The Quiet Ripple Defines The Pond

So, I have to have a Japanese driving license. This seems fair enough seeing as I live in Japan. I go to the Okinawan version of the DMV in Naha. Brand new building of remarkable cleanessity.

Next to Godliness

My papers are checked and I have got it all right. I wait for a while before my papers are handed back with a smile. A carefully taken photo before which the lady minutely  rearranges my collar so I look my best.

I then have an eye test  and they still work.

Notice the space between people as we wait for eye test.

Next comes a 45 minute lecture that I do not understand but know to be a quick run through the Highway Code. This is a  typically, but delightfully, childish document full of cartoons.

Drive slowly

Draw your own conclusions

At the end of the talk our names are called out and we are presented with a brand new driving license. What a feeling of pride as I am handed mine. At last I have

Jatta!

achieved something in this vale of tears.

I now have 4 driving licenses.

The British one dates from 1970

So we go for a walk. The weather is bright and sunny and off we go to explore. The little river is full of fish, which we watch, and on the shore we see Grey Tailed Tattlers. We see kingfishers diving for little, baby fish so they can eat them.

Tittle tattle

The reservoir is the stage for Comorants, Egrets, Ospreys, Eurasian Coots and loads of turtles.

View from the reservoir

James nearly catches a big turtle and does catch a little turtle.

Behold the turtle. He makes progress only when he sticks his neck out.

Dead crab on the road Tra la la la la There's a Dead crab on the road Tra la la la la la Dead crab on the road Tra la la la la She looks like a sugar in a plum Plum plum

We go back down the river and O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!’ We see a Ryukyu Green Pigeon. This is a bird unique to the island and so if you want to see it you have to come here. You follow the logic?

Hooray!

The only difference between a pigeon and the American farmer today is that a pigeon can still make a deposit on a John Deere.

Check out that ass!

Strange mixed race duck

We walk past the tombs to the beach.

Tomb

Beach

We then go to a shrine place and boing birthday boy Ben’s bell.

Bell head

We find some vegetation that behaves like nearly everyone we meet – it shrinks away when you touch it.

“I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.  ~John Muir, 1913”

It is Ben’s birthday!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1KjrCjJ7yE&feature=relmfu

He gets shoes, a Cotterless Crank Extractor and, wait for it, a Bottom Bracket Installation Tool!

The shoes are cool.

Boogle loo

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Happy Birthday Ben!

Ben and James take me to the Haunted Hotel. This was a project in the seventies to build a hotel. The guy got it wrong apparently by building it on an ancient pet burial ground and the workers were attacked by rotting dogs at night. understandably this slowed construction and the project unravelled. However it stands yet and one of the wild experiences on Okinawa is to visit the castle of Nakagusuku – 14th century and then slip out the back into the Haunted Hotel.

The weather is scotlandish

Spot burial ground

Ben and James go to the well

The hotel is nuts.

Mirrors on the ceiling,
The pink champagne on ice
And she said we are all just prisoners here, of our own device
And in the master’s chambers,
They gathered for the feast
They stab it with their steely knives,
But they just can’t kill the beast

Er, by beast they are referring to the rotting dogs from the ancient pet burial site on which the hotel was er built.

We wander around and come across art.

Do not eat dolphins

Netted

The hotel ruin is a gallery of murals with work by respected painters.

Caravaggio was here

Late Masaccio

Triptych

Boilers

Up on the roof

New Years Day. Cold, well by Okinawan standards, and windy outside. An opportunity to do very little indeed, which is probably the ultimate luxury. Here is a random visual record of the last few days.

Hermit crab in forest

Strange Fruit

Papillon

So be it

Ben

The World's Police

Make up

Slip sliding away

Fish without chips

Sea snake love

James er blows

I walk to the excellent bakery that is about 400 metres from my place. A mistake, as being New Years Day, it is closed. However I take a photo of each house that I pass to give an impression of the diversity, weirdness, ugliness, incomprenhendsibility of the architecture around here

What does it mean?

Spontaneous symmetry breaking

James likes this

Notice Greek columns

Windows er XP

Neo-penitentiary

Well?

Low rider with observation tower

Big garage roof terrace

Tuscan

Neo-Folsom

Groundfloorless

Lego

Set the controls for the heart of the sun

So as you can see the architecture is varied.  I don’t understand – here is the grey morph of the Pacific Reef Egret

A little bit of bread and no cheese

Can this be possible? I think I have been more or less inebriated every  New Year’s Eve  since 1968. Last night however not a drop of alcohol passed my lips. Why?

Well you do not drink and drive on Okinawa. We go for a meal of fish and shell-fish and more fish. No beer. On to visit old friends  –  we drink tea.

I had been told that the action on New Year’s Eve  was at the temple at Shuri Castle in Naha. We get there and the place is totally deserted. I realize that Shuri Castle and Shuri Temple are probably different places. Not to worry as it is a lovely night and we wander around the castle gazing out onto the sprawl of Naha. Finally we see some other people who speak English and guide us to a temple nearby.

There is Shinto ceremony. Small crowd of people lining up to ring the big bell by propelling a log at it. Very restrained, very dignified.

Dong

The donging starts at 11:45. Families wait for their turn to pull back  and let slip the log of dong. There is no change or obvious interruption to mark the passing of the year at 12:00.

Our turn comes. It is a little intimidating as we are like out of our element. We do not want to mess up and offend people. The  log priest is very gentle with us and we dong like the rest.  Great way to bring in the New Year. We walk back to the car listening to donging from several temples in the city. No other noise, no fireworks.

The closest we get to a drink all night.

Chrysanthemums are Yomitan's biggest export. They keep the lights on all night. This was taken at 2:00 just beside home.

So, the weather turns bad and we can no longer go diving. We decide to set off on an excursion to the North of Okinawa to visit the famous aquarium.

The day started unexpectedly with some kind of attack on Yomitan just as we were leaving. We were in a hurry so could not hang around to find out exactly what was going on.

We drove up to the Churaumi Aquarium but things do not change. James and Ben could never be in a car together without squabbling. There was a very unfortunate incident on the way up when Ben was messing around in the back and James, well, over-reacted.

The aquarium in great, if  a little diminished by the fact that we have been swimming around in the same milieu for the last three days.

Blue ray

Are you looking at me or chewing a brick?

'Cos either way you'll loose your teeth

Just as we were leaving there was another unexpected event

We then went to visit ancient castle. It is very old.

Luckily no accidents

On the way home we unfortunately got into a terrible car crash.

Pretty weird day all in all.

So Happy Holidays to all. With sons James and Ben it is spent underwater in Okinawa, which is a bit like eyeless in Gaza. Xmas day is cold and windy but what do we care because we come from Scotland and ergo have no physical sensation and only little more emotional.

It seems that one almost unique feature is the second skin body hug thing which attracts and excites so many about latex.

We go diving in high winds and fairly big surf but it is fun.

Deck the hall with boughs of holly

Today however it is very Xmassy – bright sunshine, blue skies, 20 degrees. We go to Sunabe which is the freakiest place. Very built up, US military jets screaming overhead, concrete blocks, but once underwater you are in David Attenborough.

As shepherds watched their flocks

Torches, torches run with torches all the way to Bethlehem

Jingle bells, Batman smells, Robin flew away

In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan, Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone; Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow, In the bleak midwinter, long ago.

Pray you, dutifully prime Your matin chime, ye ringers; May you beautifully rime Your evetime song, ye singers.

“Bring me flesh and bring me wine
Bring me pine logs hither
Thou and I will see him dine
When we bear him thither.”
Page and monarch forth they went
Forth they went together
Through the rude wind’s wild lament
And the bitter weather

An interesting Japanese behavior pattern is backing into parking spaces. Everyone does it. Arriving at work in the morning, there is usually a small line of cars waiting to park. The cars however do not swing into the space but swing away from it, blocking the thoroughfare and then diligently reverse into the parking space.  I wonder where this parking culture comes from? Is it part of the Japanese highway code? Is it to ensure a quick getaway? Is it part of some deeper Shinto respect for the parking space? Any suggestions welcomed.

“If, like a crab, he could go backward”.

The above is just a prelude to a panegyric to the dive shop where I get my air. This is a family affair which is called originally”Diving Shop in Okinawa.”  Something about them appeals to me. I suppose the main thing is they are always pleased to see me and make my life very easy.  This is no mean feat  as they speak no English and my Japanese is still limited to asking where the toilet is and expressing my admiration of gas stations. Actually that is not quite true. I can say, as was the case this morning, ” Hai!!! rokko tanku onegaishimasu.”

Unprepossessing

The lady who runs the place has I think four kids under probably 6 years old, who are running in and out all the time grinning and smiling. There is the baby, who arrived in the Summer, either in her arms or in a cot in the front of the shop. Rather than the tired, worn down mother persona, she looks overjoyed by her children and life in general. I take my hat off to her.

My hero loading tanks into my car

Two sons arrive tomorrow and if the weather is reasonably clement we can do a lot of diving. Need tanks.

Vie morte avec bouteilles

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Pacific Golden-Plover