Palau - Getting there.

This month, I went to our station in Palau for the first time. I posted a bunch of photos when I got back, but photos while they may be worth a thousand words, sometimes need some explanation. So please, allow me to walk you through my photos. Let me start with the location of Palau.

Palau is on the other side of the Pacific. I had never crossed the international date line before, and I was excited about "time traveling" across it! I took 3 flights: Kona - Honolulu, Honolulu - Guam, and Guam - Koror, Palau.

First leg of the trip, the Kona to Honolulu flight was uneventful. We had a few hours in Honolulu and our gate was all the way down at the end of the terminal. This part of HNL is very 70s. Upstairs above my gate, was a wonderland of space. I went up there with my coworker and we enjoyed being able to stretch, before the long flight to Guam.

Look at all that glorious space! I am a nervous traveler (although not as much as my graduate adviser) so I never like to leave my bags for more than a second, and I pack all my personal things for work trips in my carry ons. That means I have heavy bags I lug all over these airports, and it was nice to have space to put my bag down and walk around and still be in eye shot.

Look at that very 70s lamp! I think only three of the bulbs were actually working. We sat next to that window for a while and watched the plane roll up.

Our travel group included our lab director (The Boss) my co-worker (senior engineer), and myself, one of the new data analysts. I was very exited to be leaving Hawaii, and visit Palau. I had been hearing a lot about Palau having a very different cultural outlook then say, South America, and I was excited to experience this first hand. The guys at the lab told me Palau was a Matriarchal Tribal Society. I wasn't sure how true to the anthropological definitions that was, but I was excited to work somewhere not full of "Machismo." (it gets old)

I also hate long flights, so I was happy when it turned out that I got my own row! I got to stretch out and watch the movie (The Artist! I loved it!)

We were delayed getting to Guam due to a storm we had to go around. The connection in Guam is notoriously tight and having only 50 minutes between one plane landing and the other taking off, I figured we had missed it. When we landed "The Boss" ran to see if he could hold the plane, but as it turns out, that plane was delayed out of Japan. Instead of leaving at 7:50pm it was going to leave at 2:30am. So the airline bused us over to a hotel and told us to be in the lobby at midnight to catch a shuttle for our flight to Palau.

I approved of the temporary digs! 

In the middle of the night we loaded the flight to Palau, and arrived at 4am. By 5am we had hit the hotel, and within 5 minutes I was passed out! I got to the airport at 10am HST on Sunday in Kona, and I finally got to the Sea Passion (love that name) hotel at 5am Palau time Tuesday, which is 10am Monday in Hawaii. 24 hrs of travel. When I woke up I finally looked around my room. I had to move later in the day (we had trouble even getting rooms) but I was not going to miss the opportunity to take some photos of the amazing view!

I woke up to this amazing room.

and I loved the bathroom!

Those sinks it turns out were in all the rooms and they are the perfect size for washing off my snorkel gear, and underwater housing I brought for my new camera! Oh I should have mentioned that! I got an early birthday gift from my parents before the trip! A decent camera! After years of shooting an Nikon CoolPix (all hail the point and shoot!) I now own a high end point and shoot! I ended up going for the Cannon G12.

Look at the deck on this room!

This is the view. 

Over breakfast that first morning I asked about that construction. As it turns out that hotel was being built by the Chinese. Millions to build it I am told. Then that thing happened, where the US was sending former prisoners from Guantanamo Bay to far flung places? Yeah, Palau accepted the Chinese Uigurs (I think something like 17 of them) and China got mad. They pulled their workers out of Palau and stopped building the hotel. So the hotel remains empty and half built. (I didn't get a shot but people have been keeping their boats in the unfinished ground floor!)

This is the rest of the view. That down there is the hotel bar! The lagoon on the left has a downed Japanese Zero from WWII and I found it, but when I went back out to try and take a picture I couldn't find it!

This is the hotel beach and another view of that lagoon from the ground level.

Back up at the room I could see the bridge connecting the Island I was on with another one. I loved the room, and the hotel beds were amazingly comfortable. It was very difficult to get back up to meet at 9am to start work! The one odd thing about the hotel was that there were these strange things in the hallway, like gold painted whale bones.

I have no idea. They made me giggle every time I walked by. I think I am going to end this post. Sunday to Tuesday morning. Just trying to get to Palau. Next up is working in Palau! Meetings, meetings, meetings, and hiking.