So the down side of the apartment, and the reason it's so inexpensive, is the neighborhood. It's just a couple hundred yards off a major road right behind two major stores. On top of that, it's above one video poker joint and next to another. Getting into the car this morning was the first time I've encountered a beggar in Saipan. Actually, at first he tried to give me a religious blessing to make me feel good and then sell me a CD of porn. Nice combination. When I rebuffed him on that, he just asked for money.

After lunch today, I went for a bike ride with Kimiko. I know her from the Hash. She's a pretty hard-core triathlete. We did about 1.5 hours and enough of the course to reinforce to me that I have a lot of training to do in the next two weeks. Even if I have to walk the bike up a couple of climbs, though, I'm doing at least 50k and I'm still hopeful for the 100k.

Tonight, since the big boss (Mr. Jun) is away, the Mr. Hams are having an October birthday BBQ. They specifically invited me, as well. Suka's western birthday is October 9, so she's officially 27 by our counting now. We were going to have dinner with Dave and family, but since it's her birthday and her boss's invitation, the work party will trump it.

Oh, and by the way, I was very specific on the map pin location for Saipan for this trip. If you zoom it, I put it right on top of our actual room in our apartment building.