José, can you see

We have officially returned and I've spent the better part of today trying to get my head to stop rattling around in its socket - unfortunately taking 10 days off on the trot doesn't mean the work will do the same. Nevertheless, between bouts of fevered activity my coworkers were interested in how Guam went; they were the ones who put the idea in my head to start with. The recommendation came with an asterisk - Guam apparently isn't a place you go if you want a super sightseeing holiday. However, it is a place you go if you want to eat, shop and read your book until people aren't sure where you end and the deckchair begins. They seemed pleased we had a great time and wanted to know all about it - maybe you do too.

Resortastic

We shipped out late on Monday night, making our way out to the airport for our 3 hour flight across the Pacific. This was the first non-Asian holiday I've had in quite a few years (unless you count Perth) and perhaps more importantly, the first non-budget airline I've flown there. This meant we had a pleasing amount of legroom (we obviously look like very good exit row candidates) and they actually fed and watered us without charging $82.50 to our credit cards. Having spent most of the flight filling out every US customs form in existence (are you a terrorist, have you ever committed genocide?), we arrived and passed through the TSA with almost no waterboarding whatsoever. As promised, our smiley tour guide met us at the airport and handed us packets of coupons, our room keys and an all-you-can-ride bus pass. We hopped in his Chevy, pulled out into the right hand side of the road and drove past about 5 gun shops, suddenly understanding the whole "Guam, USA" thing. The whole island is only about 50km lengthways, so we pulled up at our hotel before we knew it and wandered past legions of confused Japanese tourists up to bed. The room was fairly old but clean and comfortable, although I probably wouldn't have noticed if it were on fire by this stage.

A light start to the day

The trip was advertised as 4 days but really we only had 2, which meant we had to make the most of it. Needless to say, Denny's was the first stop - we stepped out into the beating sun and wandered down the main street to catch a bus. The shuttles seem to just do a constant circle around the 4-5 huge shopping centres, so we hopped off at the first stage of the loop at "Micronesia Mall" and got some grub. I thought I was opposed to tipping as a concept, but when a table spanning monstrosity of eggs, bacon, ham, sausage, hash browns, toast, pancakes and bottomless coffee costs $9.99 it feels more than fair to chuck in a few extra bucks. We waddled out into the mall proper and Lisa slavered over Macy's for a while; she didn't buy anything but seemed to enjoy trying everything on nonetheless (I think being "XS" helped a bit).

Then let our K-Marts combine

Done with the first leg, we hopped on another shuttle and pulled up a few minutes later at the long-awaited K-Mart. I can't imagine they were joking when they said it was the biggest in the world - it was like 4 of them stuck together in an orgy of fluorescent lights and boxes of chocolate. In true American style there was a pizzeria on one end, then just aisles stretching off into the horizon with everything from cheap clothes to cheap medicine. We split up to cover it properly and I'm not entirely sure how we managed to find each other again, but we ended up reunited over a trolley full of souvenirs, Reece's Pieces and Laffy Taffy. All this put us in the mood for some shopping, so we made our way over to the day's final destination - "Guam Premier Outlets".

I want this as my last meal

We spent until dinner time pawing through the bargain bins and I eventually emerged with some socks, which was the last thing I figured I'd buy after hours of drooling over expensive leather wallets and bags. We had dinner at Chili's, a place famous for babyback ribs and other absurdly large grilled things. Lisa smashed her craving with a gorgeous half rack of BBQ ribs that fell away from the bone, while I went a little less sophisticated and got a no less delicious mushroom-swiss burger the size of my face. Generally we were blown away by the food - the size of everything is outrageous enough - but it's all so buttery, salty and sugary that even a sensible serve would take some eatin'. The Japanese tourists seemed even more out of their depth, gingerly brandishing their knives and forks against a relentless army of steak.

Not colourful enough

A tropical storm hit during the night and we figured our luck with the weather had run out, but luckily the rain had disappeared by morning and it stayed fine for the rest of the trip. It wouldn't have mattered too much if it hadn't, because we spent most of the day finishing off the last of the shopping districts. We snuck into a supermarket at one stage just to see for ourselves and suddenly felt like we had stepped into Brobdingnag. Ice cream seems to come in tubs the size of lampshades, cuts of meat threaten to buck you off and I'm wondering how you would get the cakes through your door. I think the most terrifying thing is how quickly I could get used to all this. After a quick coffee at Planet Hollywood just to say we did, we knocked off the duty free and designer bag areas, then walked down the main drag past all the resorts and found the beach.

Take THAT, Hyatt

The Hyatt had just about monopolised beach access, but we managed to squeeze past it through a little laneway and popped out on the white sand. Lisa dangled her feet in the water and said it felt like one of the silken hot springs we have here, so the niceness obviously wasn't just for show. Passing palm trees and big paddle boats you could hire to cruise around the shallows, we eventually found a little bar and plopped ourselves down for a beer. I'm not particularly sentimental about sunrises and sunsets, but I have to say sitting there with a Budweiser while the sunlight dappled and reddened was rather nice. The torches were lit along the shore, the clubs started playing music and the smells of BBQ started wafting around. Normally this would have been appetising but we had had Denny's for lunch again so the mere mention of sausages was threatening to put me into a coma.

Beer and tropical sunset - might be a holiday

And with that, our brief but lovely holiday came to a close. We were up quite literally at the crack of dawn the next day, poked into a bus and taken to the airport for our flight home. In no time flat it was 10am and we were back in Osaka wondering what day of the week it was. Lisa's now covered to stay until the end of the year if she so desires, and my craving for giant breakfasts and rich food has been soothed back to sleep for the moment. Actually having work to do again (and having 1 plate of food per meal) is going to take some getting used to, but we'll take it one day at a time. Guam was our last big holiday for the year but we've got plenty coming up nonetheless - that "must do" list isn't going to tick itself off during the home stretch. "Eat a sandwich with half a kilo of ham on it", though? That one's taken care of.