Hafa Adai and hello friends! Welcome to the island of Guam, America's paradise island in the Pacific! Today the beans take you to check out an official American teritory deep in the western Pacific Ocean.

The native inhabitants of Guam are the Chamorro, and the name "Guam" comes from the ancient Chamorro word "Guahan", meaning "we have". (So to really impress your friends, be sure to sing, "Yes, guahan no bananas.")

Guam is about 212 square miles in size, and about 153,000 people live on the island, along with several hundred thousand tourists (and one very lucky can of you-know-whats) who pop in for a week or two each year.

Like it or not, Guam has had a "big brother" of sorts for over 400 years, courtesy of occupation from Spain, Japan and America. Ferdinand Magellan's arrival in Guam in 1521 began Spain's reign which lasted until 1898, when America claimed the island as part of the prizes in the Spanish-American War. (The Spanish got a case of Rice a Roni and some Turtle Wax.) When Japanese invasion forces stormed Guam in Dec 8, 1941, Guam became the only populated territory in the U.S. to endure foreign occupation. On July 21, 1944, America recaptured Guam and reestablished the naval government.

Today, Guam is an official U.S. territory, which means that the U.S. dollar is used here, and Guamanians are technically U.S. citizens, but cannot vote in U.S. elections. This is actually a good thing, if they can escape the whole "butterfly ballot" fiasco and still enjoy all-American black beans!

Next up, the beans dropped by the War in the Pacific National Historical Park, which is loaded with WWII artifacts and reminders of one of the heaviest aerial and naval bombardments during the war as the U.S. struggled to regain the territories captured by the Japanese. The islands have concrete tunnels, gun encasements, pillboxes, caves, and plenty of other not-so-subtle reminders of the mess that these beaches saw back in the 1940's.

Here, the beans stop in to check out an old WWII bunker. On July 21, 1944, known locally as Liberation Day, American forces landed on Guam. Three weeks and hundreds of dead soldiers later, the island was declared safe and once again under American rule.

The beans were glad that they had an opportunity to see the memorials for themselves, and once again hope that we never have to go through that again.

But since the days of world wars are now (hopefully) way behind us, Guam has become better known as of late for its tourism opportunities instead of battle strategies. Guam is now home to fancy hotels, gold courses, hoi-palloi shopping, a Hard Rock Cafe (of course), and some really killer sunsets.

Here, the beans stop to check out the view, along with their new friend Jeff. The beans thought about asking Jeff if he wanted to re-enact the movie "Castaway" while on the beach, but since that meant they'd have to be called "Wilson", our brave frijoles decided to just skip the whole thing and simply enjoy the view.

But for those of you into suba diving, there are five galleon shipwrecks below the waters around Guam, including the "Neustra Senora del Pilar", which is rumored to be one of the 10 richest shipwrecks in the world. (But alas, there's no James Cameron movie...yet.) So grab your snorkel and see if you too can score some sunken treaure.

The beans had a great time in Guam, and found it difficult to leave with their pockets loaded down with "pieces of eight".