They are nice people. What I found was a sense of hospitality I wasn't accustomed to in the states. Many cultures have hospitality as one of their prime virtues, and the folks on Guam are like that. I inadvertenly started a few family squabbles as locals extended hospitality while being questioned by family members. But it seemed incumbent on the head of the family to go through the motions. I never abused the hospitality...only went through the minimum denial responses needed for form's sake...but family squabbles DID come up over the matter. As I got a reputation for not holding people to their overly-generous offers, word seemed to get around, and the arguments lessened. Or so it seemed.

Anyway, I wanted to mention the Japanese 'energy drinks'. Look for a shop that sells the little bottles and cans of vitamin drinks. I was in a tourist court one day and saw a couple of tables where the Japanese tourists were drinking from little thimble-sized cans and bottles. I found the shop where they'd bought them and spent nearly an hour looking around and talking to the shop owner. All kinds of supercharged fruit nectars and such. I talked to the owner for ten minutes and found out what this one and that one was (labels in Japanese), and just as she'd start to lose patience with me, I'd pick out a can of something and put it on the counter. Good for another ten minutes of questions. Really strange assortment I ended up with. Expensive, too.

And the Japanese seem to pickle everything. Everything. Pickled cuttlefish? I never ran across that, but it doesn't surprise me. I remember being in a grocery store and looking at a jar with a label in Japanese, and I asked a passing grocer what was in the jar. I didn't know the Fillipino for 'small onions?', and I was trying to make myself understood when he finally grabbed his crotch. Testicles. Some kind of pickled testicles. Made me wonder what kind of energy drinks I'd had at the tourist court.

Yes...the mystery that is Guam.