Orion Beer

Is this a parking spot for Orion beer (Okinawa's local brew)?

Fishies of the Yaeyamas

The snorkeling in Okinawa is amazing, as I have mentioned before. Above you see a snapshot of snorkeling in Kabira Bay, Ishigaki. This area is around a famous site called Juka Bijin. Juka Bijin is actually a painting theme of a beautiful woman under a tree found throughout Asia. In the case of Ishigaki, it is a particular underwater coral formation that looks like a tree. It has small, red, fruit-like clumps grow on it. The legend, according to my snorkeling guide, says that beautiful Ishigakan women swim out to the tree and pick the red fruit, because it looks like a heart. This guarantees them love.

See the Nemo hiding in the coral in the first photo below? The second photo is Staghorn coral, I believe.

These next 2 pictures are from Jeff's dive with manta rays. We went out on a boat to a place called Manta Point. For a few months every year, manta rays congregate at this place in order to get cleaned by little critters that live in the water there. I guess they nibble the bad bacteria off the mantas or something. They saw half a dozen mantas, check out the first picture to get an idea. I just snorkeled around up top cuz I can't dive, so I didn't see any mantas. But I saw some fishies!

Nemo, Nemo, everywhere. Isn't it funny how Hollywood helps intercultural communication? Nemo is a wonderful example. Since the film "Finding Nemo" came out, everyone in the entire world refers to Clown Fish as "Nemo". We went out at Shiraho to see the famous blue coral on this fisherman's boat. He took us to 3 different snorkeling spots. Before we got in the water at one of them he told us, "there are lots of Nemos over there, look for them!" Now, if he had said the name of the fish in Japanese we never would have known what he was talking about and probably would have smiled politely and ignored him. But instead we put hand gestures and "Nemo" together and went to find the little buggers.

The waters of the Yaeyamas are filled with this tiny bright blue fish. They are everywhere, and so pretty. We saw clouds of the blue babies with a mom or dad guarding them. If you held your hands out like in the photo below, they would come swim around them and occasionally come in for a nibble, hoping that you were food.

Game Night!

My friend Jon lives on a small Okinawan island with only 500 people, called Tonaki. As you can imagine, there isn't much to do on such a small rock. But that doesn't get Jon down! He's full of great ideas for ways to spend time with his neighbors. Every Friday Jon hosts a group of fellow Tonakans at his place for Game Night. I've been hearing about how fantastic Game Night is for many months now. Finally, Jon decided to bring Tonaki's most recently acquired board game over on the ferry, to show a few of us what the spirit of Tonaki Game Night is all about.

Oh boy is game night fun! I haven't played board games since I was a wee lass. I think of games as something for kids but boy am I wrong. After about 5 minutes of Jon's explanation of the rules of Settlers of Catan, my eyes glazed over. I didn't remember games being so complicated. In one ear and out the other. The only thing I remember thinking was, "...and you play this with a group of non-English speakers every week?" Amazing.

As the first roll of the die came around, I knew I was in for trouble. The only instructions that my wildly flailing memory could recall were:
"there is no maritime trading during the Special Building phase!!!!"
It seemed so important... but I had no idea what it meant.

No worries no worries. 4 hours and 5 beers later we all knew what it meant. Let's do Game Night again! Next time it's Okinawopoly, a board game in the making by Hilary and Gabe. I'll keep you posted!

Urauchi River

Much of our outdoor fun on Iriomote island was centered around the Urauchi River. Lined with dense mangroves, this river is the longest river in Okinawa. According to Wikitravel, it is often likened to a little Amazon. Boat cruises, canoeing, and kayaking are all very popular on the Urauchi. If you take a boat upriver, it will let you off at a trail head at Gunkan-iwa Rock. From there, a pleasant 50 minute hike through the jungle will take you to the Kanbire Waterfalls, which translates as "the place where the gods dwell" in the local language. You will also hike pass lookout points with excellent views of the Mariyudu Waterfalls (left). I hate it when people sound like a tourbook on their blog, so I'll stop now.


Kanbire falls is really beautiful. Above the falls is a large pool with a limestone bed full of naturally occurring holes. They look just like hot tubs. Japanese people are terrified of exposing themselves to the elements, so the 3 foreigners there were the only people who got in the water. Come on naicha, why hike 50 minutes to beautiful waterfalls just to stand in the sun and sweat? Most of the Japanese were wearing big hats and lathering sunscreen all over their hands like there was no tomorrow (they do that because it's hip to have face and hand skin that's as white as possible). Some of the women were wearing completely bizarre and hiking-inappropriate garb. Stylish all black get-ups with long-sleeved netted tops and black gloves, for instance. Ugh. How happy I am to be me!

We enjoyed the Urauchi so much that we went kayaking the next morning. This was my first time kayaking, and it was great fun!

While kayaking we stumbled upon an old bridge all grown over with jungle. It gave me the creeps so we turned around and paddled our little booties off. Later we found out that the bridge lead to an old coal mine that had once existed on the island. Hundreds of people were kept against their will on Iriomote and worked to death in the coal mines. If they ran away they would die in the jungle. Yeah, now you see why the bridge gave me the creepies.

Joyce and Dad fairies

Trees of Iriomote

I heart trees. "Big Buttress Tree" is Okinawa's official name for the type of tree in the first photo here. The trees in the second photo are mangroves (go read about mangroves on wikipedia if you're shaky on them, mangrove trees are yet again awesome evidence that evolution is HOT). Iriomote is a magnificent island for trees with rockin' ROOTS, isn't it?

More proof that no one beats the Yaeyamas for roots:


This second to last picture is clearly an Ent who emigrated from Middle Earth to avoid certain death... and well he did. He's probably the last. The final picture is intertwining roots from trees on either side of a pathway, meeting to form an arch. I have no idea how they did it. Props to you, little rooties. Survival is ON in the Yaeyamas.

Flowers of Ishigaki

Shinki the Majestic

Iriomote is an island almost as big as Okinawa mainland, but with a population of only 2,000 (there's like a million people on my island). Most of the island is covered in dense jungle. You may think, therefore, that there would be little with which to amuse oneself. Oh contraire! For example: two hours after arriving on the island I found myself face to face with Shinki the Majestic (above). Isn't he glorious? You can travel from Iriomote to very close, smaller islands by water buffalo drawn cart, of all things.

This is what it looks like. The trip can only be made during low-tide, when the sands are exposed. Otherwise, I suppose one could simply swim, as it isn't very far (but there isn't actually anything on Yubu island so I don't know why you would). The only reason you would go is to ride in the buffalo cart, or...
...to watch the water buffalo wallowing in their pools. Here is Shinki on his lunch break.

Pleasant as it was to travel by water buffalo drawn cart, I couldn't help but yearn for Shinki's freedom. What an unhappy life it must be to pull overdressed, uppity naicha (Japanese mainlander) tourists around day in and day out. Plus, he had to wear a rope through his nose which looked like it itched. On the ride back the driver gave a little Japanese child a stick with which to prod our majestic steed. The little snot promptly began wacking Shinki incessantly and laughing as if the whole ordeal were great fun. Every once in a while his stupid grandma would lean over with a greedy lick of the lips, take the stick from his hands and show him how to put a bit of elbow grease into animal abuse.

Throw off your yoke, Shinki! I longed to cry, as I watched Snottball wipe his dirty hands off without a second thought on his old grandma's nice slacks and take up his wacking stick again. Give this sadistic brat a good goring in balls! Escape your life of servitude! For a fleeting moment I considered slitting his nose rope with my pocket knife so he could make a run for the Urauchi river (after creating a distraction by goring Snottball). Alas, courage was not with me that day. Next time Shinki, next time!

PARAWORLD

While driving along a sunny country road in the north of Ishigaki one day, we stumbled upon a small sign pointing right for "PARAWORLD". What could it be? I put my money on some sort of exotic vegetable and fruit production facility. Jeff had his on a tropical retirement home for paraplegics. We had to find out!

At the end of the dirt road we found a few friendly folk lounging in their yard. Their occupation seemed to consist of lounging, until hapless tourists (like ourselves) got curious enough about the sign to Paraworld to drive down their road, at which point they could grab up their paragliding equipment in the blink of an eye, stick a helmet on your head, attach a few cords to you, accompany you down a short path to the beach and boom! Have you soaring through the clouds and over the ocean before you knew it. Which is precisely what we found ourselves doing.

For those of you who don't know what paragliding is (mom) just look at the pictures above to get a basic idea. The instructor has hand controls with which they can direct the movement of the whole contraption, and there's a motor on the back. So it isn't like you're just floating tamely in a parachute.

It started out pretty much that way though, I suppose they want to get you used to the idea before freaking you out. My guy took me up up up very high over the ocean (giving me a marvelous view o the reef, as you see to the left) and we just sat there for a while. Right as I began to get antsy, the fun began. "You like spiral?" He asked. "Yeah! Spiral!" I answer. He cranked on the motor and began a terrifying rapid spiral descent towards the sea. "Weeeeeeeeeeeee!" I think I was screaming. Then we began swooping back and forth across the beach. Big arches that reminding me of the Pirate Ship at the amusement park: you know, you kind of feel this weightless moment at the top of an arch where your stomach goes into your throat and you start looking for your bucket to vomit in.

Since I kept laughing hysterically, he decided I was having big fun (which I was). "I'll show you how to fly!" He exclaims. Then he directs me to take my arms out from behind the safety straps (yea, the woman instructing me before take-off had made very clear that I should be gripping these from behind while flying) which left my entire torso free of any restraints. Then he told me to lean as far forward as the safety cords holding me would let me go, then spread my arms.

Oh, he was right. I sure was flying. From that angle I could see no part of the paragliding contraction holding me or flying above me, all I could see were my arms stretched out to either side and the ocean, reef, and beach roaring past below. Ah, what fun! I felt like Bastian Balthazar Bux when he in finally united with Falkor for the ride of a life time.

A Triumphant Return!

Ha-ha! You thought I was never coming back!

Well, here I am, sana y salva. Above you see my triumphant pose in honor of the Triumphant Return. The reason I feel triumphant is because I am wearing the Superhero wetsuit. Every time I get inside this thing and pull down my mask, I feel like an indestructible super-joyce. You may even catch me whizzing furiously back and forth under water in this same pose with my snorkel and fins, chasing schools of small fish and singing the Starwars theme song out loud to myself (as you can tell, I have indeed been caught doing this.) Here are some underwater photos to demonstrate. Me, unaware. Me, upon being caught. Fish!



The snorkeling in Ishigaki is amazing! If you think these fish are cool, just wait til I get myself together and post more pictures of fishies. The main cause of the delay is that my computer has run out of space and I can't even fit half the trip photos on it. I keep meaning to go buy an external hard drive but haven't done it yet.