Okinawa Summer Holiday 2013

For my summer holiday this year I went to Okinawa, a chain of islands south of the main islands of Japan leading down to Taiwan that form the Ryukyu islands. The temperature is generally above 20°C all year round and the islands have some of the most abundant coral in the world. Okinawa is also recognised as being the longest lived country in the world with 4 times more people over 100 years old than anywhere else. The island are a popular summer holiday destination for Japanese tourists and great for diving and beach holidays. My friend Martin (the same who brought me my passport at the last minute when I first came to Japan) managed to get a place on a science course at a university there over the summer, which was perfect timing since his course finished the exact same day as my summer holiday started.

On arrival I met Martin at the airport where he had been waiting for 6 hours since he had no idea where our hostel osaru-oyadou (Monkey’s Inn) was; he kindly left the planning up to me then forgot to ask where we were staying. Since I’d forgotten to print a map I didn’t know where the hostel was either except for some vague instructions from Hostelworld.com. But by following those we actually managed to find our hostel by chance just walking along a side road trying to get back to the main road which was on the instructions so it kind of worked out anyway.

On our first day we looked around the city a bit seeing some of the sites such as a Chinese garden that aims to transport you into a world of tranquillity and make you forget you’re in the big city of Naha.

We next went to a rather nice beach in the middle of the city with very hot sand and probably the clearest sea water I’ve ever seen. There was just one tiny problem with the beech, aside from the sand burning your feet; a massive flyover crossing the bay blocking the view out to sea. We came back to this beach on the second day of out holiday after visiting the castle. We had intended to get here around 4 pm just as the sun was starting to go down, but due to us getting up really late to visit the castle we didn’t actually arrive at the beach until about 9 pm when it was already dark. Still not to pass up the opportunity we went for a swim, the water was still very warm and we only got out when we started to get stung by jellyfish, which unfortunately are rather small and hard to see, especially at night.

Next was visited the main shopping street in the middle of Naha called kokusaidori which consisted of mostly souvenir shops and restaurants for the tourists, but also loads of shops with massive models of comic book characters and films. We also saw about 4 different full size Velociraptor  models in different shops on this street. Why they have them or where they even got them from I have no idea but they seem to be popular. Possibly the Okinawans like to display them on their mantelpieces.

For dinner we went to an all you can eat hamburger steak restaurant where I managed to eat enough food for the next day as well as being able to ride on a zebra! Although unlike Europe I don’t think our burgers were made from these particular zebras. (On a side note the Japanese actually eat horse sashimi  (raw meat) known as basashi and it’s readily available in larger cities. It’s very tasty!)

Still within Naha was Shuri Castle, the former palace of the Ryukyu Kingdom and which dates back to the 1300s. However, as I have mentioned before, Japanese castles and temples have a habit of getting burnt down over the centuries and simply rebuilt in the same location, and sure enough Shuri castle’s latest restoration was finished in 1992 which makes it 21 years old! Although there was scaffolding up when we visited so even that 1992 date might be a bit optimistic for what we in Europe would call old. Still it was nice to look around and we arrived just in time to see some traditional dance being performed at the castle.

One of the things that Okinawa is most famous for are Shisa statues which adorn the entrance of pretty much every single building there. Shisa look like a cross between a lion and a dog and are almost always in pairs, one with its mouth open the other with its mouth closed. The open mouthed Shisa is to ward off evil spirits while the closed mouthed Shisa is to keep good spirits in. Back in the shopping street Kokusaidori every other shop was selling these, with hundreds of different models to choose between. Here are the two Shisa guarding Shuji castle.

Our last trip on the mainland was to Churaumi Aquarium the North of the island. The aquarium is one of the largest in the world with a massive tank holding 7,500 cubic metres of water and several whale sharks and manta rays.

After the aquarium we went to Emerald beach for a swim and which is only 5 minutes walk away. I’d somehow managed to forget my goggles in Tokyo so bought a new pair to use at the beach there and later on Zamami island. And it was quite lucky that I did as while chasing a fish underwater I came across a facemask on the sea bed buried under some sand which were perfect for Martin who had also forgotten to bring any goggles. We spent the rest of the afternoon swimming around before having to catch the very early 6pm bus back to Naha and our hostel.

Finally it was time to go to Zamami island. This was the part of the trip I had been most looking forward to. About 30 km to the West of Naha are the Kerama islands and while these don’t quite have the picture perfect white sand beaches you see in postcards of tropical paradises they are pretty close and in addition also have some of the best coral reef and diving areas in the world. To get there we took what I think is the fastest boat I’ve ever been on, which isn’t saying much since the only other boats I’ve been on are ferries to France and some rowing boats in city lakes.

(Click either picture for video, parental advisory explicit lyrics)

On the island we went to the nearest beach and started swimming around. There was absolutely loads of coral and thousands of fish everywhere just a few metres below the surface so that all you need to see everything was a pair of goggles or recently found facemask. Obviously I can’t show you the pictures of the fish as my camera is not waterproof despite it having an underwater setting on it, not quite sure what that’s there actually, but if you should ever be in Okinawa a trip to Zamami and some snorkelling is an absolute must. Since both me and Martin were super organised for the trip we had decided not to bother booking a hostel and just find somewhere to sleep outside for the night. Our first night we spent at an outlook post which had a stunning view of the sunset.

Before we settled down for the night on a large picnic table (actually comfy) we went into the village to look around and find some food. Guess who we met in an izakaya there. None other than Mr Miyage from the karate kid. It turns out he isn’t dead but just running a bar on a tiny Okinawan island.

With an early start the next day…

 

…it was off to a different beach for more snorkelling, lots of fish and some horrendous sunburn, the first of the trip for me . Despite taking more care than usual and putting on loads of sun cream I was still well done by the sun. Unfortunately you just don’t feel the heat while swimming around in the water. We decided to spend a second night on the island and take the ferry back the next afternoon rather than cutting our time on the beach short that day and so we “borrowed” some deck chairs from the beach that one of the tourist companies on the island were renting out and decided to sleep on them for our second night (actually not comfy at all).

My pillow for the night.

The next day we did a little bit of snorkelling in the morning but unfortunately there were rather a lot of tiny jellyfish in the water which made it rather painful, especially on sunburn, then it was back to Naha, a bit of souvenir shopping on the high-street and a final night in osaru-oyado before flying back to Tokyo.

 

I’ve uploaded all of the photos Martin and I took to my Google drive which you can view here. I will take them down after a while as they take up quite a lot of room of my free storage so please feel free to download any you like. If you would like to download all of the pictures they are in a .zip file here.

Parasitastic

Japan is a strange place with some very strange things in it. Today I definitely visited one of the weirder museums not just in Japan but probably the whole world. Since it was raining and cold today I thought a trip to somewhere indoors would nice so of course I visited the world’s only parasite museum (or at least only completely dedicated parasite museum). Not the first thing that comes to mind when you think of a great day out but since the rain and wind were washing away the Sakura and making what should be the nicest time of year in Japan a bit damp it seemed like a good idea.

Visiting the museum is probably one of the only times I’ve been glad I can’t yet read Japanese fluently as I’m not sure I want to know what all those parasites would do to me. Not that there is much to say anyway so here are some pictures. Here are some pictures!

A mantis with some worms exploding out of it and some really creepy ant-like things.

A gentleman whose trousers no longer fit and another who no longer has a face, both spread by mosquitos.

A stomach with worms exploding out of it and a mouse with an exploding stomach.

A crab with what looked like really cute furry gloves but which was actually a parasite. Also it looks like I have to watch out for that well known Gnathostomiasis. Not that I can even pronounce it but if I ever see it walking down the street I’ll be well prepared to run away from it.

What pleasures will I beguile you with next time, I’m sure your all looking forward to it. For anyone interested in visiting this weird and intriguing (and free) museum please see here http://www.kiseichu.org/Pages/english.aspx where their website wisely informs you to ‘ Try to think about parasites without a feeling of fear, and take the time to learn about their wonderful world of the Parasites.’

Little Thing Part II

Japan likes vending machines. As I have already noted before they’re everywhere in Japan and very useful during the hot sticky summer months when you could easily be sweating at 0.000025m³·s⁻¹ (i.e. a lot) and the cold winter when you have a long wait for a train and want a hot drink. It may seem that your average vending machine does not and cannot be much improved, they are after all pretty simple and efficient to use; insert money, press button, drink. If you think that then you are wrong. Japan, well known for its technology products has decided that actually the humble vending machine is not modern or snazzy enough for the 21st century and has therefore built new ones with massive touchscreens on them.

Finally, vending machines are released from the shackles of mere buttons and can reach their full potential. Pictures of the products are displayed on the screen and all you have to do is swipe you train card (plastic cash which you could use on the older machines too) or mobile phone, across the scanner and touch the screen, none of this messing around with buttons, oh no. Since there is now a screen available to display images the designers obviously had to come up with a cute mascot that could be shown on the screen when no one is buying anything. Yes, of course the machines can detect when you approach to buy something (there is a little camera above the screen). They will even recommend you a drink based its guess of your age and gender. It recommended me milk tea the other day so I guess it can also racially profile and knew that I was British!

Over Christmas I went looking for some presents and ended up in a store called Loft or at least the store next to it that just joined onto the side but didn’t have a name I could read. They had a great Christmas display in there of a complete model gingerbread village, with a working electric miniature railway.

The sign in the first picture says “Please don’t touch. Please don’t eat” just to remind you not to start munching away at the display. Of course I had to buy one of the kits for baking your own gingerbread house, but because I don’t like cooking, I’ve left that up to my mum, I’m sure she’ll figure out the Japanese instructions.

Keeping with the food theme, here is some tasty frog I ate in a random Japanese drinking bar or izakaya. Not quite believing if it was actually frog and not just something else which happened to be the same word for frog me and my friend had to ask the waiter if it was the frog that goes pyon pyon pyon (the Japanese onomatopoeia for jump, I guess the English would be boing boing boing). It was, and it was also very tasty being a mixture between a fish and a meat flavour. The meat was also very soft rather than chewy as I’d thought. I recommend it if you have the chance and can now add it to my list of weird things eaten.

Oh. Also, a pig in a wig that was walking along the pavement. I don’t know either.

Little Things Part I

Today’s blog is just a collection of little things from Japan. First up is what happens to you if you go to the park in the evening for some exercise wearing shorts rather than trousers.

As far as I could work out this was done by that most evil of creature the Ceratopogonidae or biting midge, which took rather a fancy to my sweet leg meat. After showing my leg to and ignoring the advice of the assistants in the chemist who told me to go to the hospital, I bought some rub on spray which stopped the itching enough for me to wear my work trousers during the week, despite the very sweaty hot Japanese summer.

Next was Halloween (yes I know that was 4 months ago but it gives me something to write about) and some traditional English fish and chips for dinner in a traditional English pub. You can tell it’s traditional because Japanese people they know that in England fish and chips is sold wrapped in newspaper and so any traditional pub must do the same. Only Japan, as it usually does when trying to emulate something foreign, doesn’t get it quite right. Whereas in England newspaper wrapped fish and chips was so you could take it away and eat it on the street or at home, they give you the fish and chips on a plate. But to make it authentic they first cover the plate with newspaper. Which you then take to your table. And eat with chopsticks. Which themselves have had a special fish and chip newspaper wrapper made up instead of just the usual paper.

Still I can’t really complain. Since the idea of take-away food hasn’t quite caught on in the same way here it was actually really tasty fish and chips.

Japan likes cute and does it better than anyone else in the world. Even their street drains are cut even if it also looks extremely sad and in need of water to drain.

There will be more cute things in part 2.

Korea Day 4

My final day in Korea began too early but without a hangover which was a big plus, although I think I was still a bit drunk. The vodka of the night before had been joined by tequila and they worked hand in hand to stave off hangover.

Which was rather fortunate as I went with my friend HyeJung to see Nanta, a Korean cooking musical comedy show about 3 chefs and newly installed manager’s son preparing e a banquet in time for the royal wedding. A simple premise but a great show, it’s main theme is traditional Korean music, which is mainly rhythmic, but improvised on kitchen utensils and so on. It also has some fart jokes, pantomime audience participation and magic tricks. If it shows anywhere near you I highly recommend it.

In Starbucks after Nanta.

After that I wandered around Myeongdong with my former housemate YuJin who had fortunately moved back to Korea for a month just in time to show me around. Cheap clothes, a nice fountain being cleaned and some tasty food and then to see some fountains from the side of a big bridge.

After that it was time to get back to the hostel, pack my back and work out how to get to the airport for an 8am flight the next day, which was thankfully accomplished with the aid of the 3am night-bus. And then finally back to Japan.

 

Incheon airport at 7am.

Korea Day 3

Today I spent the day with Hyejung and Beth who very kindly showed me around Seoul. First was a trip to the national museum to see lots of old pottery and a very nice pagoda.

Next we wandered around the shopping areas and visited a Buddhist temple which had a lot of paper lanterns on the ceiling.

Then we went to an awesome restaurant called “Meat-ing” which is an all you can eat Korean style barbeque meat buffet, where I ate much to much meat.

And finally in the evening we went out to a bar/club where I drank much to much vodka, which wasn’t as forgiving as the meat.

Korea day 2 (DMZ Trip)

Today I got to hang out with my North Korean buddies! They are a charming lot, that’s for sure.

So a quick history in case you can’t quite remember what the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) is. The story goes like this: at the start of the 20th century Japan decides it wants and empire like all its Western buddies and so start attacking everywhere decides it doesn’t like Chinese influence in Korea, supports some revolting peasants, gets some troops in there to put down revolting peasants when the wrong ones start revolting, fights the Russians a bit, assassinates the Korean Princess, forces Korean annexation from China, fights the Russians again and ends up as the main power in Korea. They keep control from 1910 until 1945 when the Japanese are slightly blown up and forced to surrender at the end of WWII. A few months earlier the Soviets had declared war on Japan in agreement with the Allies and marched down Korea to roughly where the current division is (as agreed), anything further south would be under American control. Two governments are effectively installed, the northern one supported by the Soviets and Chinese the southern one by the Americans and allies. There is rather a lot of fighting (5 million dead a lot) and uprisings up and down the country mostly as a proxy war but the eventual dividing line is essentially decided upon by the Americans and Chinese and Soviets as an acceptable place to have a buffer zone between the communist countries and the capitalist ones. And so they build a big fence that runs right across the country 250km long and effectively separates the capitalist states from the Soviet and Communist block. Except that communism has mostly fallen and North Korea didn’t get the memo. The two Koreas are still technically at war with only a temporary ceasefire having been agreed so either side could “legally” attack at any time.

Anyway, that’s where I went today.

 

Freedom Bridge looking into North Korea was used to exchange POWs.

 

There are lots of mines everywhere. These happen to be by the 3rd Tunnel. The 3rd Tunnel was the 3rd of 4 tunnels discovered being dug by North Korea into the south, all in the direction of Seoul. When the South Koreans discovered and dug down to the tunnel and questioned what was going on North Korea first denied having dug it, despite the entrance being on the North Korean side and water draining out to the North, and the holes for dynamite pointing towards the South. Then when asked again they said they were mining for coal and had got lost, despite the rock being solid granite with no possibility of coal being present. To bolster their claim they painted the walls of the tunnel black and said it was coal.

 

There be North Korea. And there be the flag. You can see that all the mountains in North Korea are basically bare with no woodland around. This is because the North Koreans have cut the trees down firstly use use as fuel and secondly to prevent spies from the South hiding in the hills. The flag there is the 3rd tallest in the world. The two Koreas kept competing with each other to build a taller flag on each side of the border until the South gave up leaving the 160m tall flag of North Korea the clear winner.

The JSA (Joint Security Area) is the only part of the DMZ where troops from either side directly face each other. The South Korean soldiers stand half hidden by the buildings so that they offer a smaller target to the North and so that they can give secret signals to the South. Also a North Korean soldier checking us out with his binoculars while we take photographs of him.

Inside one of the blue huts, used for meetings between diplomats. The microphones down the middle of the table mark the dividing line between North and South Korea (South to the left North to the right). Me hanging with a South Korean soldier in the North Korean side of the hut. Since both sides use the huts for tours, use of the huts runs on a first come first server basis with the South Koreans not allowed in while the North Koreans are inside and vice versa.

I wonder if he plays much Playstation over there.