Blue Lotus

Hydrangea

Hydrangea season is nearing its end, and I haven't been able to get out to see them very much this year. Luckily, as long as I keep my eyes open I can see them all over the city, in parks, people's gardens, even on my own balcony. That's the great thing about hydrangea: they are not terribly show-offy and tend to tuck themselves inconspicuously into nooks and crannies, so they just seem to sneak up on you. Hydrangea can enliven even the dreariest, shabbiest street, and spotting a few blossoms hidden here and there in the concrete jungle is a joy.

I was hoping to get more hydrangea pictures this year and was determined not to let the rain stop me. But this year it's not the rain that is stopping me, it's the cold: this rainy season seems to be extra chilly, and today I've even been debating whether or not to turn on the heat (so far I've resisted--thank goodness I haven't packed away my winter clothes yet). By the time the weather warms up the hydrangea blossoms will likely be gone, so I might as well go ahead and show you the pictures I've taken of them so far.

I'll finish with a few pictures featuring bonus spiders (bugs love hydrangea for some reason). I realize that not everybody loves bug pictures, even if the bugs in question are the cute little green sasagumo (lynx spider), so I'll give you fair warning: don't scroll down!

For more hydrangea pictures, see my flower album, and more bugs (all of them cute, I promise) can be seen in my creepy crawly album.

Sunday at the park

 

On Sunday evening we heard the news: tsuyu (the rainy season) had officially begun. Overnight, the weather obligingly turned cool and rainy, but Sunday itself was a lovely sunny day, perfect for spending at the park. We went to Wako Jurin Koen in Wako City, Saitama, a very nice big park just a few minutes' walk from our apartment.

As if they knew that tsuyu had started, a few hydrangea were in beautiful full bloom. The rest were holding out for the rain to begin, but were pretty in their own way.

 

 

The park was not as full of people as it usually is: a nice day like this and it's usually packed. Almost everyone headed for the brand-new playground, which seems far too small to support the kids it was swarmed with. It is completely dwarfed by the giant taikukan (gym), which is run by the city (not my city though, so as a resident of Nerima I have to pay twice as much as Wako folks). It is about a year old, and I was surprised to see how well the grass and greenery on the side of the building is doing. It's certainly in better shape than the grass on the ground. Lawns are in imported idea and it seems the Japanese still have trouble getting it right, but that's a subject for a different post.

 

 

We had a picnic lunch and then I set off to find dessert. Hideaki didn't join me as he's not much of a forager: e knows wild fruit sometimes comes with bugs. The wimp. I say a little extra protein never hurt anybody, so off I went, leaving him to nap the afternoon away.

 

These are sakura no mi (wild cherries), from the same trees that produced the sakura (cherry blossoms) I took so many pictures of earlier this spring. Hardly anyone knows they are edible, and indeed most of them are unpleasantly bitter, but a few trees produce good sweet-tart fruit.

 

 

It seems I'm not the only one who likes the cherries. These little bundles of pits and skins litter the ground around the sakura trees, and I'm not sure what they are. The park's bird population explodes this time of years, with crows especially numerous, so I'm guessing these are regurgitated pellets from the crows. Or maybe (very clean) droppings from the tanuki (raccoon dogs) that are said to live in the park. Can anyone help identify it?

 

Another interesting discovery, this one not needing to be identified: the giant beak gives it away as a crow skull. Perhaps a bit gloomy to include in this post, but I hope you'll think of it as I did: a reminder that life is short and should be enjoyed while it lasts. And that's exactly why we head to the park on sunny Sundays: life is too short not to take time to nap on the grass and smell the flowers.

Spring is here

In Tokyo there's some kind of flower in bloom all year long, and that's one of the things I love about this city. Early bloomers like roubai (winter sweet) and ume (Japanese apricot) are often thought of as harbingers of spring, but to me the true herald of spring is jinchouge (sweet daphne).

As the pictures of snow-covered ume blossoms I took a few months ago attest, the early blooming spring flowers can stand cold temperatures, but the jinchouge burst open in March with a promise that the cold weather is over.

The blossoms themselves are pretty, especially up close, but what jinchouge is really celebrated for is its fragrance. My old apartment had a large jinchouge bush in the back yard and I used to leave the back windows open all day, braving the chill (the flowers may signal the end of winter but Tokyo in March is hardly balmy) in order to fill the house with the lovely sweet scent. One of the hardest things about moving was leaving that bush behind, so imagine my delight last year when the landlady planted several jinchouge bushes by our buildings entrance last year! This was in late March and the blossoms were pretty much finished, so this is the first time to enjoy a full jinchouge season here.

Jinchouge aren't the only flowers in bloom around here: the sakura (cherry blossoms) started late last week and the ground is covered in sumire (violets), hana nira (spring starflower) and other wildflowers. And these bell-shaped blossoms, called asebi (Japanese andromeda) are putting on a very showy display at the local park.

This feral rose-ringed parakeet is hardly a sign of spring, as the flock stays in Tokyo year-round, but it sure made me happy to see it. I first encountered a whole tree of these birds last month but didn't have my camera with me, so on a recent walk with my camera we made sure to pass the tree again. This time there were only four of them, which makes us wonder where the others were. Is this tree their home base or do they move around? Is this part of the same famed group that lives at the Okayama campus of the Tokyo Institute of Technology, or are there different groups scattered throughout the city? I'd love to learn more about them.

Away this week

You may have noticed I'm posting even less than usual recently. One reason is because I am doing a week-long food blog at eGullet, a wonderful website devoted to food. With the eGullet food blog I go into quite a bit more detail than I usually do here on this blog, listing everything I eat and showing what life is like here in Japan. If you're interested, go have a look.

And to (hopefully) keep you occupied here for a while, I'm doing a round-up of stuff from the past month or so.

A few weeks back my husband and I had sushi at a local kaitenzushi (conveyor belt sushi) place. Most of the phone camera pictures didn't turn out, but here are the ones that did (kind of). Above is tai (sea bream) and tororo okura (grated yam and chopped okra).

Miso soup with crab and shirako (cod milt). The crab was just used to flavour the broth, it didn't have enough meat to eat (although I tried my hardest).

Aburisamon (seared salmon) topped with sliced negi (green onion), pepper and sea salt. We ate 9 plates each, plus the soup: the most we've had in years.

On the way home we discovered the fabled flock of parrots. I've heard of it, and know that many other big cities have parrots, but I didn't quite believe it till I saw these guys. Dozens of them were in someone's yard, sharing the trees peacefully (but noisily) with sparrows, all the same size and colour. Amazing.

A student brought back sanuki udon (a specialty wheat noodle from Kanagawa prefecture) so I made bukkake udon: the noodles are topped with cold broth along with katsuobushi (bonito flakes), negi, tenkasu (tempura batter) and umeboshi (pickled plum). It was good, but not the reason I'm sharing this picture. Check out the plate in the back: that's dashimaki tamago (thick omelet). I finally made it, and it didn't turn out half bad! It was far easier than I thought, and although this one wasn't very pretty it seemed to have the right taste and texture. I can't wait to try this again.

Lunch at an Indian place in Hibarigaoka. It took over the space where a really good Thai restaurant used to be, and we were pretty sad at first. But this place is pretty good. My chicken curry and daal were OK, but the naan was really good (despite the burnt tip on this one) and Hideaki's keema curry and egg curry were fantastic. Will go again.

Sauteed chijimi horensou (winter spinach), scallops with soy sauce and butter, penne with roasted tomato sauce. My sister introduced me to sauce made from roasted tomatoes last year, but this sauce uses canned tomatoes rather than fresh. The idea comes from last week's Mark Bittman column in the New York Times (the recipe given is for tomato soup but the idea works equally well for pasta sauce). Bittman now has a blog, by the way, and it's full of good ideas.

A quick lunch last week: instant miso soup and futomaki (thick rolled sushi) with a thick omelet, negitoro (chopped tuna belly), cucumber, shake no naka-ochi (chopped salmon), shake (salmon), maguro (tuna) and thin omelete.

Here's a healthy dinner of sake-steamed clams; atsu-age (fried tofu) and komatuna greens; quick-pickled cabbage and cucumbers, squid and broccoli sauteed with miso sauce; miso soup with shimeji mushrooms, wakame seaweed and mitsuba (trefoil), and mugigohan (white rice and barley) topped with umeboshi (pickled plum). Now that spring is almost here clams are cheap and widely available, and I'm very glad.

I had clay pot rice at a Chinese place in Roppongi Hills with a friend. Not the most attractive presentation, but pretty good: rice topped with bok choy, pork belly, tororo (grated yam) and a thick soy-based sauce. The rice was perfectly crispy on the bottom and I'd love to have this again, if only it weren't so pricey. I wonder if they have a lunch special?

神戸花鳥園

While we were in Osaka we drove with the in-laws to Kobe, the capital of nearby Hyogo prefecture. Many things come to mind when you think of Kobe. As a cosmopolitan port city city with a large foreign population, Kobe is famed in Japan for its superior western style cakes and confectionery; while throughout the world the city is known for its beef. Kobe is also known for the Great Hanshin Earthquake of 1995, when much of the city was destroyed. But for many Japanese the name "Kobe" is synonymous with pork barrel politics, with the city constantly starting expensive and largely unnecessary building projects. Massive land reclamations, needlessly impressive road and bridges, and a recently completed-- and hugely unpopular-- airport have made Kobe the most indebted city in Japan.

And our destination of the day happened to be located on one of these pork barrel projects. Man-made Port Island is billed as a "cultural city on the sea", but what I saw out of the car window was just a sprawling landfill topped here and there with charmless convention centres, hotels and housing projects. And then we reached the far end of the island, where Kobe Kachoen is located, and my opinion changed. 

Kachoen literally means "garden of flowers and birds", and that's exactly what this place is. My mother-in-law had been looking forward to visiting since it opened this spring, and although I was prepared to be underwhelmed (Japan is full of disappointing museums, zoos, flower parks and the like) I ended up falling in love with the place. We started by having lunch in the cafeteria, which was housed in a large greenhouse lush with hanging flowerpots. At first I thought the plastic chairs looked a bit cheap, but then I noticed the many sparrows flying about and realized that ease of cleaning was probably a bigger factor when they chose the chairs (luckily we didn't get pooped on).

I wasn't expecting a great meal. Indeed, in this beautiful setting, almost anything would have seemed delicious and most tourist attractions could get away with offering bad, overpriced food. But the buffet was surprisingly good, and at 1380 yen was not a bad deal at all. The buffet featured a large selection of mostly Japanese food, with an entire table was devoted to healthy Japanese appetizers which I loaded up on. There was also a snack bar selling drinks, ice cream and bento (boxed lunches).

This certainly wasn't the best food I've ever had in my life, but the setting was lovely enough to make it a memorable meal. If I lived nearby I might come here just for the buffet. Wait, forget that. The best was yet to come, and if I did live close by I'd be coming regularly for the birds. 

Kobe Kachoen is especially known for its owls, with dozens of varieties. The cages were so small and bare that I took them for displays at first, and since the owls were completely still I assumed they were stuffed. Not until one of them blinked did I realize they were real, and I could't help feeling a bit sorry for them in their little prisons. About a quarter of the cages were empty with signs saying the owls were temporarily absent, so I guess they're all allowed out once in a while (although that's most likely just to pose for pictures with visitors or do flying shows).

After getting our fill of owls, as well as checking out two ponds full of waterfowl and penguins, we checked out the flowers. The trumpet flowers and several types of begonias were especially pretty, but my favourites were the water lilies. They were beautiful and came in more varieties than I knew existed, all of them clearly labeled; the waters were swimming with minnows and goldfish. I was very sorry I only had my cell phone for pictures, and if my camera had been working I could have spent hours here.

The next section featured peacocks, guinea fowl, ibises, swans and more, with little cups of pellets for sale to feed them with. And then more owls, looking much happier and cuter in slightly more natural settings (although they were tied up).

The last section was definitely the best. Toucans, turacos, parrots and other tropical birds flew freely around, and were happy to land on your arm if you happened to be holding a cup of fruit (100 yen per cup, with fabric arm guards offered free of charge). I dug deep into my pockets and gave several beautiful birds a good meal, and it was fascinating to see-- and feel-- them up close. The first bird to take the bait was the relatively plain turaco below, and I was just blown away-- check out my goofy look in the picture: a mixture of nervousness and fascination than perfectly reflected how I felt.

You can see that I quickly warmed up to the birds, and they to me. This conure was particularly friendly, spending a long time on my hand licking my fingers, which felt really cool. I suppose that sounds gross if you've never been licked by a bird before, but it wasn't-- its tongue was dry felt kind of nice and tickly and the bird was very gentle and cute. It was such a good experience that I am toying with the idea of getting a bird as a pet. I've never been into pet birds at all and could never understand why they are so popular, but now I think I get it. I am almost certainly anthropomorphizing, but this little bird felt so gentle and sweet and  intelligent, and I even felt like we were communicating or connecting on some level. Surely its brain was the size of a pea and its only interest in my hand was the trace amount of salt in my sweat (we were in the middle of a heat wave), but I came away feeling like we'd bonded, and it gave me the same relaxed, happy feeling that I get from playing with a cat or dog. Ugh, that doesn't sound like me at all, but that's how I came away feeling. Any bird lovers out there know what I'm talking about?

After expecting to be disappointed it was so nice to visit this place and see all of those birds and flowers (it's also nice to know that Kobe doesn't completely suck). I definitely want to go back. Kobe Kachoen is well worth a visit if you have any sort of interest in birds and flowers and find yourself in Kobe. And if you have kids the place is a must-see; watching childrens' amazed faces was almost as fun as interacting with the birds, and I doubt there is a kid alive who wouldn't enjoy this place. Owl flying shows, penguin feedings, and photo opportunities are scheduled throughout the day, check the schedule (Japanese only) for details.

Kobe Kachoen is located next to Port Island Minami Station (a 14-minute ride from central Kobe's Sannomiya Station). Entrance is 1500 yen for adults with discounts for children, seniors, and the handicapped (the place is fully wheelchair accessible). Open 9:30 to 5:30 year-round. The free full colour pamphlet is in Japanese, with an English map available; all flora and fauna are labeled in Japanese, English and Latin. The website is Japanese only, but Kakegawa Kachoen in Shizuoka (there are 5 similar parks throughout Japan) has a good English website.

Kobe Kachoen
         078-302-8899       
7-1-9 Minami-machi, Minatojima, Chuo-ku, Kobe-shi

Black-capped night heron

We came accross this handsome specimen on the weekend, at Inokashira-koen in Kichijoji. It's a black-capped night heron, not the most common bird to be found in Tokyo (but not terribly rare either). Wasn't bothered by the rain at all.

Mikurajima Dolphins

Last weekend I moblogged about my trip to Mikurajima, but with my cellphone I wasn't able to post any decent pictures. Luckily Emi had her underwater camera, and now that she's sent me her photos I can do a proper post about the trip.

The pictures above were taken from the ferry- the first is of the Tokyo skyline just after leaving, and the next is of Mikurajima about 7 hours and 200 kilometres later. Notice how steep the coast is-- the entire island is like that, unlike the flat coastline and gentle slopes of the neighboring volcanic island of Miyakejima (whose residents have only recently returned after an eruption 6 years ago). The way Mikurajima juts out of the ocean is impressive and the cliffs, a mixture of layered rocks and lush vegetation lined here and there with thin cascading waterfalls, are certainly beautiful. But the steep sides of the island mean there are no beaches, and this little island (about 20 square kilometres) has just one small village with a handful of inns, a few tiny grocery stores and one restaurant. So what the hell is there to do on this island?

Pretty much just one thing:

That's right-- go swimming with dolphins. The waters around the island are home to approximately 200 dolphins (compare that to the island's human population of about 300). From April to October dolphin tours are offered from Mikurajima and the nearby Miyakejima. Tourists can watch the dolphins from the boat or don snorkeling gear and jump in the water for a better look. The dolphins will sometimes play with the swimmers, but mostly just ignore them and go about their business.

And that's what they did with us. Apparently by mid-summer the novelty of seeing people up close has worn off and the dolphins aren't as inclined to play. But simply watching them do their thing is cool enough. They are amazing creatures and seeing them up close in the wild is completely different from seeing them in an aquarium. I've always had a certain image of dolphin lovers as creepy New-age flakes and I have to admit that image has rubbed off onto the dolphins themselves. So that when I thought of dolphins I couldn't help picturing them in a tacky Lasser painting. So until Emi convinced me to come on this tour I really had no interest in dolphins it all, and I have to admit I wasn't really looking forward to this trip.

How wrong I was! Dolphins are truly are amazing creatures. Just being near them was an incredibly moving and magical experience. I really did get a sense that they are intelligent, complex and playful animals, not so different from humans. And I can't wait to go back and swim with them again.

We did two tours, one on Saturday afternoon and the other Sunday morning. On each tour we went around the island, stopping whenever dolphins were spotting, about 6 times in total. Occasionally the dolphins were already gone by the time we got into the water, but usually we managed to see them. And we also some neat fish and two sea turtles, which were surprisingly fast and graceful.

The water was warm so wetsuits were not necessary. (Although I noticed that every single member of the other tours-- there were several out there-- were wearing them. The tour companies must do very good business with wetsuit rentals.) It is not necessary to be a great swimmer- one lady couldn't swim so used a kickboard to float, only putting her face in the water when her daughter alerted her to the presence of dolphins nearby. Her daughter, on the other hand, was an excellent free diver and could could follow the dolphins several metres below the surface, staying down for a surprising amount of time. A couple of non-swimmers just stayed on the boat and enjoyed seeing the dolphins surface- they were treated to several jumps and a few flips, things that those of us underwater missed out on.

We had to leave a few hours after Sunday's tour and I was very sad to go. The picture above is of the Camellia Maru, the ferry that took us back to Tokyo. I hope to ride it again soon!

For more pictures, see my Flickr Mikurajima album.

Information:

Access to Mikurajima is by ferry, and helicopter (it is also possible to fly to nearby Miyakejima and take a dolphin tour from there). Tokai Kisen has ferry service 6 days a week; it takes about 7 1/2 hours and costs from 9250 Yen for second-class tickets (discounts are available for students, seniors, large groups, and early reservations). We stayed at Onjuku Nishigawa, which costs 8000 Yen per night with dinner and breakfast. For the dolphin tours we went with Sirius Nature Tours, which offers 2-hour tours (it feels much longer) for 7000 Yen. Snorkeling equipment and wetsuits are available for rental, or you are free to use your own equipment.

Mikurajima Information (Japanese)

Tokai Kisen (Japanese)

Onjuku Nishigawa (Japanese)
04994-8-2106
23 Mikurajima Mura, Tokyo

Sirius Nature Tours (Japanese)
04994-8-2256
Mubanchi, Mikurajima Mura, Tokyo

Cujo and George: a tale of two cats

How do you save something that doesn't want to be saved?

A stray kitten has been hanging around our apartment building's small garden for 5 days now. It is tiny, maybe 5 weeks (but I've been away from cats for so long that I'm not really sure). It is adorably cute and a true stray-- totally afraid of people. But its way too young to be on its own. Especially considering our location-- on the corner of two roads, one fairly big with lots of speeding trucks. There are also tonnes of dogs around here, with a big park across the street and a dog accessory shop on the first floor of our building. So when this kitten eventually leaves the garden I don't think its chances are good. And if it does survive and manages to join the pack of strays at the park, it is just going to breed more stray cats. So I've I've made up my mind to rescue this kitten.

We were first alerted to its presence by its pitiful mewing- we hear a lot of cat sounds from our second-floor apartment, but with plenty of kitten rescues under my belt I know the difference between regular meowing and the cries of a baby in distress.

When I went to check it out the kitten hissed and spat and then ran away and hid, so I left it some food. I've been leaving food and water for it since then and little by little its been letting me get closer. It knows I am the one feeding it and will now appear out of the bushes whenever it hears me, but the hissing and spitting hasn't stopped. And despite coming right up to me, it won't let me touch it.

Yesterday was a breakthrough-- I held out a niboshi (small dried fish used for making stock) and it cautiously approached, snatched the fish and ate it where it was, before hissing and running away. And then today when I left for work, another breakthrough. I held out my hand, without a niboshi, and the kitten came right up like it had yesterday.

And bit my finger.

Not after I tried to grab it or anything-- it just came right up and bit me. My first thought was that my hands must smell like the niboshi I'd been handling, and the cat had mistaken my finger for a fish. But then a few seconds later the kitten decided to give my hand a few swipes with its little paws for good measure (those tiny kitten claws are surprisingly sharp!). So I guess it was personal.

Returning home tonight, I sat with it for about 10 minutes, as the kitten ate from my hand and bit me in turns. Finally, when I thought it had relaxed a bit, I made my move and grabbed it. And that tiny pathetic kitten turned out to be a hellcat, and put up an incredible fight, which resulted in me dropping it. And it was gone.

Then at 5:00 this morning the cries started again and I couldn't get back to sleep. So I went down in my pajamas and amazingly the kitten came right up to me again. And after 15 minutes of it running away and coming back and hissing and scratching, I tried grabbing it again.

The kitten seemed to have taken a few self-defense lessons since the earlier grab, perhaps with a pitbull as the teacher. Because this time around the squirming and scratching was supplemented with biting. And not the little love bites it had been giving me before-- it chomped onto my finger and held fast, stopping only to select another finger, and then another. It was so incredibly painful that once again I let go. And burst out crying. Not from the pain so much as the disappointment at my utter failure to rescue this kitten. Luckily my husband was awake by this time and he let me bawl and blubber for a while before gently nursing me back to my normal non-crying state. It's great to be loved.

So why do I want to rescue this little ingrate hellcat so badly? It probably has a lot to do with George. George is the cat I had for a short time in Toronto about 11 years ago, before I moved to Vancouver and then on to Japan. He had been given to me by my sister, to cheer me up during a difficult break-up. It worked- he was a great little cat, cute and intelligent, but not knowing how long I'd be living in Vancouver I had to give him up. Norah, a family friend, kindly offered to take him in despite hating cats. And of course, George being an excellent cat, she was soon converted to cat-loverdom.

George died a few weeks ago. He had developed a tumor, and despite Norah's loving care his health deteriorated to the point that he needed to be put down. It was really sad news but I took it well at the time. He's been on my mind since then though, and inevitably I've begun thinking about Manute and Kitty, other beloved cats that had died in the years since I came to Japan. And naturally I started to think about the people too. It really sucks being half a world away when people or pets that I love pass away, and having to mourn them from afar. One effect of this long-distance mourning is a delay, possibly because I'm already so cut off that a loss has no immediate impact on my life.

So I'm pretty sure my crying fit was as much for George as it was for the kitten, and maybe for everyone else I've lost in recent years.

I have no idea what I'm going to do about the kitten. Even if I did manage to catch it, what then? Our apartment doesn't allow pets and our landlord lives in the apartment next to us, so keeping it is asking for trouble. Also, on Monday I'm going away for a summer camp job for 5 days, and I can hardly expect my non-cat-lover husband to take care of it. Plus I'm terrified of the thing now. I've nicknamed it Cujo, since the painful swelling of the bites on my hand had me worried and an internet search turned up "rabies" (hint: paranoid people in highly emotional states should avoid searching the internet for health information at 5:30 in the morning). Sure, Japan has been rabies-free for decades, but this cat's behavior totally matches the descriptions.

Have you all seen Old Yeller? Good-- if you see me foaming at the mouth, you'll know what to do...

Okinawa Day 4: Churaumi Aquarium

The typhoon hit on Sunday, ruining our plans for hanging out on the beach all day. The beach was totally closed, which got me worried about what to do with the hermit crab I accidentally took from the beach the day before. How was I going to return it to its home?

With no car, we had no choice but to spend the day at the nearest attraction to the hotel: the Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium. I hadn't really wanted to go, because I can't help feel sorry for the bigger fish. Especially the magnificent whale sharks. Apparently aquariums are getting better at keeping them, but they still tend to die off quickly after capture. It just doesn't seem right. The place is also expensive, but it turns out that our bus tickets came with free admission to the aquarium. So that's where we went, bringing along the hermit crab in the hopes of getting near enough to the ocean after wards to release it.

I tried to get over feeling sorry for the underwater prisoners and just allow myself to be wowed. The place is not as big as the Osaka Kaiyukan Aquarium, but it's impressive enough. The main attractions are the whale shark, of which there are currently three. They were amazing to see, and we spent almost an hour just staring at them, transfixed (the aquarium has a few rows of seats set up in front of the whale shark display, like a little movie theatre).

Here are some of the pictures:

We never did get near the ocean, but the aquarium had a kind of hands-on shoreline display featuring a pool of starfish and such as well as a rocky area with shallow pools of water, beachy-type foliage and yes, hermit crabs. So I clandestinely released the little hermit crab I'd been carrying in my purse and it happily crawled away into the water. Not as good as returning it to the beach, but better than the certain death that would result if I'd just chucked it on the side of the road or brought it back to Tokyo with me. Hope it's happy at the aquarium.

In the afternoon we caught the bus back to Naha. On the way we stopped for a lame tour of some kind of pineapple wine factory, which I didn't mind because free samples were generously offered. I drank as much as I could and as I walked tipsily back to our bus I noticed I was the only one who hadn't bought something. This place must make loads of money.

We checked into separate hotels- Emiko had an early flight home the next morning and wanted to stay near the airport. I stayed at Stella Resort, which is actually more of a hostel, with cheap dormitory-style beds. After dumping our bags we met up again on Kokusai Dori for dinner. We chose a place specializing in Okinawa Kateiryouri (Okinawan home-cooking).

On the left is jimami-doufu (peanut tofu), right is suku-doufu (Okinawan tofu topped with aigo, tiny salted fish), and in front is a special treat called hija-sashimi (raw goat). It was all good, and I loved the aigo, which were somewhat reminiscent of anchovies. The goat was not as gamey as I thought, and in fact had very little flavour. It must be enjoyed for its texture, with the contrast between the soft meat and chewy skin. We also ate rafti (stewed pork belly) and drank awamori (Okinawan distilled rice liquor), and finished with hirayachi (Okinawa's version of hirayaki, a savoury pancake):

More aquarium pictures can be found in my Okinawa album.

Okinawa Day 3: Motobu

On Saturday morning Emi and I took a bus up to Motobu, in the northern part of the island. We had originally planned to rent a car but the approaching typhoon worried us a little, and the bus turned out to be cheaper. The drive was very scenic, at least once we were out of Naha, and the ocean seemed to get more beautiful the further north we went.

After dropping our bags at the hotel we headed to the beach We were staying at the Royal View Hotel, which was the only semi-nice hotel outside of Naha that had rooms. It is not a beach-front hotel, so we had to walk about 10 minutes to  Emerald Beach, a small public beach.

It was pretty and there were few people, so we felt lucky. But no sooner had we spread out our towels than an announcement was made over the loudspeakers: the water would be off-limits in 10 minutes! The sun was shining and the water was calm, but apparently the typhoon was expected to hit at any minute. So we had our 10 minutes of swimming in the ocean, and the rest of the day was spent on land.

We sunbathed and walked around a bit, then I tried to build a sandcastle. It turned out to be the worst sandcastle I've ever made- the sand was too full of coral and shells. So I switched from sandcastle-making to shell-collecting. I'm easy-going that way.

When we got hungry we walked back to the road and ate at the only restaurant that was open. Luckily it turned out to be an Okinawa soba shop. Okinawa soba is a hot noodle soup, kind of like a cross between ramen and udon. But not really. I love the stuff, so was happy to slurp up this big bowl. It went down very nicely with a can of Orion, Okinawa's beer. Orion tastes just like an American beer, but not in a bad way- served ice-cold on a boiling hot day, it is very refreshing.

Back at the hotel, I gave my shells a cleaning and discovered that once again I'd accidentally kidnapped a hermit crab. No problem- I'd keep him safe in a cup until we were back at the beach tomorrow.

For dinner we stayed at the hotel. Lame, but there are no restaurants, supermarkets or even convenience stores nearby and without a rental car we couldn't really go anywhere. This is what I had (the cheapest option, but still much more than I wanted to spend).

Top row: fruit, jimami-doufu (Okinawan peanut tofu), salad; middle row: chawan-mushi (savoury egg custard), goya sunomono (bitter melon dressed in vinegar); front row: tendon (shrimp and vegetable tempura over rice), pickles, miso soup.

It was pretty good, and I was grateful for the Okinawan touches like goya tempura and aasa (a kind of Okinawan seaweed) in the soup and chawan-mushi. Another Okinawan touch- we drank it all down with awamori (a delicious liquor distilled from rice).

Plenty more pictures to see in my Okinawa album.