Tuesday, April 6, 2010




Here is the picture of the Story Boards at the Palauan Jail. They all depict certain stories from their culture and each artist is allowed to interpret the story how they want.


Sunday, April 4, 2010

I have not been able to upload pictures yet because the internet connection is really shotty. Hopefully I will figure out a way to get them on the site soon. It is so beautiful today. We went into town today and went to the Palauan prison they have their prisoners carve story boards out of wood and then they sell them to make some money. I think it is actually a great idea becuase it gives the prisoners a creative outlet and a way to get some extra money to support there families. I have pictures that will show the experince it was pretty interesting. There is a desginated seller of the storyboards within the prison who has earned that position and he gets a cut of all the boards that he sells.
I also was able to take a sim in ithe crytal clear water today which I have been wanting to do since I arrived. Then went for a Balinese massage and wrap. It was amazing in an open air room overlooking a secluded bay. It was so relaxing and I felt like a new women afterwards. Now I am loose and ready to go diving early in the morning tomorrow. Hopefully I can get pictures up soon

Saturday, April 3, 2010

We got in late last night when it was pitch dark so this morning woke up to pouring rain. Which is typical for here because it is the tropics it will rain in spurts for about 10 minutes but it is so warm outside it doesn't even effect what you are doing in anyway. We walked down to breakfast and on our way we saw the most beautiful rainbow!! We headed to breakfast got some good grub and went to test out the water at the beach it is perfect crystal clear and warm with white sand it cannot get better then that. We also went and checked out the spa which is a total Balinese outfit. Everything the wood, the textiles in the spa and the masseuses are all balinese. Which is special for me because Bali was the first place I went when I was 16 that was in on the other side of the world and one of my favorite things about Bali was the people their demeanor and the way the live life and the other thing I loved at Bali was the Balinese massages!!! So, I booked a spa treatment for later today after we get home from going to town. So, far it is still settling in that we are here I still can't believe it. Also something really nice at the hotel is they have a orchid farm here so they have the most beautiful orchids around the hotel


We made it!

We started our journey on Thursday the 31st. We headed to LAX to stay overnight at the hacienda because we had to be at the airport the next day early and if you get a hotel room you get 14 days of free parking so that worked out perfect for us. Once we got to the room we had to shuffle some stuff to different bags because I could not make up my mind about what books to bring so I just brought all of them and unfortunately most of them were hardcover which made my bag weigh about 58 lbs total. We wanted all the bags to be less than 50 lbs so we used our travel scale to make sure we made weight I ended up having to take out one book and leave it in the car. I think I will be fine with the other five I brought. We went down to the bar and had a bloody mary and then went over to the diner to get some dinner. We woke up the next morning at 5:00 A.M. and got things ready to go and had some breakfast. I wanted to make sure I had a full belly for the coming flight because I do not trust airplane food especially after Brian’s experience coming home from Italy. He ate some airplane food and had projectile vomit shortly after. I never trusted airplane food before that but that just solidified my feelings about it. So, we brought lots of good snacks. Before we left Madeyln (Charlie’s wife) made us some hard-boiled eggs to take with us with mini salt and pepper. We have beef jerky and trail mix to hold us over as well. We took off for or first leg of the trip to Honolulu at 9:50 A.M everything was really smooth then had about an hour layover enough time for me to get more food in my belly and Charlie to smoke some cigarettes. Perfect pit stop and on to Guam a 7 ½ hour flight. After being on the first flight I started to notice a big difference in American flight attendants and international flight attendants. The American ones were bitches! I understand they are stressed out and probably don’t like their job but it doesn’t mean they should be bitches. Once we got onto the Guam flight the flight attendants and the people on the plane were way more relaxed and it finally set in that this is really happening we are going to Palau for a dive trip and it has just begun. I never thought I was going to go on another dive trip for a long time let alone go back to Palau. What was supposed to be my last “real” dive trip was when I went to Fiji Bligh waters with Charlie a couple years ago I was supposed to dive for about a week and ended up only diving two dives because I had a horrible sinus infection and could not make It down. I went diving with Brian in Cozumel, which was awesome, but deep down I was still Jones’n to hear those tanks clank together every morning for at least six days in a row. So, here it goes another adventure and I cannot wait.
We finally arrived in Palau at 10:45 P.M. after stopping in Yap. Once we were in Palau we then had to take a 30 min bus ride to our Hotel. Palau Pacific Resort http://www.palauppr.com/ is the hotel we are staying at it is right on the beach and there are a lot of Japanese people that stay here. They even have the butt washer bide toilet seats! I want to be asleep right now but for some weird reason I am not tired even though I slept only about 20 minutes total the whole trip here. I usually would take an ambien to go to sleep when traveling long distances but I am trying not to take anything this trip. So, as we speak Charlie is out on the balcony with his I pod and speakers blasting at 12:00 in the morning. It’s his ritual for when he gets to a destination followed by a Silver Patron shot with salt and lime. So, he is in heaven. Also we wanted to tell Ryan and Trish that we are going to take lots of pictures for you and thank you in advance for making the Palau dive DVD once we are back ☺