Off to Vietnam!

Well, Jason and I are leaving to fly to Vietnam tomorrow morning around 2 am. Ugh. We won't get into Vietnam until about midnight tomorrow. Just so you all know, we are about a day ahead of you here in Palau. I guess we should have told you that when we first got here.

On our current itinerary, we have about a month in Madagascar. We were trying to get some medical missionary work there but have been having a horrible time getting in contact with anyone who can help us. Plus the island is really huge and the internal transportation is really causing issues. So now, we are considering finding another place. We have tossed around ideas of South Africa or Kenya. Does anybody have any suggestions? It has to be on the globe in between Thailand and about Italy. If anybody knows a good place or has suggestions for South Africa or Kenya, or other places, comment and let us know. We are trying to be open to anything. Except Iraq or something. :]

Hopefully we will talk to you again from Vietnam!

Out on the Senator's boat

About a week ago, the same guy who took us out on the boat to go to Jellyfish (who we found out is actually and senator of Koror) lake told us he would take us out again today. He was too busy to go with us so he just arranged to have boat and driver ready for us. We tried inviting some of our new found friends but only Jason and I were able to go. So, at 8:30am we pulled up to the Senator's house and met our driver Gerwin. We thought we were just going to go see some cool islands and go snorkeling so we were excited and floored when the driver said "So, you guys want to go diving right?" Just so you know, the senator used to run a diving outfit so we felt pretty comfortable going out even though he wasn't there. The driver and the senator's househelper took us to a garage/shed type place where they kept a large amount of scuba gear. Jason and I were both able to find gear to fit us so off we went. We decided to go back to German Channel where we saw all the mantas and fish. I was a little hesitant because I wanted to end our experience at German channel with the dive we had last time. I figured we wouldn't be able to replicate it so we shouldn't try. But we decided to go because that is the only one we felt comfortable diving without a guide.

We jump in the water, descend and promptly see 3 sharks. It was a good start to a dive but we decided to dive it how we did last time and hover around 35 ft to look for mantas and schools of fish. Gerwin said that we should just head toward the other bouy that we could see in the distance. Since I was the only one with a compass, Jason gave me a briefing on how to navigate and off we went. The visibility wasn't great and it wasn't soon before I looked down and I saw dusky blue and I looked up and I saw dusky blue. I was leading the way with the compass so I couldn't see Jason either unless I twisted myself around to make sure he was still behind me. I did this quite often which is why I think we we ended up in a totally different spot than we meant to. Actually, I think we were going the right way, the current just carried us a little. Somewhere in the mass of blue, Jason ran into a jellyfish tenacle. This is what it did to his arm.


I first saw his welts underwater and I was terrified at first because I thought he had some scuba disease where the air goes to his skin and makes little bubbles under it. So I was relieved to find out it was just a jellyfish sting. :] Poor Jason, it must have really hurt to make all those welts.
Pretty soon after that, we decided to stop. It was an ok dive none the less.

Next we headed to the Rosegarden where we saw really cool anenome fish and fed the rest of the millions of fish. The coral there is mostly dead though.

Next we headed to an arch that everyone seems to want to take us to. It is a pretty cool arch, granted. When we were done taking our picture in front of it, Jason asked, "Were you ever used to be able to go under the arch in a boat?" He asked because there was a huge boulder sitting under the arch. Gerwin is like "You want to try?" and off we went. Jason was giggling the whole time, in a very manly way. I was looking over the side of the boat, watching the hermit crabs go back into their shells because yes, it was that shallow. Here is a picture of us ON THE OTHER SIDE wow.


Then Gerwin took us to cemetary. We thought that we had been there already. We thought that was the place where I got my clam wound. But it was this little place hidden amoungst the Rock islands. There was tons of beautiful coral and a huge diversity of fish. Here is a picture of me with some fish.


I think that names of the two snorkel spots should be switched. The Rosegarden would be more appropriate a name for the cemetary because at the cemetary, the noral is alive and beautiful and some of it looks like roses. The Rosegarden should be named cemetary because all the coral is dead. Anyway...

Then we went to another snorkel spot called "soft coral garden". It has a lot of beautiful soft coral there. It is in colors like yellow, pink and red. There is also an arch there. This is a picture Jason took after he said "See how far you can make it out of the water Larissa!"


All in all a great day except that I had 5 bouts of the hiccups.

Dive Of A Lifetime

Yesterday we had the opportunity to go out diving again. We headed out to the Peleliu island to check out some of its' dive sites. Apparently, Peleliu is known to be a moody area to dive. Upon questioning our divemaster (Marcel) about it, he told us that any given Peleliu dive can be the best dive of your life, the worst dive of your life, or the last dive of you life. This seemed like awfully good odds to me (Jason), a 1/3 chance to have the dive of a lifetime.
The first dive site was called Yellow Wall, named because of the predominance of yellow coral in the area. It was neither the best, worst, or last dive of my life, but it was a really great experience. We were able to see a few Clown Triggerfish (picture below doesn't do it justice), turtles, and a two new kinds of anenome fish.

Above is a Regal Angelfish. It is common at all of the dive and snorkel sites around Palau.
While we came up completely satisfied with the dive, Marcel didn't think it was all that great. He said that because there was no current, there were not nearly as many fish as there can be.
Then we headed to Peleliu for the other members of the group to take a tour of the island. Since we had already seen the same sights, Marcel offered to take us out on another dive. For this we went out to Peleliu coral garden. This was the most colorful and active coral garden either of us had ever seen. Larissa got to see an octopus, which changed colors several times before it hid in a hole, just after which I arrived to see what all of the excitement was about.
When we returned back to pick up the other divers, Marcel proposed that we leave Peleliu, and dive German Channel for the third dive. He claimed that he had just experimented with a new way to dive the channel that resulted in really close encounters with Giant Mantas. The four of us doing a third dive were all game, so off we went. Marcel's plan was to find a school of fish and stay inside of the school and wait for the Mantas. Sounded fun to us, but not all that realistic.
When we arrived at the channel the waters were calm, and there was a huge school of fish near the surface that we could see from the boat. When we got in the water, we knew we were a part of something very special. Within the first 5 minutes, after seeing a porcupine fish (pictured below) we were surrounded by a school of thousands of Blue-lined Fusiliers.

Soon a few hundred Black Snappers and Humpback Unicorn Fish joined the school. After a couple more minutes, Black Jacks and Giant Trevally started darting through the schools trying to catch the fusiliers. The following picture shows primarily Black Snapper in the foreground (the larger fish), and (look closely) the dark ring that makes up the bottom half of the picture is one big mass of fish, mostly the Fusiliers.


The water was not completely clear, and as we looked closer we could see millions of krill suspended in the water. The fusiliers and snappers were feeding on the krill, and the bigger fish on the smaller fish. The bottom half of this picture shows mostly Black Snapper, and the top shows Fusiliers.Just as we thought the dive could not get any better, four Giant Mantas (various sizes, probably 12-18ft.) came swimming right toward us, they too were there for the krill. They flew within feet of us, then disappeared into the distance. We went back to enjoying the thousands of fish surrounding us. Every couple of minutes for the remaining 45 or so minutes of the dive (we were only at a depth of about 20feet.) the Mantas would come back to see what we were up to. Several times they did flips within arms reach of us. They were truly huge and magnificient. After I took a couple of videos early in the dive the camera heated up and caused condensation to form in the underwater housing, so it got all fogged up. so the pictures weren't all that clear, but hopefully you will get the idea.

This and That

First of all, please note that Larissa has added to the post covering day 4 of our trip to "Cabin Island and Beyond."
Things have slowed down here just a bit over the last couple of days, but we do have a few things to share that may be of interest.
Yesterday, as I made an attempt to enter the bathroom, I noticed something large scurry in front of me and around the corner. I called over to Larissa, not yet knowing what the creature was, "You are going to want to see this." She must have known by the tone of my voice that it probably wasn't actually something that she cared to see. This was demonstrated to me by her reluctance to come near me, and by her repeating the question "What is it?" over and over again while remaining at a distance. It turned out to be a big black spider. When it quit jumping around we took a photograph of it (the pen is for scale), then I captured it. Larissa, the good wife that she is, made me feel like a real man for my efforts.


We have noticed more cockroaches as of late. Two of them we found dying by the front door. We are hoping that this isn't an indicator of some kind of poisonous gas leaking into the apartment. Larissa thought they might just need a drink. So, the first one I put out in the rain, and the second in the sink, but to no avail.
We tried new snorkeling spots both yesterday and today. Today's was disappointing, but yesterdays is worth mentioning. The water was murky yesterday, so when we drifted more than 20 feet apart or so we were out of sight of one another. Early on in our exploration, I noticed numerous large figures moving in front of me. As I frantically considered the types of creatures that may kill or dismember me, I was able to distinguish the forms as eagle rays. As I was completely interested in what I was seeing, I had to find Larissa so that we could enjoy the sight together. So, I took a three second look, then popped my head up. She was fairly near me, but could'nt hear me as a yelled and yelled. By the time I could grab her and return to where I spotted the rays, they were gone. We were both frustrated. Near the end of our snorkel, I spotted something rare, a sea snake. It was about five or six feet long, and looked like a big fat snake you would see on land, but it was snaking through the water. So, I took my three second look, and went up to yell at Larissa. She was closer this time, but by the time I looked back down, the snake was gone. With all of the yelling I was doing, locals on shore were becoming concerned. I looked up, saw a bunch of people investigating our stuff on shore, and became convinced that they were considering stealing it. Turns out they thought someone was drowning or something. Also, as a matter of coincidence, two of the guys on shore turned out to be the same guys that accompanied us out to Cabin Island.
Not all of our entertainment is coming from the great outdoors. We have a little media player that we use to store and view our pictures. Before we left I loaded some movies and TV shows on it. Upon leaving, we had about enough shows/movies to watch about two per week. Well, we watched 2 1/2 just last night. Mostly we have been watching the TV show Lost, the first season. Larissa is particularly addicted, and tries to make plans to watch episodes well in advance. This way she can say "But Jaaaaasssooooon, you promised." I pretend not to want to watch anything in the interest of having some entertaiment left for the last couple of months of the trip. Fortunately we have audiobooks too, but I tend to fall asleep after a couple of chapters, nomatter the book. This frustrates Larissa to no end, as she has a much longer attention span when it comes to books.
We tried a new grocery store for the first time the other day. . . We tried a new grocery store for the LAST time yesterday. We thought we would get some taco shells. They were in the clearance isle since they were near their expiration date. When we were checking out, they came up at the nonsale price. After a short debate in my head over whether to make a stink over 70 cents, I decided "what the heck, I am on vacation, I've got plenty of time." So, I let the cashier know. Fifteen minutes later the supervisor was trying to figure out what to do. Finally, they refunded my credit card. Then I asked whether I could buy the tacos at the sale price. The Supervisor said that I could, but they had to do some paperwork, so I would have to come and pick them up later. WHAT??? Can't you just envision it? "Hello, my name is Jason Hamel, I have some tacos on hold here, may I pick them up?"
Being out in the sun so much, Larissa is getting really tan. I am getting tanner, but the process by which I tan is slower, and more complicated. First, I get red, when you touch me I turn white for a few seconds. Then, the pain sets in, just before some light peeling of skin occurs. After this, I come out with a tan, and a few new freckles. The other day Larissa was asked if she was from India. Worried that people may not readily identify us as a couple anymore, I joked with her saying that while she looks really pretty, she should put on some SPF 100 on or something. "What?" She said, "Just so that I can be ugly?" My interpretation of that comment was "Just so that I can be a cringeworthy pasty white just like you usually are?"
Tomorrow we are diving a couple of the spots around Peleliu. We will let you know how it goes.

The Icebox

Today we rode our bikes to Malakal island, for our third trip to the park known as The Icebox. During the Japanese occupation of Palau, which began in the early 1900s and continued almost through WWII, there was an icemaking plant at the current location of the park. The park provides some convenient access to a nice snorkeling spot. We have had the whole place to ourselves in all of our trips there so far.
There are alot of the colossal clams called Tridacnidae there, which we mentioned in an earlier post, though I (Jason) don't think we knew there exact name yet. Turns out these guys are the largest of all bivalve molluscs. Here is a picture of Larissa saying hello to one of them.


This (above) is about the size of the clam that the boat anchor got caught in (see Jellyfish Lake post).
It seems that the smaller Tridacnidae are, the more colorful they are. Some are very bright blue. When you come near, they close up in a hurry.
Larissa is a gifted snorkeler. I love having her around because she finds so many things that I would have otherwise passed right by. She is particularly good at finding anenome fish, which we both very much enjoy watching. This is a picture of a Red and Black Anenome Fish


We may be going diving tomorrow. We still need to see a hammerhead shark, a whaleshark (unlikely), and a clown triggerfish, which I have designated as my new favorite reef fish, even though I have never seen one.
Just so you can plan ahead, early next Wednesday morning we will start our trip to Vietnam. We predict that blog posts will become shorter and less frequent at that point. We'll see. Take care for now, and thanks for the comments and feedback.

Cabin Island and beyond

The following two posts cover our weekend trip to an outer rock island. We have covered the events by day, two days covered in each post. I (Jason) wrote about the first two days, and Larissa wrote about the last two days. Thanks to those of you who have been posting comments, it is nice to see that people ar reading. We are hoping to reply once in awhile. Please feel free to give us suggestions like "keep it shorter," "need pictures of . . .," "Need more humor," etc.

Day 1 (Thursday)
We met Sherwin (the pastor who took us to see his relatives a week or so ago) this morning and went off to meet the people that were allowing us to use their boat, and stay in their cabin. We met them at their home, which had no walls and a tin roof. This is a typical home in Palau. Tarps are draped from the roof during heavy rains to keep the home dry. Inside and around the home there were 5 or 6 people were sitting around chewing beetlenut. For those of you who are not familiar with beetlenut chewing (as I was not), it goes somewhat like this: Take a beetlenut, split it open with your teeth, put some lime powder on it, wrap it in a leaf, and then chew away. The leaves that are used taste like a spicy mint leaf. This combination, when chewed, turns red. Thus, a naive person assumes that chewers have nasty mouth injuries. The locals have a good time with this, and have made many a visitor very concerned. Unfortunately, chewing beetlenut is not good for one's health, nor one's teeth. Many people around here are without most of their teeth because of continuous chewing. Anyway, we hung around for awhile listening to Sherwin and his friends talk in Palauan. We knew we were part of the conversation, as once in awhile we were pointed at, and other times Sherwin translated for us.
The fact that this family is big on beetlenut chewing is relavent to why they have a cabin on a remote rock island. The lime powder that is used in chewing comes from "cooking coral." On their island, called cabin island, they have a worker that spends his time processing coral to yield a fine lime powder, which is sold around palau for use in chewing beetlenut.
We mentioned earlier that we may be going to the bungalo of a chief. It turns out, that the chief's bungalo is on this same island. When Sherwin contacted the other family to see if we could borrow their boat, they offered for us to stay in their cabin.
So, we loaded up their boat and headed out to the rock islands with a planned spearfishing/snorkeling stop along the way.
Neither of us had ever spearfished before, and didn't really like the idea of killing such beautiful fish. At first, we just got in with the others and watched them spearfish (we were accompanied by 3 others whose names I cannot spell, and whose connection to Sherwin or anyone else would demand a wordy explanation). It didn't take long before both of us were itching to try our hand at shooting fish. We were told that there was to be a fish barbeque that night, and that one way or another some fish would lose there lives for it. That was all the excuse we needed. I tried first. I didn't know if there were any specific species that we were going for, but I chose to go for the drab colored, uninteresting looking fish, thinking that it would be easier on my conscience. When I was handed the gun, I proceded to load the spear as if I knew what I was doing. Sherwin left me alone to my own devices. I was surprised to find out how much strength it took to pull back the bungee, to load the spear. I had a moment of anxiety as I considered that I may need to ask for help. This provided me with an extra burst of strength, and I loaded the gun. I found this easier over time, probably because of improved technique. Anyway, my first few shots were close, but yielded nothing. Then, I speared my first fish. I proudly took my squirming little surgeon fish back to the boat and presented it to the others. They acted excited and made me feel like I had really achieved something. Then Larissa took the gun. Unfortunately, there were no fins around that fit her, so she was not a big threat to the fish. She made 5 or 6 shots, and almost killed a couple of fish before she decided to give up. I could tell that she was disappointed. After I speared for awhile longer, we headed off to Cabin island, in pouring rain.
By the time we got near the island, sky cleared, and we caught our first glimpse of the place that we would be calling home for a few days. It is a beautiful island that is quite flat, and quite small. As we moored the boat, we were impressed with the beauty of the island, and somewhat taken back at the sight of the cabin in which we would be staying. The first picture, showing the beachside part, shows the sleeping quaters on the left, and the kitchen and storage area on the right. In this photo, you can see the rainwater collecting system and the backdoor. To the right there is a solar panel, which is used to charge 12v car batteries used for a cabin light, and a car tape player rigged up with some home speakers. We were shown our bedrood. This is a convenient room as the floor and the bed are one in the same, a plywood platform a few feet off the ground.
While it turned out to be a functional building, it is not much to look at, and did not fit the idealized pictures we had dreamed up. It actually looks a lot like many of the homes in Palau, so I don't really know why we expected any different. Anyway, we were pleased to be in such a pretty place, and happy to get the experience of living in a Palauan cabin.
We were introduced to Leo, a Filipino who is responsible for cooking the coral, and watching over the place. We found him to be friendly and helpful. He showed us the work he had been doing, explained the process of making the lime powder, and introduced us to his pet fruit bats. We had envisioned that the coral was harvested from the reefs around the island. Fortunately, there is no need to even go near the water to get plenty of coral. The island is covered in it, which, as a side note, took a toll on my sandals, which are still functional (barely) but not even close to pretty. Larissa was hinting at my getting a new pair. I will resist as long as possible.
Sherwin took us on a short tour of the island. We walked down a very nice trail, by two other cabins, on our way by the Chief's cabin (which was quite nice and well kept), on our way to the beach. For much of the walk, we could see ocean on either side of us. The beach was pristine, and our spirits were lifted. On our way back we met the curator of the chief's property, we think his name is Aldren, but every time we asked him, or Leo, they said it so fast that we still don't know for sure. He lived in a nice, well-kept area of the island, and had a few roosters on a leash. Both Leo and Aldren, as we came to find out, raise these birds for cock-fighting. When they return to Koror every couple of months or so, they bet a portion of their paychecks on the fights. Leo admitted that when it comes down to a fight between his and Aldren's birds, Adlren's birds come out on top.
Upon our return to our cabin, Sherwin and the others decided to take off so that they could get a little more spearfishing in before going back to Koror.
Larissa, being a very loving wife, immediately started making some food on the kerosine stove. She made Ramen, which we ate, in true island fashion, using leaves as plates. Because of the natural feel of this practice, and the fact that there were few dishes to do afterword, we continued using leaves as our dinnerware for the rest of our stay.
That afternoon we were itching to get out and see more of the island. It was hard not knowing it's shape, or how long it might take to walk around it. So, at as the tide was near it's low, we started a trek around the island. For this first half of the hike, we were mostly on beautiful white sandy beaches. I had a hard time keeping a good pace up, as Larissa was distracted with collecting shells. She had noticed on our ealier walk, that there were many hermit crabs around that, in her estimation, had insufficient homes. She made her mission to find beautiful protective shells to bring to them. Before I knew it I was supporting her endeavor, both hands and pockets filled with shells. Sooner or later, the beach ended, and we were walking on rocks and coral. This was tricky. It was made even trickier by the fact that we were carrying so many shells. Larissa would hear nothing of the suggestion that maybe we should leave some behind. "What about the crabs?" She said.
Larissa found part of a Chambered Nautilus, which aparently is a rare find as they live in deep water. We also came accross many brittle stars, sea stars, and eels. The following picture shows Larissa 's reaction to the first brittle star we found. It took us around 2 hours to get around the island, which was larger than we thought. We barely made it back before dark. It turns out that the part of the island where we could see ocean on both sides was just one small penninsula. Nevertheless, it was a very small island. We settled in that night on our plywood beds, content with our new home.

Day 2 (Friday)
Thursday night was tough on us. It rained all night, and it seemed like we were going to be taken by a Tsunami or a hurricane at any moment. There were a lot of unfamiliar noises, and a lot of bugs that seemed interested in making a home in our sheets. Unfotunately, the weather was not to clear up anytime soon. During the morning hours we sat around reading. Larissa mostly read a magazine called "True Stories" that Leo had sitting around while I read our Vietnam travel book and tried to learn some fish names from our tropical fish book. In the early afternoon we came to the conclusion that we'd better not let the weather decide when to get out and do something. We made an attempt at snorkeling off our home beach. There wasn't a reef there, so we didn't see much besides sea cucumbers. Cold and wet, we returned to the cabin. Feeling a bit defeated, we remained in the cabin for the rest of the day. Leo came over and chatted with us a bit (he graciously yielded his place of residence for us, and moved to a smaller cabin nextdoor). We found out that he had been on the island for over 2 years, and signed a contract for another 2. We were surprised to find out that he is married. His wife has not visited him, or seen a picture of where he is or the work that he does. I offered to email her some pictures, but he was not interested. Unfortunately, I never got a picture of Leo. We are planning to start putting pictures of more of the main people we meet so that it is easier to follow along.
Filipino workers are common around here (Aldren too is Filipino). They come here for a few years and make what is a fortune in the Philipines.
That afternnon we bid farwell to Leo as he went to pay Aldren a visit. This was just before the brunt of the storm hit. We wished he was around as we tried to figure out how to tack down the place. As we tried to go to sleep, rain was blowing in from all directions. I went out in my poncho (which, as it turns out, and I think Larissa will mention later is not actually a rain poncho, but a wind breaker) to let down the tarp walls. This went smoothly, but unfortunately the window nearest the sleeping area was without a tarp. We managed to move our bedding far enough away from the spray to keep from getting soaked. The wind was blowing everything that was not securly fastened, inside and outside the cabin, all around. During the night I heard some rustling over the wind noise, and found that one of the dogs, Mikey, who Larissa had befriended, was eating our bread and had stolen our Ramen. The other dog, Rex, had taken our pasta to Leo's house as we would come to find out. I was angry at the dogs. While making threats that I didn't really mean, but helped compensate for my sense of loss, Larissa assured me that it was okay, the poor things were hungry. Many of you know that Larissa holds dogs in extremely high regard. I understand that dogs always come first.
It is these kind of nights that get me thinking that I, we, could use more gear. I am glad that there is not an REI nearby, I hear they have waterproof sleeping bags. Heck, they might even have waterproof ponchos and portable dog screens.

Cont'd...

Day 3 (Saturday)

That morning on Cabin Island, we woke up with hopeful spirits that this day would not be like the last. After all, it was only sprinkling outside and it had been pouring! We decided to wait for a little bit until it cleared up which it obviously was going to do. We had breakfast, waited, read, waited, trimmed our fingernails and waited some more. Finally, we couldn't take it anymore so we donned our ponchos and headed out. As soon as we walked out the door, that sprinkling that I described before turned into a downpour. "No matter", we thought. "We have these ponchos and pent up energy from our day "inside". Let's keep going anyway."
So off we went. We followed the only road on the island. There is only one car on the island, which belongs to Leo. Incidently, this tiny jeep-like vehicle happens to be broken. So the road isn't really used except as a foot path. And a path for the larger hermit crabs to roam. On the road we came across a handpainted sign that said : "SLOW DOWN Under construction". This was obviously a product of one of Leo's more bored moments :]
Near the sign was a huge fig tree. These aren't your regular fig trees that bear those sweet, tear drop resembling fruits. This tree resembles a banyon tree. I think. Anyway, roots grow off its branches down to the ground and start new trunks. Soon the off-shoots strangle the orginal tree and kills it. I am not sure what happens then. :]
We continued walking down this road, dodging hermit crabs and stepping over sprouting coconuts until we came to the chief's end of the island. The chief of Ngaptang, or something like that owns half of the island and that is where we ended up. WOW! How different it is than our side of the island. All the brambles are taken away and it resembles woods more than anything. Except when you see the white sandy beach surrounding three sides of his land.

He has a very nice enclosed, thatch roofed house in the center of his land and picnic tables galore. Seeing it made us regret the moment when Sherwin said "unless you want me to call that other guy" to see if we could stay there and we turned him down to be polite.
After we toured around that side of the island for a bit, we realized that our ponchos weren't really ponchos but merely windbreakers. We pondered this horror on our long and wet back to our wet and open quarters for lunch. Just as we returned to the shelter, the sun broke through the clouds and everything was beautiful. But since we hardly got any sleep the night before, due to our worry over whether we were going to be blown away in a typhoon our not, we promptly fell asleep. When I was falling asleep, Jason took this beautiful picture from our little hut. Great view eh?
When we awoke 15 minutes later, it was pouring but we decided to eat and go snorkeling down at the other end of the island anyway.
Snorkeling was the best that I have ever experienced!!! WOW. Jason saw a black tip shark. I have never seen him start like that. I just saw it's tail but apparently it was huge and much more firghtening looking than a black tip reef shark that we had been used to seeing. There was a big drop off and then HUGE heads of coral. The fish life was amazing and we saw a lot of fish we hadn't seen before. Unfortuntely, the underwater camera ran out of batteries before I took any good pictures, or before I could hand it to Jason and he could take some good pictures. Sorry. I guess we took too many videos of ourselves spear fishing. If we had known that such good snorkeling existed, right around the corner for our humble abode, we would have risked wind and rain and cold to go at least 5 more times. Alas, our ride was coming in the morning so we couldn't as it was getting lower and lower tide and we still to pass over a whole field of dead incredibly sharp branched coral to get to the beach. We couldn't kick it was so shallow so we very slowly worked our way back to the beach.
That night, there wasn't any rain but I guess all the rain had deprived all the rats of the island, their regular food stuffs because that night, they tried to eat ours. I slept very well that night but I did wake up a couple times and saw Jason with his headlamp on watching the rats scamper over our stuff and occasionally getting up and moving our things to safer places. At one point, I woke up to Jason's movement and then him chuckling and saying "Oh that's great." I innocently asked what was and he answered that he woke up to the sickening realization that a rat was perched on his chest. I was so delirous. I said " No way!" and went back to sleep. I have a very fierce husband who battled the rats all night while his sleepy damsel in distress dozed. Note: I am horribly afraid of rats and I hate them. They illicited more that one screech out of me on the survivor island when I went to find a bathroom. Somehow, I was tired enough to where they didn't particularly bother me. I think they were less scary because their noses weren't as pointy and their ears were more rounded. Funny what makes a difference in perceptions like that. We tried to get a picture but it was dawn and they had just finished scampering about for the night.

Day 4

The next morning we woke up bright and early to go snorkeling in our new favorite spot. We had longer to visit there and we made themost of it. We saw a couple moray eels. We saw several anenome fish but no more sharks! We bought a reef book and were able to identify a lot of them that we didn't know the names of before. Jason really loves our new reef book and likes to get it out and quiz me over fish names. :] I thought I was done with school for awhile! Anyway, we started swimming back when we heard a loud "oioioioi" noise coming from shore. We looked up and saw that our ride had come and was trying to get our attention. Pastor Sherwin had brought the boat and several other people and they were going to take us to Peleliu.
Peleliu is the Southernmost island in Palau and is said to be the most famous. It is famous around the world for a big reason. In world war II, the Americans fought the Japanese in one of the bloodiest battles ever! I vaguely remember watching a history channel documentary about the battles that went on around the island and how it was so horrible because of all the caves from which the Japanese shot at the Allied forces. The Allied forces also couldn't just drive their boats up onto the island becuase the whole island chain is prtocted by a huge reef. So the boats landed on the far end of the reef and the solidiers had to wade onto shore while the Japanese were shooting them from hidden caves.

Well, I was going to tell you all about our day in Peleliu but since the computer just froze and I lost everything that I wrote for the last HOUR, I will leave you with some pictures that mean nothing to you. Ta ta!

OK, I am going to tell you some short summaries so you can understand the pictures. Below is the woman who borrowed a truck from her brother so we could tour around Peleliu in the back. If you don't have x-ray vision you won't be able to see that her hat says Camp Au Sable. This is the camp where Jason spent many happy summers. And yes, she has actually been there! We met this woman's mom as well. She is old enough to remember what the Japanese occupation was like. The Japanese occupied Palau starting in 1914 until the Allied forces freed them in the early 1940's. I guess they were still occupied by the American's but her mom said that the Japanese treated them like slaves and made them march around and work in work camps. She said when the Americans came along they were free and peaceful. Side note: Japan is giving tons of money to Palau nowadays. They are paying for many new roads and other community projects. America has funded some as well but not as much as the Japanese.

The picture below is of a big hole that everyone jumped into. Except me because I didn't have my swimsuit. Apparently, an American solidier saw some water coming out of the ground and put a bomb down there and then there was a big swimming hole! ha. But the water is salty. It seeps in through a nearby reef and rises and falls with the tides. I would post a picture of Jason jumping in but they all turned out blurry.


The picture below is the view from a place called bloody nose ridge. The legend goes that the Americans were wading up the reef in the distance when they started getting mowed down by bullets. They thought that the whole mountainside must be comvered with solidiers because so many people were getting hit. When they finally mad e it up to the top of the mountain, they saw a lone machine gunman and shot him. When he fell, his helmet came off too, to expose long, beautiful black hair. It was a woman! She had stolen a machine gun from the Americans and had hiked up the mountain (quite a hike too, and we had stairs) and shot tons of solidiers coming up the beach. Some say she had a baby strapped to her back and a samurai sword at ther side. Other say they hadn't heard about the baby or sword so who knows what is true. :]


This is the view from where we were sitting in the back of the truck. The lady up above bought us some tama at a local market. Tama are deliscious. These were banana tama and taste like balls of banana bread. Jason ate a million of them. That is what you can see people holding in their hands and eating in this next picture. We asked the pastor (making the L with his fingers) if he had the recipe and he said sure, that his wife made them all the time. We asked her later and she said she had never made them in her life. She always buys them from the store. Ha.
Well, I hope that makes these pictures more enjoyable. Thank you for commenting! It helps us see who is reading our posts!

We're Off

Today we are getting ready for tomorrow's trip back out to the rock islands. We are going to be dropped off on a private island near Peleliu, an island of historical significance due to the bloody battles that took place there between the Japanese and Americans during WWII. Tomorrow we plan on snorkeling and spearfishing at a couple of spots on our way out to the island, where we will spend 3 nights before we take a tour of Peleliu on Sunday.
Before we leave; however, I'd like to mention a few things in regard to previous posts. Fist off, I tossed an turned last night because of my neglect to mention one of the most significant sights of yesterday. On our second dive, we were fortunate enough to see, according to National Geographic, the largest coral on earth. They call it the apartment. It is truly magnificent, and is the size of an average American home. We were all the more impressed when we found out that this particular coral species is one of the slowest growing on earth. It grows at a rate of only one millimeter per year. I don't have a good picture of it, so I put in a picture of a shark that was roaming nearby.
Secondly, I wanted to pass on a note in regard to the generosity of the Survivor producers. Due to their donation of various tables and pieces of furniture no longer needed following filming, there is now a furnished and functional youth room in the basement of the church.
Thirdly, I wanted to be sure that our readers are familiar with with what we mean by "rock islands." Palau is composed of over 200 islands, most of them referred to as rock islands. The rock islands are composed primarily of limestone, and have a profile that often resembles the island pictured below.

The mushroom shape is the result of erosion and the activity of limestone-digesting marine organisms. The most famous of the rock islands are known as the seventy islands, which is a group of protected islands whose beauty is best captured by aerial photographs. Good thing, because without a special permit, it is illegal to be within 2 miles of them. This is all the closer we have been.
Note, the reason that this photo is so much prettier than all of the others found on this blog is because we did not take it.
Lastly, we would like to give an update in regard to our resident cockroach here at the guesthouse. After complaining about cockroaches in Guam, we were advised to take a more lighthearted approach to these cute little guys. Actually, until yesterday we had not seen our cockroach since our arrival in Palau. Yesterday we caught him returning to what we assume is now his cush residence, our toiletry bag. There, with only slight hesitation, we left him. I will see if we can get a photograph of him for everyone to enjoy.

Surviving on Ulong

The last few days we have been living on the cheap. Today we rewarded ourselves by going diving for the day. We rode our bikes a few miles early this morning to the dive shop, where we were told that we would be going to Ulong. "Oh, sounds great," we said, neither of us having any idea what this ooolong place was. On our boat ride out, we learned that Ulong is one of the eastern rock islands, which has four very good dive sites surrounding it. Also, interestingly enough, Ulong is the Survivor island. You know, the place where one of the Survivor TV shows was filmed. More about Ulong, which is now often just referred to as the "Survivor Island" later.
The first dive site we were taken to is called Siaes Tunnel. The main feature of this site is a giant cavern that starts at about 70 feet. When we entered the cavern, it looked almost black. Just about the time this dive site started to feel like a rather bad idea, our eyes adjusted, and began to behold some true beauty. There was light at the end of the tunnel, and several "windows" along the way. By the time we were most of the way through the tunnel, we were at around 115 ft. and were met at the end by a good sized shark. The rest of the dive was particularly enjoyable because of the colorful and unique coral.
After a long surface interval, it was off to Ulong island for a lunch break. This is an incredible place. As we walked along the beach, chilled in the shade, scouted out coconuts and bananas, we agreed that this would not be a bad place to survive for awhile. Ulong is actually a state park, complete with a few picnic tables and an out-house, which were removed during the filming of the show.Above is a picuture of us standing on part of the Ulong beach. Just behind us is where one of the survivor camps were.
Our lunch consisted of pringles, donuts, vienna fingers, and a can of pears. We were rather disappointed in ourselves for this. It was also sort of embarassing, given the fact that we were given a discount for being SDA, but our actions were not exactly preaching the health message.
I (Jason) was given advice before we left that it was good to be frugal, but that it is my honeymoon, and I need to splurge once in awhile. Larissa has noticed that I have been taking this advice, but honestly I think it has gotten out of hand. We are like kids with an unlimited candy budget. For the past four days, we have visited the donut shop at least once per day. Larissa says she likes me this way, says I seem more human. I am not quite sure how to take that.
Anyway, back to the events of today. Our second dive site is called Ulong channel. We waited until afternoon to dive there, because we wanted to dive during incoming tide. This dive site consists of a long channel, about 40 feet wide in most places. It is particularly entertaining during incoming tide because of the fact that the current will glide you through the tunnel, while you just have to focus on steering, and swimming upstream once in awhile when something particularly interesting wizzes by. We found this to be a really fun way to dive, but also found it frustrating in that things did, in fact, wiz by quite quickly. Wow, Shark, turtle, oh eel, no over there, school of. . .
I am experimenting with underwater photography. As long as I claim to be experimenting, I cannot be expected to produce quality results. This is good, fish never seem to smile and look at the camera at the right moment, and they, and everyghing else, looks blue in the photos. I did try one minivideo today, which I thought turned out well. It is of a couple of anenome fish in there anenome. Maybe we can figure out a way to post it here.
Remember the avacados that we got a few days ago? Seemed like they were never going to ripen. Fortunately they have ripened, unfortunately, they have riped all at the same time. Luckily we are good at integrating avacados into just about anything. Larissa made dinner tonight, rice with avacado chunks on top, and steamed carrots on the side. We did not clean up after dinner, had to get over to the computer lab to make a blog entry.

Changes Around Here

As we have been writing this blog, we have found it cumbersome to write in the third person. Our intent was to disguise the author of each section, or to make it read as if both of us had equal input into the writing of each section. This has turned out not to be worth it. So, from now on, we are going to write in first person. No more Jason and Larissa, but Larissa and I, etc. You get the idea.
The other thing that we'd like to mention is that sometimes we get to writing about events out of order, so posts may appear that are previous to those that are most current by date. We don't want you to miss any, so look back once in awhile to see if there is something new.
Thanks for looking, and let us know that you are visiting by posting a comment or two.

Jellyfish Lake

We were fortunate enough to be invited out to the rock islands by a local business family which is involved in the church. This is the family that owns the major grocery store on the island, which offers vegetarian selections from Loma Linda, Morningstar, and others. They also own the major road construction company if we understand it right. Therefore, there is no road construction happening on Saturdays.
The man is a native Palauan, and he is married to an American. He started his business success on Palau with a dive operation. Therefore, he knows the waters of Palau.
The pastor of the Koror church, who arranged this outing, and his family also joined us.
On the way out to our first main stop, we stopped by a natural arch in one of the rock islands. This is one of the postcard landmarks of Palau.
First we went to a private beach where we had lunch, took some photos, and played with what most of us guessed was a monitor lizard.
Then we went off to Jellyfish lake, which was predicted to be the highlight of the trip. Jellyfish lake is one of many marine lakes within the rock islands of Palau. It is unique because it has a very high population of Jellyfish that have lost there need and ability to sting. This makes them nice swimming companions. Snorkel gear is all that is needed. Fins are not allowed. The jellyfish migrate to the most sunny part of the lake, as they depend on a symbiotic relationship with a photosynthetic organism. The swim to the main jellyfish concentration took 5-10 minutes. Along the way we encountered some stragglers. These guys are very fragile. Both of us killed a few with misplaced swimming strokes. That is why fins are not allowed. Eventually we got to the jellyfish population center. Amazing and eerie! The lake is very deep, and not very clear, so all you can see is jellyfish fading into a dark abyss. Jason took this photo of Larissa by sinking down a ways and then shooting up. You cannot help but rub up against these guys as you swim along. As we got into the midst of a lot of them, we just used our arms to swim. This is a truly unique and sureal experience that is highly reccomended. Jellyfish lake was indeed the highlight of the trip.
We also got to visit a place called the rose garden, a snorkeling spot with clouds of fish. Some of us just stayed on the boat and watched the fish rather than get wet. Then we went to a spot called the cemetary. We assume it is given this name due to the large population (dead and alive) of giant clams that reside here. These clams, the largest in the world, get over 500 lbs. By chance, our anchor landed slightly on one of these clams, in about 20 feet of water. The clam then closed around part of the anchor. We spent most of our time at this spot trying to dislodge the anchor (which was not heavy enough to kill the the clam) from the clam. The plan that worked was to have two people try to open the clam while the other took out the anchor. We are not sure why this worked, because the clam is stronger than we are, but it did, and for that we are glad. These clams are incredible, and not actually all that boring. They have bright and variable colored soft parts, and open and close enough to be fairly entertaining. After we dislodged the anchor from the clam, Larissa was concerned that it had been moved on top of two other clams. So, she set out to move it back to its original location. This clam was probably around 150 lbs. but light enough to budge underwater. As she went down to move it, it closed, which startled her. The shell of the clam was apparently sharp, as she sustained a wound to her finger. Luckily, our host was quick to fix the situation by cutting a piece of his T-shirt and wrapping it around the bleeding (but small) wound. Larissa did move the clam, but it rolled back to its position atop the others.
Our last stop was eventful in that we saw about ten black tip sharks and a sea turtle.
We Are excited about the coming week, and hope to keep you posted on its events. We plan to go diving on Tuesday. Also, the chief of one of the states of Babeldaob, the largest island of Palau has invited us to stay at his personal bungalo on a private island. We plan to take a boat there with another pastor from the church next Thursday. Cross your fingers that this will work out, as it has a whole lot of fun potential.
On a different note, some of you have been wondering what we have been eating. Our staples are rice, pasta, potatoes, and pizza. It is odd to have a kitchen supplied with only the foods that we like. Larissa asked this evening, Jason, what should we eat tonight? He replied, It doesn't really matter, we like everything that is in the kitchen. Larissa made pasta, peas, and steamed carrots. We have eaten out twice, once at a very good indian place called the Taj, and another time at the Rock Island Cafe, where we ate pizza. We are well fed here, but we need to watch our food budget a little more.

A Relative Experience

Today we got off to a late start. We left the house on three separate occasions always unsuccessful in actually walking more than 50 feet away. The last time we went back to the house, we had forgotten sunscreen. We were both a little annoyed since the third time was not the charm but by the end of the day, we were very glad for our scatterbrainedness! As we were walking up to the house, the neighbor, who is also an Adventist pastor here, pulled into the driveway and asked if we wanted to go to the capital with him. It was his day off and he wanted to drop something off at his mother's house. Up for adventure and realizing that if it was up to us it seems that we would never get out of the house, we agreed. Off we went to the big island. Here is a map of the Palau islands. It is pretty obvious which is the big island, no?

So we headed up the east side of the island. We visited the Adventist academy and and then headed up to the new capital building. And wow. The pastor was telling us how it looked just like the white house, but he wasn't kidding! Actually, it looks a lot like our capital building but I can understand the confusion. It was weird because you are driving past all these rainforests and no civilization and then standing there in the middle of it all is a big white building on a hill. We drove around and took some pictures of the building (we have never been to our capital building so we figured why not?) Then we headed off to the new capital city. It has been a city for a long time, just not the capital. It really isn't a city. It is more like a stretch of beach with a few houses on it. But there was construction going on everywhere and the pastor said that it is changing every week. He said that he was going to visit some re-lay-tives (that is how he pronounced it). The first relative was an uncle of his. The uncle and his wife loaded us down with freshly picked papayas and bananas. Neither of like papaya (we tried, promise), but the bananas are all gone now. And they gave like 3 bunches. Anyway, next, we stopped at his mother's. His mother has a nice new house. It was just finished this summer and it very modern and pretty looking. I went around the back and was surprised to see the kitchen outside. The shower and bathroom were also separate little houses outside. The bathroom was the cleanest, prettiest little booth! It is interesting how islanders build houses differently.
The pastor then took us up a stone pathway that led up the hill to the back of the house. It took us up through taro fields and between mango trees. Under such a tree, we found a couple very pretty red dragonflies. The pastor then showed us an amazing trick! He taught us how to catch the dragonflies. You sneak up behind them and twirl your index finger in a circular motion. Their eyes follow you and soon they get so dizzy that they are incapable of moving. You then grab them by the tail! Pretty ingenious eh?

Up the pathway, was where the native Palauians used to live. They used to live up on the hills but then they moved down to the beach to be closer to supply ships and fishing. We began to pass foundations of ancient houses! They were tucked in amongst the "spirit tress" (they call them) and palms. The pastor explained that the Palauians who are still under customs, bury their dead at their family ruins. He showed us the ruins of his ancestor's house and his grandfather's grave.We walked back down to his mother's house and found that they had harvested a plethora of avocados from their tree for us! Oh my. Jason and Larissa both love avocados. Unfortunately none of them were ripe. But they ripened fast and we had one for breakfast this morning! They also harvested a couple coconuts for us as well as a bunch of star fruit. We were loaded down with succulant goodness! Then to top it all off they hit some mangoes off of a tree for us. Those aren't ripe either but we are waiting excitedly. About the time that the pastor opened a coconut for us to drink, a friend of his came walking up. His name is Clayton and he is quite the character. He sat down on the stone path next to us and began to talk. Here is a picture of him telling us all about his ancestors:We had a hard time understanding him since his four front teeth were missing (from chewing beetlenut?) and he had an accent. He told us to tell all our friends back in the states to come here to Palau. "We have enough food for them all!" He then said, "I am a free man! I go out, fish, take only what I need, eat from my trees and I am free!" He promised to take us fishing before we leave. Fishing on his raft and everything!
Before we left Larissa mentioned liking sugar cane. The pastor said he thinks that his auntie had some. So off we went to the other side of the island. It was a long drive but he gave us like 5 canes. We have been chewing sugar ever since. Jason had never had sugar cane before but quickly got used to the texture and flavor.
Jason and Larissa agree that today was pretty much the best day they have had since coming to this island. Combine the local fruit and people with sightseeing and riding in a car and we had ourselves a winner. We wish we could tell you more eloquently how cool this day was unfortunately, we aren't that good with words.

Exploration

We have been given a simplified map of the islands of Palau. Upon studying this map, Jason noticed that there were still some main roads on our island, the island of Koror, that we still have not explored. This was of immediate concern to both Jason and Larissa, but for different reasons. Jason felt the immediate urge to go explore the unseen, while Larissa thought of ways to make the day more like a vacation. Jason assured Larissa that the exploration of the unseen areas would involve only a short leisurly bikeride. So, off we went, with a can of pringles and one bottle of water. Shortly into our ride we found ourselves a bit overheated and hungry, so we stopped by a local airconditioned bakery. There we bought some fresh Abrabangs (which resemble filled donuts), which were completely unfamiliar to us. They tasted fine, but we both agreed that we could not enjoy them completely until we knew what the brown filling with the unusual texture was. We found out later that the filling was composed mostly of sweet beans. Odd for a donut.
We continued riding. We found a road that led to the Northwest corner of the island. Out in what seemed like the middle of nowhere, we found the U.S. Embassy situated on a nice cove. There we watched people fish (pictured below), drank all of our water and ate all of our food.
Feeling thirst on our way back up the hill, we stopped at the embassy to have them fill our water bottle. It was a bit of an ordeal to go through security complete with a metal detector and ID check so that the guard could take our bottle in to get it filled, but afterwards we were glad we went through the hassle.
So we again continued riding. While Larissa likes exlploring, she thought back to the promises of a leisurly day, and compared them with the present activity of climbing a long hill in the hot sun. As we struggled up the hill, Jason thought he would offer some encouragment: "Come on Larissa, let's go. . . Go! Go! Go!" Slightly annoyed by this, Larissa reminded him that "this is a honeymoon, not boot camp."
A short while later we found an old stone walkway with a sign that indicated that it led to a canoe pier. It turned out to be an interesting hike through a village, and then through mangroves, and finally on to the ocean. This picture shows part of this trail.

Today

We were lucky enough to go diving in Palau. For those of you who don't know, Palau is considered to be basically the best place to go diving in the world. That is why we were lucky. We went on 3, 50 minutes dives. The first one was a huge reef wall called Blue Corner. The wall went so far down into the blue, we couldn't see where it ended. That was a little disconcerting. We also saw so many sharks, we lost count! It actually isn't that scary to see them. They were all pretty little. At least littler than I (larissa) imagined them to be. It seemed like if they did bite you, they couldn't fit their teeth around more than my foot. At the top of the wall there was an incredibly strong current. So since we wanted to watch the sharks and other big schools of fish without holding onto coral the whole time, we used current hooks. These little devices were invented here on Palau probably because three major ocean currents converge onto Palau. Anyway, the hook is basically a hook (imagine that) that is attached by a couple feet of cord to your vest. You then take the hook and anchor it to some dead coral. Then you just sit back and watch all the action without worrying about wether or not you are gong to be swept away. While we were hooked down, we saw about 7 sharks, a school of jack, a turtle, and countless other fish. We even saw some clown fish hanging out with their anenome.

The second dive, we went into a hole. It is called the Virgin Blue Hole. It goes straight down so if you look up, you can see the divers above you sillohetted against the backdrop of the sun shining through the water. At first it felt like you were descending into a big black hole. We found that if you just stared at the wall as you were going down it wasn't so bad. At the bottom of the hole, we were about 106 feet under the surface. When we came out of the hole, there was about 4 sharks just sitting there in the sand. We watched them for awhile until they got spooked and went away. Then we followed the reef until we ran out of air.

The third dive was called the german channel. There we got to see a Manta Ray! It was big and beautiful and it flew over us so gracefully! We also saw a lot of clown fish and they were so cool! They are Jason's favorite fish now. They really like to rub the sides of their bodies on their anenomes. :] Here we saw a lot of sea cucumbers. They were HUGE! One we saw looked like an underwater catepillar. It was kind of lumbering along in the same manner. We also saw some Lion fish. You know the ones that have all those big beautiful spines everywhere?

Pictures are up and working now so be sure to go back and check old posts to see the pics.

Fishing and snorkeling under a bridge!

Today was our first day on Palau! Everything is great! We decided to walk to a bridge that we drove over on the way from the airport. We got a little more than we bargained for! It was a few miles on a winding road in the hot sun. As we walked, several cars slowed down and honked at us, motioning us to get in the car. We were a little hesitant as you can imagine. We thought perhaps there is an unofficial taxi service here and we would have ot pay once we got in. Anyway, we finally got to the bridge and just about then realized that we had forgotten to put sunscreen on. Jason decided to find a shady spot to take pictures and observe the happenings while I snorkeled. Here is me coming back from snorkeling:














It is spawning season around here and all the fish are a little territorial. I didn't know this when I got in the water. There was a cute little pink fish that got really close to me and was just staring. I was happy to observe him so close and I thought him curious. Then he charged me! I screamed through my snorkel and stood up in the water. I felt a little silly so I got back in. :] There he was again and this time when he charged, he actually bit me! His mouth was so tiny that it didn't do any damage but it was startling none the less. Everytime we go snorkeling now we steer clear of those little guys!
It started to rain so we huddled under the bridge to keep dry. It was a pretty cool tropical storm and only lasted a little while. We remarked how we never thought that we would be huddling under a bridge during our honeymoon!













After it stopped raining, we went and sat next to a little girl who was fishing. You could look down into the water and see all the fish fighting over the bait until the hook was stripped. There was a couple bigger fish that kept coming around and the little girl was shooting for a bite from them. Finally she got a big one on the hook and promptly shouted for her dad to reel it in:
On the walk back from the bridge, another person stopped and asked us if we wanted a ride. He had a pick up truck and we were tired so we decided to go for it. It turns out he recognized us from the plane the night before. The ride back was great! Really breezy and nice. The pastor and his wife here are letting us use their bikes so we don't have to worry about walking everywhere now. Those bikes are now indespensible!

Aloha Oi

First layover: Honolulu, Hawaii. We had just one night here but we spent it wonderfully! Jason has a cousin who lives here and is a pharmacist in the army. He and his family let us crash at their cozy bungalo for the night. They have 3 children. They were all adorably outgoing when they discovered us there in the morning. The eldest immediately recruited Jason to play. We had a wonderful breakfast and then it was off to the airport!

Next was a 9 hour long ride to Japan. It wasn't that bad of a flight though. We were in a comfortable plane and Continental Airlines is still very service oriented. We didn't order vegetarian meals so we were worried about eating. The flight attendant told us that they had all made it their personal mission to find things for us to eat. They kept bringing us random food items. We even got a delicious fruit plate that they stole from first class. Neither of us had ever been to Japan so even though our layover was only 1 hour, we made the most of it by people watching and buying a kind of candy we had never eaten before. The candy turned out to be great! We would tell you the name but it was written in Japanese characters.

We had a night in Guam that was quite intersting. We were really tired when we got in at 1 am so Jason called the cheapest hotel and they picked us up at the airport. We were ready to plop right into bed, until we saw the bed that is. Not only did it have dirty, hairy sheets, but there was a cockroach living on the dust ruffle. Luckily Jason's best man, Adam, works at REI and got us some sweet deals on travel sheets. So we slept in our own clean sheets on top of the dirty ones.

The rest of the day we hauled around our baggage to a mall, a scenic overlook (called two lovers point), and a movie until we were finally able to leave on the plane to Palau about 8:00pm. Here is a picture of Larissa at Two Lover's Point:


We stopped over in Yap, a tiny little island, but only for a few minutes for the security to search the plane while we grabbed our stuff and waited outside. The landing strip at the airport had just fractured so the pilot had to turn off the enginges right as we landed so gravel wouldn't get sucked up into our engines. We were towed to the teeniest airport we have ever seen. It was about 2 rooms big and open air except bars like in a prison cell.

We were then off to Palau and a very nice Pastor and student missionary met us with shell lei's and smiles. Our apartment here is awesome. It is the guest house for the Seventh Day adventist church. He get to stay here for about 3 weeks and during that time, we have a two story, three bedroom, one and half bath house all to ourselves. It is a little old and musty (Larissa spent a couple hours scrubbing things when we first got there) but perfectly perfect! We have our own kitchen and have enjoyed running down to the store a couple blocks away to get little food items that we need. Surprisingly, this store has almost anything you could ever need! We even found Big Franks and Postum!! Today we bought some artichokes. We also have our own washer and dryer. Which has been using a lot since it is so humid here that all we do is sweat all day.

Hopefully soon we will be able to post pictures on here so you guys can have eye witness of everything we are talking about.