March 29: Palau Day 8

This morning I got to sleep in a little bit. When I got up I went up to get Nate because he had brought a clown suit to wake Josh up with. When Nate opened the door Josh kind of looked up and then he totally freaked out and started screaming. It was a reaction that was completely and genuinely scared and it was hilarious!

Once we had finished having our fun with Josh we packed up and checked out of our rooms and headed to church. After church we had potluck and then said our goodbyes to Dr. Chang and his family and Dr. Schroeder.

Photo Credit: Josh Masillamoni

When we were done at the church we met up with Billy at the hotel and he took us on a little tour of Palau outside of Koror. First, he took us to see his pet fruit bat, which he has had for the past 5-plus years since it was a baby.  All of us who wanted to hold him got to and he was pretty tame, but whenever you tried to pet his head or back he would kind of bite your hand. Luckily, his bite never really hurt.

After showing us his bat Billy took us to the Capital building. It was definitely different than visiting the US Capital building. Granted it was a Saturday, but Billy just parked right up in the back of the building and we just got out and started looking around and taking pictures. The buildings themselves had some pretty cool decorations, mainly fish around the top of the buildings and around the bottom were what they call money birds (along with the pooping out of money). After we had walked around and took pictures for about 15-20 minutes a couple of security guards with a dog finally came by, but all they had to do was take a record of how many cars and people had come by.

Photo Credit: Josh Masillamoni

After the Capital Billy took us down to the beach (about 2 minutes away) where there was a long rock pier and at the end was one of the main surf breaks according to Billy. We went out to the pier and took several pictures and just relaxed and enjoyed the sights and sounds for about 45 minutes.

Photo Credit: Josh Masillamoni

After the beach Billy took us to a resort that was still under construction for the most part. It was called Coco Beach Resort and it had a Swiss Family Robinson at Disneyland kind of feel, except maybe a little more concrete. It looked like the main lodge, swimming pool and restaurant were still under construction, but it was still a cool place to get away from it all.

We finished at Coco Beach Resort and headed back toward Koror. On the way back we stopped off at the bridge to take some sunset pictures. Surprisingly, this was the first (and last) sunset we were able to see in Palau and it certainly did not disappoint. We spent a while taking pictures of the sunset at this ideal location.

Once the sun had gone down we headed back to Koror to meet up with a few others from our group for dinner at the Drop Off Bar & Grill. Supposedly this place was built for the crew of Survivor when they were filming in Palau. I ended up getting a grilled red snapper sandwich, which was pretty good (unfortunately no picture because there was too little light). The fish was very fresh and the sandwich was tasty. Once we had finished we headed back into downtown Koror to do some quick souvenir and gift shopping before we had to load up all of our bags and head to the airport. It was a bittersweet feeling checking in to the airport and knowing it was time to go home. As good of a mission trip as this was it is nice to go back home and see Christal again.