Image Courtesy of Pacific Daily News

After spending some time at the beach today, I decided to take a break from sightseeing under the burning tropical sun to catch up on some much needed posts. I think my sun-burnt body will thank me for spending some time under a roof and out of harms way from all those UV rays. The amount of photos sitting on my hard drive waiting to be published on the blog is overwhelming and I’m going to try to get as much of them posted as I can today, but first here’s a current events story from Guam I came across while reading the paper today; something I think you’ll all enjoy (especially the male readers).

Well, after seven years of being on hiatus the Miss Guam Universe Pageant is returning to Guam this year. Fifteen of Guam’s most beautiful local ladies will start competing today for the title of Miss Guam. The winner of the Miss Guam Pageant will go on to compete in the Miss Universe Pageant and win a $5,000 cash prize, as well as some other perks. Go Miss Guam!

The heated Democratic Presidential race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama has been big news on the island of Guam the past few days. The close race has made the island of Guam the center of attention in Washington today as Guam Democrats vote in its presidential caucuses - an event which usually went unnoticed. History was actually made in Guam this year when Barack Obama’s campaign opened a Guam office in the village of Hagatna in early April. No other presidential candidate has ever made this type of commitment in the history of Guam. In addition to this, the radio and television stations on Guam have been consistently playing advertisements from both candidates over the last couple days. A few days ago Barack Obama even called in to one of the local radio stations as a guest which surprised a lot of people on the island.

I think it’s great that I’m on the island while such historic events are taking place on Guam. From what I have experienced, it seems like the Obama campaign spent a lot more money to win support in Guam. Pretty much every advertising channel on the island was touched by the Obama campaign. Obama had advertisements consistently running all over television and radio, pamphlets inserted into Guam’s major newspaper, and Internet ads plastered all over the biggest news website for the island, www.guampdn.com. The only advertisements I experienced from the Clinton campaign were television ads, and the frequency of the ads were very minimal. I think this was due to the fact that it has been mentioned the Clinton campaign is strapped on cash. I’m really interested to see who will win the votes from Guam’s superdelegates.

I’m not trying to turn this travel blog into a political one, but I think it was important to mention because this is such big news on Guam right now. The fact that both candidates are paying so much attention to Guam to win over votes from Guam’s super delegates shows just how close the Democratic race is for President.

At the beginning of every month I’ll be making a post about the income (or loss) generated from Traveling Project for the previous month, and then updating the totals on the “Project Income” page so readers who are interested in the project’s success can follow it. I’m sure there will be times when I’m out traveling, and the location won’t have any Internet access; if this is the case I’ll do my best to post the report as soon as I get online access. Now, on to the April 2008 report:

Total Income for April 2008: -$292.23

Due to this project being started in April, I expected it to produce a loss instead of income just like any other business venture does in the first few months or even years it is started. Most of the expenses came from advertising I purchased to promote Traveling Project, which I think will prove valuable in the future and be a great return on investment as the project continues to grow. Here’s the breakdown of income and expenses:

Total Income: $0.27
Google Adsense Income: $0.15
Private Ad Sales: $0.00
Affiliate Commissions: $0.00
Kontera: $0.12

Total Expenses: $292.50
Web Design Expense: $15.00
Advertising Expense: $152.50
Donations: $125.00

I expect the project to generate a loss for the next couple months as I continue to aggressively spend on advertising.

I had a chance to do some sightseeing in the village of Hagatna, and while at Fort Santa Agueda I took some great photos overlooking Hagatna. In the left image you can see the village of Hagatna, Chamorro Village, Paseo Stadium and park - all in the foreground in front of the water. The village of Hagatna is the main business district on the island and is the location of the majority of local business offices and government agencies on Guam. During the weekdays the village is extremely busy, but on the weekends it turns into a ghost town because everything is closed in the area. Chamorro Village, the group of buildings with red-colored rooftops in the right-center of the picture, really isn’t a village but a group of small buildings with local merchants selling Chamorro arts, crafts, clothing, and local food. It’s another great destination for tourists to visit while on Guam. It’s hard to see the actual baseball field at Paseo Stadium in the picture, but just behind Chamorro Village you can see the large baseball field lights that illuminate the field on the weekends when teams from Guam’s baseball league are playing a game.

The photo on the right shows the Hagatna Boat Basin where local fishermen and tour companies dock their boats when not in use. You can also see the entrance to the boat basin which is a popular surfing and bodyboarding spot for the locals. Just watch out for the boats entering and exiting the channel!