The Quiet Ripple Defines The Pond

Old friends are here staying in the house. We are planning the world’s greatest web site around here. What a day. Leave house at 7:15. Go diving.

Cape Maeda

Rubber gear

JD and Topher under the cruel sea at 7:30

Suffering Sea Snake

Early morning fish

Home – shower-shave- we at work by 9:15.

Meetings –  work – all very good. 1:00 Go to University of Ryukyus to meet President. We talk about Islay whisky and Wordsworth. He knows more about both than me. Back to work meetings-stuff. 6:30Fishing harbor to buy er fish. Back home prepare meal. Great party with old and new buddies. 12:00 hit the futon.

Fish pie

You can do a lot in a day in a life.

So Monday was my birthday. I have to say I felt a whole lot older on Tuesday morning than I did the previous day.  My new colleagues threw a party for Suzuki san whose birthday was the day before mine and graciously include me in the celebrations. I got a Jimbei!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimbei

We drank Bowmore!

I find myself stumbling home through the dark Okinawan night past fields of sugar cane pulsating with toads  – wearing strange Japanese clothes. Yeeeha!

Next day at work I was given the best birthday cake I have ever had. They even made me younger than I actually be.

I'm 59

Thank you

So one downside of life in the tropics is mold. The rainy season has come and with it the mold. I open my cupboard to take out a jacket and lo it is covered with white fungus. How did that get there?

“Like all fungi, molds derive energy not through photosynthesis but from the organic matter in which they live.”  Well Okinawan mold seems to have a taste for my blue jackets – my belts and especially my old Stetson hat.

Took it down from a shelf and this is what I found

Straight from the closet

So with the rains came the first Typhoon. Great excitement and anticipation but unfortunately is flagged a bit before reaching Okinawa and was downgraded to a run of the mill Tropical Storm. Pretty windy all the same and not good for my balcony plants.

Barograph records tropical storm and winds down in the middle of it.

Apparently the way to banish mold is to leave the AC on all the time. This offends my tightfistedness and overall energy conscientiousness. I also like the Conradian image of whitey in baking humid tropics with strange howls of monkeys and hoots of toucans hunched over his desk with glass of warm gin as the mold grows ever thicker on his clothes.

I have always liked bulls. On the farm in Scotland there was a bull shed where I was taken as a toddler. A huge – wild eyed – lump of muscle was chained up in there occasionally letting out a bellow that signaled the frontier of animal territory before it became the domain of magical and mythic creatures. As I grew I would always visit the bull shed and always got the same thrill of being close to real craziness and power. The bulls were always called Jock – sometimes Big Jock. At the same time I read and reread “Ferdinand the Bull.” Different bull theme – bull as sweetheart. Then there was “Little White Bull” by Tommy Steele.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVddTjF-CEM

Bull fighting is big in Okinawa. Not Spanish style – I am a man- I stick my sword right through your heart stuff – but bulls fighting each other. Sunday was a big bullfight day.

http://www.nihonsun.com/2009/07/03/bullfighting-in-okinawa/

Le Stade

The Bulls are led in and faced towards each other.They put their heads down and push. There are many fights and each is different. Some last about 10 seconds as one bull takes the path of discretion. Some take 20 minutes  to end with one bull giving up and wandering off to smell the flowers. Then again whoa! – one bull get its horns under the opponent and lifts him off his feet and nearly over the barrier that separates the animal and human kingdoms.

Bulls fighting

Golly!

Then the little white bull arrives. He is smaller than the other bulls and has a presence. He also has a big white patch on his face whereas all the others are uniformly dark.

Tommy Steele

He is pitched against a much larger – badly read – brutish – republican bull but he fights hard displaying great valor.

Play up - play up - and play the game

The bout goes through 14 rounds- the seconds are screaming advice – the crowd howling for a Tommy Steele victory. Suddenly the republican charges and our hero is pushed against the wall and loses his footing. He’s down! Oh no!

No!

Poor Little White Bull

Looks bad but just like a KOd boxer he gets to his feet and grins meekly as he is led out to huge applause.

The bouts go on.

Happy happy joy joy

This is the final

The champ

The afternoon comes to end with the two best bulls going at it hammer and tongs. There is  awinner. Everyone gets up and heads for the exits. Except for the champ who stands in the middle of the ring so little girls and boys can sit on his back. I am amazed. He is completely tame. His name is not Big Jock – it is Ferdinand.

Soppy bull

Here is a bad Disney take on the Ferdinand story.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGTVRbpAuRo

The Okinawa drink is Awamori. It is distilled from long grain Thai rice that has contracted the unique local black koji mold. You drink it cold with ice or to disguise the taste you can mix it with fruit juice or er coke or er Irn Bru http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mt_rU-Sh15g if you can find it.

Hai!! Zanpa!

Anyway just down the road from my partment is an Awamori distillery churning out gallons of the famous Zanpa brand.

Here are some tasting notes

“Clear with a platinum blue cast. Dried wildflower and honeyed wet grain aromas follow through to soft, silky entry leads to a lightly glycerous, dryish light-to-medium body of very subtle flavors and a hint of perfumed pear. Finishes with an almond oil and mineral water fade. Very lean, light and delicate.”  I would take that with a pinch of salt if I were you.

Anyway today I go visit.

Outside

Empties

European awards

Superior Awamori - distilled to honor the 50th year of the University of the Ryukyus

So after a quick sniff around I feel I should buy a bottle. However a bottle of Zanpa at the distillery is 850 yen. 500 meters away in the supermarket it costs 560 yen. I point this out to the sales ladies using elaborate mime and pig noises. They laugh and grin in classic Okinawan style. I end up buying a Tshirt.

I think this says "Drink Zanpa! Brewed in Okinawa from unexploded shells."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Awamori

Discuss.

It is very true that too much bird watching is a dangerous thing. Obsessive attention to detail of beak shape – wing tip color – flight behavior – song – tends to obviate the surrounding loveliness. Not so yesterday when I spent an afternoon at Zakimi Sho trying to spot and photograph the Japanese Sparrow Hawk. I had been tipped off  by elderly Okinawan gentleman that a pair nested in a certain tree where there was certainly a nest. It looked kinda abandoned. I found the best observation spot – set up tripod and camera and waited.

Big Red chews the cud

I watched this stone grow

I sat and waited and watched and listened. Nothing very much happened.

These were above my head

These were to one side

Throughout the afternoon Okinawan families and couples wandered up to visit the Castle. There was no shouting – no loud voices – no music. The serenity was only broken by children laughing.

A passer-by

Never saw the bird.

We go to a  small local restaurant. I order “Butter scorched fish.” The lady comes out with a tray on which are two fish – one respectably sized the other an OTT barracuda thing. For me there is no choice but I believe that I will only get a section.

Wrong

A day’s fishing.

This planet is covered with sordid men er or women who demand that he er or she  who spends time fishing shall show returns in fish.

We as a group rent a boat and head out onto the grey sea. It is rainy season and so is warm and wet and grey and windyish. The bait is interesting. Tiny prawns are packed into a plastic cylinder that is much perforated. This with a weight is at the bottom of the line. Above is a string of hooks- the idea being that prawns gush from cylinder and float up around the hooks. The fish in feeding frenzy mode strike the hooks amid a cloud of shrimp.

What whales eat

We fish and some people catch a lot of fish. Not the silver darlings we are used to but multicolored tie dyed fish.

This fish eats coral and the excreted fine sand apparently makes up the white beaches of tropical isles.

Young woman kisses golden fish

The hand that feeds

A bad day of fishing is better than a good day of work.

Spot the fisherman

The only frustrating part of the trip was the two other people on the boat not of our party. They caught more than the sum of our efforts. Maybe they paid more?

Golden Week is a big Japanese pause for breath in May. By taking a couple of intervening days vacation you can get 10 days straight no work. Not the case for your correspondent but very much the case for majority of colleagues. So it is Golden Week now but alas alack it  has also heralded the start of the rainy season . The last couple of days have been wet and warmly Scottish. What can you do?  Go diving and eat so here is a visual narrative of a Golden day.

Doesn't rain underwater

Fresh Fish and Goya

Fish with Okinawan veg

White sauce. Fantastic cocotte made by Ruth McDunn

Mashed straight from the ground potatoes

Okinawa Fish Pie

Sashimi salad

So – as with many things here in Japan – I have to reassess the concept of a bread shop. Bread here is as much a gastronomic item as fish or  a pig’s ears. It is made presented and eventually wrapped with exquisite care. It is not er like just bread. By the way the comma key no longer works so  you will have to impose your own rhythm in these sentences. A wonderful bakery has just opened up  a 5 minute stroll from my apartment. As with most bakeries here it is also a cafe providing drinks and light meals. I go for breakfast.

traditional?

The bread is very inventive. The classic croissants and pains au chocolat are there but then du nouveau with rice bread and my current favorite goya rolls. Goya is a bitter knobbly cucumber thing that is very prevalent in Okinawan cuisine.

Which brings us to the unfortunate Kevin Maher – ex head of the State Department’s Japan Desk – who I feel must have  drink taken when he asserted that the Okinawans were now too lazy too grow goya. Check out the article. This has caused a major fuss.
http://www.eurasiareview.com/smearing-japan-oped-20042011/

His words  surprise me as I have always been very impressed by US diplomats’ extreme politeness and skill in avoiding confrontation. Poor Kevin – he is now ex.