The Okinawan Xmas

Ok, so first of all a belated Happy Christmas and an early Happy New Years to everyone!

The week (or last 10 days or whatever) started with me having my last day at school. I was tired and hungry at the end of the day (I work 9 til 3 with no break), but was in good spirits as it was the last day. This changed however when I found I would not be getting paid for my holiday. My money seems to be getting spent faster and faster these days, so am in need of every yen.

I assumed I would be getting paid as the other teachers were, but because I am part time my manager told me I wouldn’t get anything. Normally I would have accepted that, but Im always well touchy when Im hungry, so decided to ring the company president to complain. He apologized, then promised me a Christmas bonus, which was an awesome result.

The next day me and Ayae went to the Sakae Orchird gardens which were excessively decorated with electric lights. There was a live Jazz band playing cheesy Christmas numbers, and an exhibition of a British style Christmas. This was basically some rooms decorated in a traditional British style, complete with a fake fireplace, and a Japanese Santa Claus (who was wearing trainers).

We also went to Nagoya city to buy a Japanese-English dictionary for my Nintendo DS. Despite being really expensive everywhere, I eventually found an earlier version which was also second hand and so extra cheap.

Because we would be spending our Christmas day travelling to Okinawa, we decided to have our Xmas day on Xmas eve. This was an awesome day although I was a bit miffed to find that my Japanese English dictionary was actually rather rubbish. It’s a program designed for Japanese students to learn English so all the definitions from English to Japanese are in Kanji and so unreadable to me. O well.

The next day we set off for Okinawa!!! For those that don’t know, Okinawa is a group of tropical islands quite far south of mainland Japan. The fact that its quite far from Japan means its culturally a little different, and the climate is about the same as Hawaii.

The journey was a long one. We flew from Nagoya to Okinawa island, and then from there flew to Ishigaki island (even further south!) where we would be spending the first night. We got to the Hotel about 8pm totally exhausted. There were 4 restaurants inside the hotel, and we went for the Japanese style one.

There was no choice in the menu. The trip to Okinawa was a present from Ayaes dad to us, and included travel, hotels, and all meals. For this particular restaurant we had a ticket that entitled us to a certain meal.

This was a really awesome meal. It consisted of some delicious grilled fish, some pickles, some ginger, sashimi, rice, miso soup, some tofu, some special Okinawan Soba, some shrimp, and some obscure but delicious vegetables. Although I love pretty much all Japanese food, this one was the first meal in a long time to really stand out as absolutely delicious. Awesome.

The next day we woke at 6 and had a delicious breakfast buffet. Then it was on to the tour bus. The day was going to be a long one, as it was a `Tsua` (Tour), which consisted of visiting many different places in Okinawa, all in one day.

Even at 8 am on Christmas day, there was a warm breeze which was really lush. There were palm trees lining the streets, and a beautiful beach and ocean stretching out as far as the eye could see. I wore my shorts for the first time in a while, which was awesome.

The first thing we visited was some Chinese grave thing, which was pretty cool. After that, we went to a gorgeous beach to go on a glass bottom boat. This was nice and there were lots of colorful fish, and lush coral.

After this we went to Ishigaki port, and took a rocky boat ride to Taketomi island. We then took a bus to `Starsand beach` where there were star shaped skeletons of miniature creatures amongst the sand. Whilst all the other tourists looked for these, I soaked up the sun in this absolutely gorgeous location, and smugly thought about what the weather in the UK must be like.

We then got back onto the bus and went to look around Taketomi village, which was really nice. The building design is different in Okinawa to the rest of Japan, particularly the roofs. I climbed up a ridiculously steep stone staircase to get a view over the top of the village. This was a beautiful view, as the beach was also in the background.

Apparently on Taketomi, there are no police, and only 2 traffic lights on the whole island. In fact everyone in Okinawa seems to be really chilled out especially compared with the often ridiculously stressful rest of Japan. It has the highest life expectancy of anywhere in Japan, presumably due to this relaxed, happy go lucky attitude of the Okinawan people. Despite the hecticness of the Tsua, I often felt well chilled which was ideal after working so hard the past few weeks.

After Taketomi, we went back to the port, and got another boat to a different island, Iriomote. There, we had lunch which was a delicious bento box featuring some Okinawan specialties. Okinawan cuisine often features lots of pork, which was fine for me, but pretty tough for vegetarian Ayae (especially when she found out she had accidentally eaten pigs ear!). To be fair I didn’t know it was pigs ear either, but it was actually really delicious.

We then chilled on a nice beachy, grassy area before taking a buffalo drawn cart. Buffalo rides are apparently something that Iriomote is known for. We used them to get across some shallow water to a different island, where there was a cool botanical garden and a butterfly garden which was awesome.

On the buffalo ride back our driver (the guy in charge of the buffalo, are they called drivers?), decided to pull out a sanshin (a traditional Okinawan instrument, a bit like a banjo) and play us a song which was cool.

The Tsua then took us along the Urauchi Gawa (basically like a miniature Amazon) on a boat, where we could see an awesome mangrove, where many of the trees had been uprooted by a massive typhoon. After a while we stopped at a famous Okinawan tree which was 400 years old and had these crazy massive roots, before heading back.

We then went to Kohama jima which is a different island, to stay at the hotel there. This hotel was awesome. Instead of regular rooms, there where chalet like buildings that look out over the beach and ours was about 4 times bigger than our apartment in Nagoya! There was however pretty much nothing else on the island which meant for tea we had to have the hotels all-you-can-eat buffet which was exceptionally expensive.

Despite this it was proper lush, and I got to try Chanpura which is a famous Okinawan pork stir fry, as well as loads of other specialties and more pigs ear! After totally filling up, we saw some Okinawan music performed live in the hotel lobby which was pretty cool but had to go to bed straight after as we had another early start the next day.

Unfortunately we overslept, so only had 5 minutes to eat breakfast, meaning we stuffed our faces at an unhealthy rate. After that we had a bus tour of the islands village which was once the setting for a famous Japanese TV show set in Okinawa. The most interesting part of this bus tour was when the guide revealed he had only left the island (which was absoloutely tiny!) twice in his life. He seemed happy enough tho, so fairplay I guess.

After that we headed back to Ishigaki to have a quick tour of a traditional Okinawan fabric makers factory, before getting on a plane back to Okinawa island and then on to cold and wet Nagoya. When we got to Nagoya airport we met a couple of Ayaes Uni friends who had just graduated and got jobs as air hostesses which was cool.

The next day Ayae went back to her parents and I stayed in Nagoya. In the evening I went out with my friend Callie for a drink. After moving from pub to pub we tried to find a famous techno club, but ended up getting completely lost. We asked a band who were busking, and ended up chatting to them for an hour, as they were really friendly. After that we kept walking, and asked some girls who were hip hop dancing nearby. This is as Ive said before a common activity in Japan, especially outside skyscrapers with reflective glass.

They were also really cool, and invited us to go to a club with them so we followed. On the way we randomly bumped into the singer from the busking band, who out of nowhere produced some traditional Japanese sweets and offered us some. After munching down some sweet beans treats, we found ourselves at a hip hop club named `The Underground`, which was ironic cos it was actually on the 4th floor.

This club was pretty cool, and had live performances from Japanese RnB singers and also a couple of rappers. After this there was a dance showcase, where our newly found friends performed their routine. There were about 5 different troupes, and it was awesome to watch them. After dancing til 5 and meeting loads of random cool people we headed to get some ramen (which is basically like the Japanese equivalent to the Kebab). Ramen are a type of Chinese noodle and usually served in a soup with meat and vegetables. This was pretty horrible, but I had the munchies so I chowed down.

Ok that’s about it. I go to Tokyo tomorrow to meet my friends for New Years Eve which is gonna be well good, so next week expect another `Tokyo special`!

Peace yo!

Jack

PS Heres the video of the Buffalo ride complete with Sanshin playing dude.