Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Manu'a Flag Day

We got today off from work to commemorate the anniversary of the islands of Ofu, Olosega, and Ta'u joining Tutuila under U.S. control.
I think having Wednesdays off should be made a more permanent feature of work weeks.

Today Team Puppy (Matt, Doug, Naomi, and I) did a couple of short hikes. First we went to the hospital to eat lunch, but of course the cafeteria was closed for the very important holiday. So we hit the hike which starts in a rock quarry (very safe looking excavation) back behind the hospital.

There is a lower falls and pool, which we thought was it.

At the top of the falls we walked around a little and around the corner of the creek, there's another falls.




Today was another really cool weather day (maybe a high of 78). We got in the pool, but it was a little chilly due to us not being used to a heat index under 90.


Here's Matt jumping in:

Afterwards we went up to the big WWII guns that are on the west side of the harbor (there are apparently some on the east side as well). This is a newly cleaned up tourist attraction.
There's a shantytown on the way to the guns.

It is really nice at the top of the hill though:


There is another gun up there as well that hasn't been restored yet.


Check out this very safe, permanent, and professional wire stringing job we noticed up near the guns:


At Sadie's by the Sea, they recently finished building their new restaurant named the Goat Island Cafe!!!

Restaurant Review: Goat Island Cafe
It is really hard to believe that this place is on Tutuila. It feels like you're in Western or some other place. It is nice in there, there is outdoor seating and sliding glass walls. You would think that in such a warm place, there would be many locations to sit and eat outside. Incredibly there are hardly any.
Maliumai has outdoor seating, but their food (aside from their poke) is not edible. The food at the Goat is good. We were all shocked and spent about two hours there on a little mini-vacation from Pago. On island: 9.5 Off-island 6





The other day a whale was apparently stuck on the reef near my house. Some local kids hauled it in. Guess what happened to the whale next?

If you guessed: (x) tie its tail to a rock, you were correct.

It died of course, but according to Alden and April(in this picture with the whale) it was probably from being attacked by other animals at sea.

Naomi is getting pretty good at Bust a Move

8 comments:

KDub said...

Aaron:

You really suck at Busta Move. So tell Naomi that if she wants some real competition she can make a quci trip out to Salt Lake and Sara will gamble it up.

That Guy said...

Goat Island Cafe? What is the significance of the name? I mean, are there a lot of goats in Samoa?

Elizabeth said...

Alden said he tied the whale down so it didn't float away (after it died).

Unknown said...

I guess the area where the restaurant is now used to be an island called Goat Island where there was an officers' club back when this place was run by the Navy.

Yeah, I think the whale was dying or dead when it got tied to a rock.

P a n c a k e said...

A 9.5?! Are you serious?! Finally, dear god, something to look forward to whilst heading back to the rock...

stadtler said...

You guys should blow that whale up!

kccalla said...

So the Sonics are now apparently going to be named the Oklahoma City Thunder! How dumb is that? If they are going to name it something stupid, they should have made it funny, like the Oklahoma City Okie-Dokie Artichokies. However, if they make their mascot a certain sheppard-chow mix that Seigel leads out to the floor, then the Thunder name works.

fogfan said...

Wow! I can't believe someone named the cafe after Goat Island. That's some serious island history there. Goat Island used to be where the Rainmaker Hotel's main building is and was once the site of an officer's quarters. And then they filled in the land connecting to Goat Island. You can see a photo of Goat Island at the following link.

http://ashpo.org/gallery3/images/wf132-zz-c.jpg