The Holidays on Saipan

The holidays on Saipan definitely have a different feel than in Chicago. There is no cold weather to indicate they are coming. No need for hot chocolate or bundling up when you go outside. Even though the stores all played the usual Christmas songs and decorations were all over the island, it still didn’t feel like Christmas was coming.

When Christmas Eve finally arrived, we were all excited to experience a tropical holiday. We spent the day by the pool at one of the resorts. With a view of the ocean and the pool virtually to ourselves, it made for a great day of relaxing and enjoying time with friends. Later that night John and I had bought some shrimp to make with pasta (trying to get a bit of seafood in even though we were missing the feast back home). Two of our friends also came over to bake Christmas cookies (since there is no oven at the field house) for everyone to have the next day. We spent the night cooking and having dinner together a night full of Christmas fun! Something a bit different than back home that started on Christmas Eve was fireworks. As soon as the sun went down, fireworks could be heard, and sometimes seen if they were close enough, from around the island. This was pretty exciting at first, a cool way to celebrate Christmas on an island. Little did we know that this would last over a week and the boom of fireworks finally died out the Sunday after New Years.

On Christmas day we went over to the field house to have brunch with everyone. As always there was so much delicious food that everyone made that we ate until we couldn’t eat any more (I baked a french toast casserole that actually didn’t turn out half bad!). After that we just hung out with everyone and watched a movie before heading home for the night.

Saturday night we all went up to the top of Mount Tapochao for a bon fire. We drove up just before dusk to watch the sunset. It was a beautiful sight with a view of the entire island, I love watching the sun drop down below the ocean.

The next week was New Years already. After a long week of fruit trials with the birds we were looking forward to a night out. We all went to Himawari Restaurant for dinner. The sushi there was delicious, and we got to sit at one of those tables where you take your shoes off and sit cross legged. After dinner we went to a local bar called Johnny’s for a bit, then headed over to the Hyatt Resort that sits on the beach. We really weren’t sure what to expect, but we had heard that they had the best New Years Eve party on Saipan. Right when we walked up we knew it was going to live up to its reputation. There was a dance floor and DJ set up on the beach along with bars and a clock for the countdown. We watched the clock as it got closer to midnight and when it finally turned 12:00 there was a spectacular show of fireworks! We spent the rest of the night dancing until the party was over. After that we headed over to Ichiban (an Asian noodle place) where we had these amazing onion/eggplant pancakes and our new favorite dish the eggplant hotpot (hot because of the temperature not the spice of course)! To close the night out, John joined a table of Korean tourists next to us that were playing a Korean drinking game with a drink called Soju. Soon the rest of us joined in and we all had a great time ending the night. Luckily the game was pretty simple, but tons of fun!

It’s still hard to believe 2015 is over. With all of the amazing things that happened (weddings, new friends, graduations, and of course moving to an island), it is hard to imagine 2016 being any better, but I know it will be filled with just as much adventure, great memories, and love as last year! Happy New Year everyone!