the Marina was going to be a shit hole, but being the optimistic/gullible person that I am, I knew that it would be close to the Korean Immigration office, and any beach would be a short cab ride away. I couldn't even find Guam on the map two days ago; it has to be about the size of Harrisonville right? We could walk!

The next part of the story reminds me of A Boy Named Sue. The cabbie basically dropped us off, said good luck, and KNEW we were going to have to get tough or die! My American pampered ass got dropped off in the worse damn hotel I've ever stayed in, including some questionable hostels in Europe. The worst part about it was that the ride from the airport cost about 35 dollars. You would think that we traveled for twenty five minutes or more to accumulate such a large bill. Noooooo more like ten minutes. Just getting in a taxi cost 6 bucks. Everything on that damn island was very expensive, probably due to the fact that it is in the middle of nowhere. There is an expression BFE, well it should be BFG.

I slept off the anger of the crummy hotel, and looked forward to going to the Korean Embassy which was located near our sweet Marina. The bugs crawling under my sheets gave me a nice massage, anyway, so I got a good night sleep. Well, the morning came as it always has in my first 23 years of existence, and with the help of our hotel desk clerk we headed in the direction of the Korean embassy. Only both the airport help guy and our hotel receptionist sent us to the American embassy. We are now standing in-line with a bunch of non-American citizens renewing their visas, while we are struggling to even get to the Korean embassy. We Were Sent To The Wrong Embassy! We got a new lead on the location of the Korean embassy, so after 25 dollars and five minutes in a taxi we landed right in front of the Korean embassy.

We were interviewed by a Korean who asked us simple questions, but we didn't have the answers. This was a last minute deal. 10 minutes and 20 questions later, I have Meg breaking down because of this man's rudeness and a very real frustration with the process that has been taking place. My Korean company originally gave us a date sometime in early June, now we are in Guam maybe around the 18th of July. They delayed us about a month and a half. Then they sent us NO information of the company or where we would be living, because they needed us so quickly and the details weren’t that much of a priority, I guess. This guy was a dick and had no understanding of our situation at all.

“Hey prick, you ride in a plane for 30 hours, then talk your shit!” I didn't say that, but I should have. The Korean Embassy was full of two applicants: Meg and I. The American embassy, on the other hand, was just like every other government department: busy with customers, unorganized, and awful. Here's the funny thing, I'll take the latter as opposed to some jerk making us feel awful. Not to mention that all those people wanted to go work in America and not in Korea. If there was a time that I thought I made an awful mistake, then that was it, right on the northeast side of BFG.

The mean Korean who was apparently tired of our ignorance sent in his partner who was a younger, nicer man. He told us to come back in at the end of the day for our visa. Outside of the Embassy, we looked around and saw The Hyatt, The Hamilton, and Marriot, literally hundreds of feet from this hell hole embassy. Hopefully you are beginning to see why I hate Guam.

The cab ride back to the shit hole i.e. sweet Marina was another 25 dollars, then the cab ride back to the hell hole i.e. Korean Embassy was another 25, and then back to the shit hole, and then another 30 to the airport. That’s how I kept track of my Guam experience, one expensive cab ride after another. Oh yeah, I experienced a torrential downfall while walking around, had the worse upset stomach of my life (up to that point, it has been exceeded) and I swam in the Ocean near the shit hole, which I later found out to be sewage water. Oh yeah, Guam is a good time, you should go there and stay in the Marina Hotel, and ask the airport desk man for help. Don’t forget to take as many taxi rides as you can!