Nice to meet Palauans again!/Jeju travel

*Notice – This article is written by non-native English speaker.

As I am a English speaking travel guide sometimes I do a translator job.

My job was not a tour guide in this time. I was their translator.

However, I still vividly remember that I had a very good time with Palauan baseball team last year. Frankly speak, I didn’t know where Palau is. Even I’d never heard of the name of the country “Palau” until I met them. I was so curious about them....

 

Anyway…..The Palauan baseball team visited to Jeju island again this year.

Most of them were familiar to me and some of them were not.

I was very happy to see them though. The leader and chair-man of Palauan congress Millip gave me a big smile with padding on my shoulder.

 

Well…. Everybody welcome to Jeju island. Actually it’s not that easy to meet same clients again in my profession.

 

One inconvenient thing is that location of their hotel is remote from down town because they would be bored at night.

 

Palau is very small newly independent country in south-west pacific ocean with 25thousands population. I knew that they must want to enjoy a night culture in Jeju island. In the long run, as I assumed they made a big trouble at night. Front desk of the hotel phoned me that Some members of Palauans knocked the Chinese girls room to wake them up without any reasons at mid night. I knew it would happen in any time.

 

They are from a small island country and still live with primitive culture. One day one of them said that they don’t have strict morality to moderate in sex with girls which means they have sex with any girl at the first sight if they like each other. In that time they were drunken and no where to go in the evening. Luck to them, Chinese girls forgave their misbehavior and they gave a word do not knock the door again.

 

Same as last year, The baseball union subsidized on 800,000KRW(800usd) for 25 people for 6days. It was not enough for the amount of people for the long stay. I had to divided the money day by day and I was looking for cheap restaurants as possible as I can.

 

Finally I found a good restaurant in which bus drivers usually go next to the stadium.( The name of the restaurant is ‘Gisa Beffet Restaurant’. ‘Gisa’ means driver. Price is 6000KRW per person)Even though it’s so cheap they really enjoyed the place, especially an ice-cream. What happy people they are!

 

 

Once they were under the control by Japanese, so that there are many players who have Japanese name. And quite interesting thing is that they enjoy the play card game named ‘Sotda’ which Korean people enjoy with. Even they divide into two groups in ‘Red Team and Blue Team’ at a sports festival same as Koreans and Japanese do.

 

I was interested in that even though we are different races and have different culture and language we have something in common. Well, I had mixed emotion.

 

 

Baseball is the national sports in Palau….. Well, it’s rather to say it is the only sports they play. They don’t have a proper couch to teach or any famous player playing in other country.

 

However, they are very passionate in playing baseball. They went to semi-final last year in Jeju international baseball tournament but in this year they lost to Japanese team who plays with technique. I can say that it is a bit pity that they couldn’t go to the final but it’s happy lost because they had a chance to go on Jeju tour.

 

 

After finish the baseball tournament we had a barbecue party at the front yard of the hotel. As has been well said, they are party animals. They stayed up all night with drinking, eating and dancing. I felt sorry that I should have enjoyed with them more to make a good memory. I came back home and fell in sleep right away hoping nothing would be happened.

 

Just in my luck! My phone rang constantly in the middle of the night. The phone was from the front desk of the hotel and he said some of Paluans were banging the store’s door to open to buy alcohol. Well,It seemed they tested my patience. It really irritated me to come on the line being disturbed my sleep. However, nothing happened that much except that.

 

 

Next morning everybody had hung over at the airport. At last it was farewell time. Actually I always feel mixed emotion with the airport. It is an airport I have first meeting with my clients and it is also an airport to have farewell with them.

 

This time we had an awkward farewell because lot of Palauans left their stuffs at the hotel. They kept asking me to do something for it. So I called taxi in a hurry and had their stuffs brought to the airport. It was skin of the teeth to approach the departing time. After settle down we had chewed “Pitletnat” which is Palauan version of chewing cigarette and had taken breath for couple of minutes.

 

Then they went into the check point to board and said with a big smile “You must come to Palau. We invite you” . I answered “Ok, thanks. see you in Palau”. I don’t know If I can have a chance to go to Palau or if they can come to Jeju island again. Any way it was nice meeting.

 

 

<Palau is located at the end of west pacific ocean. Since 1543 Palau had been under the influence of Spanish empire because she is close to Philippine. In 1899 German purchased her from Spain but She was sold to Japan after WW1. She had been a colony of Japan until 1945. After world war 2. She became belong to USA. Since 1986 she went through a self governing province then finally became independent in 1994.10. from USA.> from Naver knowledge encyclopedia.