宮古島 (Miyako Island)

This article will be of special interest to my viewers in Deutschland.
Leute, ihr wollt das hier durchlesen!

There was a vacation I forgot to tell you about. On a recent 5-day weekend, I journeyed to 宮古島, Miyako Island, which is about 300 miles southwest of my island. A bit east of Taiwan, in other words. It's Okinawa's 4th biggest island (mine is the first). In reality, "Miyako" is not just one island, but one of the 3 main island groups of Okinawa prefecture, consisting of about 8 islands. Me and 6 friends stayed for free at the very spacious and luxurious abode of a Miyako-JET who happened to be on vacation. My companions were Robyn, Deej, Tim, Michael, Yvonne, Jaimee, and Nancy.
That's right, the Canadians were in the lead with 3, Americans and Brits tied for second but only if Michael feels like counting his Scottish blood the same as Yvonne's English… which I have a feeling he doesn't. And Jaimee came in last place with 1 for Oceania. Go team OkiJET!

Miyako is flat, covered in sugarcane plantations and picture-perfect beaches good for diving, snorkeling, and chillin'. Though it was almost December, we frolicked in bathing suits and tshirts to our hearts' content.

There are about 40.000 inhabitants on the island, and the most interesting fact related to the population is that the capital city of Hirara reportedly has a higher ratio of bars to people than any other city in Japan. If Robyn hadn't spread her deadly flu-virus to the rest of us, the whole trip would have been a success.
Luckily, we all had our Nancy, so it was a-ok.
There is something really weird about Miyako. We first became aware of the weirdness when we drove up to our new home, late Wednesday night after arriving on the plane. It was a dark and stormy night. Rain lashed the windows, etc. Berit (our local JET) announced to us that we had arrived. We peer into the darkness ahead and in a flash of lightning (or was it simply the headlight beams?) are startled to see this castle rising out of the night before us.

"Uh, dude, someone let us off the plane in Germany." Tim comments. And so right he was. We awoke the next morning and took a look out the window. Besides the castles, we saw this excellent view of a very European looking church tower to our right. Then we went downstairs and took a look at our surroundings. It turned out that we were living in a place called the German Village. Here is the house we lived in.

Apparently, in 1873 a typhoon wrecked a German merchant ship upon Miyako's shores. The citizens of Miyako saved the lives of the people aboard. And for that reason, Miyako feels a deep and eternal bond with Germany… I know, I get a bit fuzzy on the whys and hows at this point in the story too. Suffice to say, there is a Gerhard Schröder road that runs the length of the island amidst the tropical sugarcane fields and then there's crap like this (below) dotting the landscape. Just goes to show you what a small world it is. I move away from Germany to the opposite end of the universe, take a trip to an island that isn't even on the map, am Arsch der Welt in the East China Sea, and what do you know, there's Deutschland smiling right back at me!













We played the shanshin at the seashore (say that 5 times fast)
We watched the sunset with spikey choral poking us in the bum.
We ate the famous Miyako soba (which turned out to be exactly the same as Okinawa soba except that there was some seaweed in it)...


We drove over crazy bridges to tiny islands, where we got lost in the narrow maze of streets, and then decided to just get out and walk around the small-town neighborhood. We saw fishing nets hung out to dry after a hard days labor (I imagine), and boats parked in front of houses.
There were lots of interesting looking houses in Miyako. Since everyone lives in apartments in my town, you don't get to see this kind of stuff. I'm getting tired of posting now, so maybe this will be modified in a bit with more information or interesting fotos.