The Rock Islands part 2: Jelly fish lake and Cemetery Reef Dive

In addition to the Milky way, we also went to Jellyfish lake and cemetery reef. Jelly fish lake was everything the travel books tell you it is. A semi-strenuous hike up then down a muddy hill leads you to a serene salt water lake in the middle of a small rock island. By looking at the lake it looks very average. Then you go to a dock and kick off your shoes and put on your snorkel gear. Then you start swimming. First, you see one or maybe two jellies, kind of deep down. It is eerie if you have ever snorkeled before, because you are taught not to go towards jellyfish unless you want to be stung. But then as you get closer to where the sun is hitting the lake there is an entire cloud of jellies. They are everywhere!! They are this beautiful clear orange color. They don't sting, but they are still delicate, so you just float along and let them brush by. They all pulsate in time, it is like being in a large heart. The silence was absolutely intriguing and they are so beautiful. Just as we were getting ready to get out a large group of Chinese tourists came. Screaming and yelling, it was really disturbing to see people acting like that in such a sacred place. After we left, we ate lunch and snorkeled a World War II fighter plane crash right off the beach of where Survivor Palau was filmed. Not much wildlife, but the plane was cool. Then we went to some open space which was marked. Our guide told us to grab our gear and get in. Imagine just seeing blue-ish black water and jumping in, then looking below the surface and seeing Finding Nemo's Reef. It was like that. So many species of fish and coral, anenomes, giant clams.... Whoa. Just Whoa. I saw damsel fish, very similar to clown fish but with one stripe only. Anyways. More soon.

Rock Islands Part One; the Milky Way

Today we did an INCREDIBLE trip to the rock islands. I have no words... well, I will try to have words for it. We were in a boat on the ocean, there were 7 of us including our guides. We started out by driving out to the Milky Way. This is a lagoon... I guess? An area of ocean water that is enclosed by a few rock islands. It is this beautiful glacier blue color... because the sand is white. I don't mean sandy-white; I mean WHITE. There are no beaches. It is a lagoon; but the bottom is this wonderful mud they call spa mud that can cure you of acne if you rub it all over. It supposedly has other healing factors as well; but our guide told us that is all non-sense. Although the water looked like something from the artic, it was really warm; like 85 degrees or more. We swam around and put mud on ourselves. There was no wild life here because the mud is sticky and makes the water cloudy. But WOW!!!!!! It is so hard to explain, and soon I will share pictures!

Whoa! Today was amazing! We had our first research meeting, which went absolutely fantastic. We met the native Palauans that we will be working with. We also got to tour the bigger island (Balbo-dob...?) and go to some cultural hotspots with a local tour guide. We saw a lot of wreckage from world war II that is all over these islands. Mostly Japanese bases that were destroyed. We also saw the monolithes, similar to the eastern island heads, but much more ambiguous. The native plants are incredible. Lots of habiscus and plumeria flowers. Plus millions of tropical flowers I could not name. Beautiful views of the ocean.... It is unreal here. We took a long walk this morning, as we are still getting used to the time difference. It is so weird just to wander down a tiny, unfinished road and find a lagoon with a coral reef booming with life. Many of the locals are very nice!! On our tour we saw old world fruit bats. They are not like the ones from home. They are amazing. They look like little foxes with wings. We also saw a crocodile and cockatoos. I can't wait to get in the water. It looks like we will be snorkeling off of a boat at a coral reef tomorrow. I am crossing my fingers that it goes well - no reason why it shouldn't! The heat and humidity are killing me though; if you aren't in air conditioning, you are covered in sweat. Anyways, more tomorrow. Look to facebook for pictures.

Taipei to Palau

Finally safe in Palau!!! Taipei was super cool; we did not do much besides hang at the hotel. That was mostly due to the fact that the airline food on our 14 hour from LAX to Taipei made me very sick. So when we got to Taipei I was ready to pass out. The hotel was very cool - micro-living style, it looked like something from IKEA. There was a crazy magic glass shower curtain that you would have to look up to believe. We were right next to the Aviation Museum too so this morning we took a walk around a bunch of cool old planes. Taiwan is really neat. I hope we get to actually do more on our way through back to the states. We met a few guys from Minnesota who go often who talked about a cool night market that is super safe and really neat. Hoping to do that. Palau seems cool so far. Staying in a hostel is always interesting, it is like going back to church camp. Bunk beds and shared bathrooms galore. The woman who runs the place is super cool though and grew up here in Palau, then lived in the states for many years. She moved back here to raise her two kids and decided to run a hostel. Again, very neat but also strange to be a sharing a room with a bunch of adults I do not know, other than Sam of course. Unfortunately we did not get through immigration until after the sunset so I have yet to see all the beauty the island has to offer, but I am looking forward to it.

Los Angeles

Whoo! In L.A.! A couple of hiccups at the airport couldn't keep us down. Staying in an incredible hotel thanks to Sam's awesome mother. Tomorrow we go international! Here goes nothing!

Ready, Set...

In a mere two and a half days, I will begin an epic trip to the Republic of Palau. I will make multiple stops along the way, and I plan on updating this blog as much as possible along the way. The main purpose of our trip is to conduct some psychological research down in Palau. I will not going into detail about the research for multiple reasons. One being I am just a research assistant, this is not my own research nor my own to talk about freely, and two, I am much more excited to talk about and share pictures of all the neat places I will get to see. So, here goes nothing and here it goes!