Guam in Two Perspectives

Layover inside the airport, and layover outside of the airport to explore what's in the island.

Hafa Adai!

I love this memorial piece inside the airport.

It's fun to get stuck in GUM. Nah, who am i kidding. Maybe, today, yeah for sure. But a few years ago, we had to be hobos sitting outside of the United Club for the free wi-fi only to lounge customers, to reach our electronic devices to spend a whole day without going crazy. One of the two perspectives that I was talking about was with my little sister in 2013. This .gif is more recent than the other perspective of Guam. There was finally wi-fi airport-wide at this time. She got lucky.

This is right outside of the arrivals level of the airport, GUM. Beautiful.

This was another perspective of Guam, with my older sister in 2012. We had to stay overnight so we decided to get a room with another standby passenger to save money. I don't know how we got around without getting kidnapped or anything, but we got a ride to go to the Dulce Nombre de Maria Cathedral - Basilica too. God is good. It was the only Catholic Church in the island. And it was also part of  the architecture work of my grandfather, Viktor Hugo Gutierrez. My lolo, as we call him, has actually never seen this building again after he got married in the Philippines back in 1957. So that was almost 60 years ago.

Right next to the basilica is the ruins from WWII when the Japanese invaded Guam right after Pearl Harbor was attacked. Which was ironic because the tourists here were predominantly Japanese. It's like, "if you look to your left, your ancestors destroyed and killed many Americans at that spot right there, and they also burned down houses over here too." There is a memorial for the brave Americans that stood their ground for real though. You can see exactly how the Japanese landed on the beach and how the Americans had their last stand.Stand at a certain spot near the basilica and you can imagine how the fighting went. It is a powerful area to stand on to feel history on your feet.

En Defende Y Tanota

Read the history of the brave Chamorro.

This was when I drew this on my sketchbook that I carry around everywhere while waiting at the airport too. You can see more of the pages of this sketchbook in the ARTS PAGE of this blog.

And there's that cute 737 that will take us to Manila, MNL. Mabuhay!

There is a famous attraction in the island called the Two Lover's Point. I've been there before, but I cannot seem to locate my pictures of it. It's a breath-taking place where you will be able to see the whole island at the highest point of Guam overlooking the Philippine Sea. The story of a Chamorro Woman and a Spanish Military Captain (back then when Spain controlled Guam) that had an arranged marriage, but of course she did not want to do so because she fell in love with a Chamorro Man... I think I'm starting to remember why I did not have pictures of this landscape. I mean, jeez, I was very emo at the time, just had a break up, so all that lovey dovey stuff was very immune to me. Meh. If I were her, I would have used my head and lived lavishly and will probably fall in love with the Spanish Captain anyways. Jeez, that's how arranged marriages were at the time. Why shorten your life and be stubborn? You'd rather die for someone you just met, and never see your family and loves ones ever again? Just go with the flow, woman. Excuse my emotions.