The Quiet Ripple Defines The Pond

I like to go for a ride on my bike on Sunday morning. Nothing too athletic but a gentle snoop around the region that hopefully includes eating fish and some discoveries. It is a beautiful day. I head off behind my home and soon stumble upon a bakery. It is nestled in  a little valley and serves meals and bakes bread. What it is called is beyond my abilities to inform you.

Okinawa's gentle ways grow on you.

The kindest people. Spot the Le Creuset.

Notice hand stamped brown paper bag and cellophane tied up with string.

The owners keep a donkey.

Nice ears

Off towards the sea through fields of sugar cane.

Just a little beach with a breakwater

Trapped in an irresistible vortex I spin towards the fishing harbor and en route pass a little shrine.

Rice, salt, money, maybe awamori and an ancient stone

I get to the harbor.

Look at the water

Very clear

Let’s buy some fish and maybe have lunch.

Assorted sashimi, plump fish of unknown name, seaweed and fish on rice accompanied by sashimi and perfect fish broth. The meal is 500 yen.

My favorite restaurant. I wonder what all the signs say?

Stop off at a shop that sells fisherman’s trousers in amazing colors. I buy some blue ones and a wooden flower.

trousers

Trousers and flowers

Flower assembled

These are handmade and painted flowers from Indonesia. Ludicrously cheap

Good way to spend the morning.

Just a quick one on Okinawan waste management.  The Japanese are admirably disciplined about their trash. The trash world here is divided into two kingdoms, you know a bit like Gaul but one less. One world is burnable,

Vercingetorix

the other is non-burnable.  Burnable goes into special  bags that you can buy from local convenience stores. Each town has its own bags so don’t go using Onna-son bags in Yomitan. These bags have red writing all over them. Non-burnable goes into clear plastic bags and there is  an exception for plastic bottles, which, O best beloved, will burn but must also be junked into clear plastic bags.

Bag it.

Outside my apartment block there are two little sheds. You got it. One is where you put the burnable, the other is for non-burnable. Apartheid trash.

Joe D'Allesandro

I notice that the top story on Britain’s Daily Telegraph website is:

‘Immoral’ bin fines by council ‘rubbish police’ to be outlawed

Don’t you love British journalism.

So today I finally do it. I have been planning to do it more or less all my adult life but the mystical planets that create opportunity in life were never aligned until I came to Okinawa. Here these planets are queuing up.

The process started by meeting up with Jan a couple of weeks ago to starting the training. Jan runs the school.

http://www.piranha-divers.jp/

He has a long confucian kinda beard pouring out of his chin and an enormous metal ring in his earlobe. I think he is 23. (This is wrong see comment below.)

Ear ring a bit like this

We did theory stuff and I passed! Last week we did shallow water stuff and today we went deep. We met on a sea wall in the middle of a very built up part of Okinawa, strapped on the gear I bought last weekend  and dove er dived.  Upstairs; concrete sea wall, concrete apartment buildings, gas stations, supermarkets, huge air force base; downstairs you are living in the most exotic aquarium you have seen in any Chinese restaurant.

It is astonishing.

You have weights that drag you down but the surprise for me is a waistcoat thing called a BCD. This is connected to your air tank such that you can inflate or deflate it so as to increase or decrease your bouyancy.  Once you get it set up right you hang in the water at the depth you want and use breathing in or out to alter your depth. Breath out you go down, breathe in you go up. It is a great feeling as you do not have to move your arms or legs at all allowing you to concentrate on what you are looking at.

What you are looking at is amazing coral, every color, texture and shape imaginable; the most exotic fish, from 18 color angel fish, little brilliant blue things, friendly sea snakes, to barracuda.

Incredible er thing that lives under the sea

There appear to be loads of these er things of infinite variety. I wonder what they are. Dead souls?

Jan is a great instructor, firm on the important stuff but essentially lets you get on with it.

Check out his Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Piranha-Divers-Okinawa/299357998089

We do  two  50 minute dives with a few drills but mainly cruising around the reef.  Said reef drops down like a cliff  and we go about 60 feet down. The cliff face is covered in soft corals that wave in the current and twitch and shudder when you touch.

Deep down

So at last I have done it. I want to do it again.

Pottery or ceramics are big around here. With the amazing good luck that seems to characterize the period I strut and fret my life out on the stage, I have got to know Yamada san. He is probably the doyen of the Okinawa potters. A totally charming man who has exhibited his work all around the world but works with strictly local materials er like coral and mud and stuff and uses the most incredible kiln.

“Today, three main kilns dominate Yomitan. Probably the most well known of the three is the central Kita Kiln (Kita Gama). Designed by master potter Shinman Yamada (who has a studio nearby), the kiln is a nobori-gama (climbing kiln) used for firing jōyachi (glazed) pottery. Built on a slope, the kiln consists of nine chambers called fukuro. It is fired only a few times a year, with each artist receiving opportunities to place their items in the kiln to be baked.”

So,

Light my fire

they only fire this thing up 3 times a year and I was invited to today’s firing. The thing burns for 3 days.

Fire, to destroy all you've done. Fire, to end all you've become. I'll feel you burn

“It ain't the heat; it's the humility.”

Generally when there's a lot of smoke... there's just a whole lot more smoke.

Check out the results

http://www.flickr.com/photos/16995525@N04/sets/72157623457492159/

“Dive, which was originally a weak verb, developed a past tense dove, probably by analogy with verbs like drive, drove. Dove exists in some British dialects and has become the standard past tense especially in speech in some parts of Canada. In the United States dived and dove are both widespread in speech as past tense and past participle, with dove less common than dived in the south Midland area, and dived less common than dove in the Northern and north Midland areas. In writing, the past tense dived is usual in British English and somewhat more common in American English. Dove seems relatively rare as a past participle in writing.”

Hmmm, always wondered what correct usage was but I suppose it is one of those ‘it’s up to you’  language things. Anyway that is what I have been doing this weekend. I dove, er dived.

All day Saturday splashing around in the warm China Sea with my instructor Jan. Jan is German, has a very big ear implant and is 23 years old. He knows what he is doing and we go through a series of drills that will eventually lead to me becoming a certified diver.  Underwater mask off, mask on , take off tank, put it back on again, hover underwater, rescue your buddy, give him air and all that kind of good stuff.  I pass the theoretical test and seem to be doing OK on practical. All being well I will ‘graduate’ next week.

Jan mentions that US military are moving and I might get cheap diving gear by looking on the-already-blogged-about Okinawayardsales.com – the world’s greatest web site, around here.

http://www.okinawayardsales.com

Dave is selling complete diving equipment for $300. Something fishy  as the equipment he describes comes in through the thousands door rather than the hundreds back entrance.

I phone and agree to meet early afternoon.

I am invited to breakfast. It is an offer that I do not want to refuse. We eat pineapple in Grand Marnier and  perfect cheese souflles, sorry about the accent. We look over the bay of Nagahama. There are 8 colors of blue, there are people wading in the low tide to collect seaweed, there are Ospreys floating overhead.

We go onto an art exhibition. I phone Dave to say I will be late. He mentions that he is 5ft 8 and weighs 240lbs and I get it. The stuff is so cheap because he is short and er stout so his equipment fits a limited public.  I go through the art show of Okinawan artists, excellent d’ailleurs, with the niggling feeling that I should go and have a look at the diving stuff . If the wet suit is dumpty, so what? as that price for a tank,  a BCD,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buoyancy_compensator_(diving)

fins, mask, snorkel, is still really good.

I get home at 5:00 and feel sluggish but force myself to go and see Dave even though I am 4 hours late. I find his place. He is ex military and, er, plump. The equipment is almost brand new

There must be something wrong

It all fits my statuesque frame and I press soiled bills into his hand before he changes his mind.

Still life with Gorilla and Cane Toad

So how do I feel about this incredible deal? I mean the bag it all comes in is worth $300. I feel that the common denominator of life is misery and pain and a lucky break like this is just a short period of up before life dumps a lot of down.

I increasingly sense that this British view of life – rain, endurance, understatement, misery and pain- that I was brought up to revere is in fact deeply flawed. So here is a big Yipppeee!!!  for having got such an amazing deal!!

Keep reading to hear when irresponsible joy is punished. Then snigger.

Ding, ding it is 7:00 am. I spring from the futon, pull on some shorts, a t-shirt and head out onto the terrace. Blue, blue China Sea, green, green Okinawa, fresh, fresh air and straight ahead the heavy bag.

Come here sister Papa's in the swing He ain't too hip now but I can dig that new breed babe; He ain't no drag He's got a brand new bag.

So I do repetitions of 60 seconds. I have 6 combinations like: left right duck weave, left right left hook right hook, left right  uppercut  uppercut, left right left hook straight right etc etc. The whole thing takes 6 minutes but I am panting and my arms feel as if they will drop off.

The cock crows and the blue rock thrush sings. I go make some tea and Miso soup.

He led with his head, he didn't head-butt

After an excellent meal, with a bottle of wine at a friend’s house. Said friend exposes a fantastic collection of Islay whiskies. He is way ahead of me. Terminology including, cask strength and quarter cask applied to Laphroaig goes beyond my sphere of reference. He also has 15 year old Bowmore. I mean, why did nobody drink it before it got so old? Anyway great night drinking Islay malts in the tropics.

Hmmm, drinking and driving is a no no. Worry not as Okinawa is very well set up for this kind of thing. You call Daiko and 10 minutes later a car turns up with two guys. One drives your car home and the other drives you home. You sit in the back seat wearing a “I am a drunk” hat. It is very efficient but I still feel guilt about having to be driven home.

Baby, you can drive my car

So the word ‘base’ has loads of definitions. Look it up in the dictionary. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/base But around these parts the significance of ‘base’ is very clear. It is where the US military are and it is a different world. You don’t get into this club unless you are a member. Luckily I have a friend who is a member and he and his wife organized access for me – many thanks Harry and Teresa.

So I went there last night. The guards at the gate are the usual impeccably courteous young Americans.

” Could I see a picture ID please Sir.”

“Whoa you gotta Californian license.”

“My brother lives in Bakersfield.”

“You have a great evening Sir.”

We drive past the football stadium, the pools, the cinema, the post office to arrive before the biggest shopping emporium in the world – around here.  I cannot remember the correct terminology but I think it is PX. Essentially it is a mega Walmart with no signage in the middle of Okinawa. It is really, really big. I have been in some uber shops in the States and this one is right up there with the biggest.  The parking lot is the size of Luxembourg. Inside it is an Aladdin’s Cave of clothes, meat, bedding, camping equipment, washing machines, lawnmowers, Head and Shoulders, towels, shoes, computers, fertilizers. It is like wandering around a Botanical Gardens. Plants and shrubs of so many species; you wander up a path and absorb the color and  smell and shape of the exotic stuff. Yet you never wander up all the paths, there is always a reason to come back.

As I slouch up one path, I turn a corner and there in front of me is the Grail. A heavy bag.

Those who read the San Francisco blog will understand. Here is a hint.

http://spikekalashnikov.wordpress.com/2010/12/11/thanks-roxie/

I bought it. I am equipped.

Hi Roxie!

This store  is not  Japanese but it is part of Okinawa.

At last.

Where I work, er, basically people work longer than I do. They stay at their desks until 9:00, 10:00 night after night. I do not admire this but it unfortunately grows on you. I feel guilty going home before any of the people I am supervisor, er, of.  So I leave work quite late. But just to prove that every cloud has  a silver lining, when I stop by the fish shop that is one my way home I find, by experimentation rather than language, than food is half price after a certain time. I do not know at what time the phase transition takes place but it is before I get there.

Sorry to keep writing about food

Tonight I  get, two scallops in a cream sauce, deep fried squid, a crab and believe or not some meat in the form of a chicken leg. A couple of days ago I got a lobster. Tonight’s lot cost 700 yen. Worth staying at work for.

So this is about my bed.

I feel slightly embarrassed about publishing such personal stuff but as it such a principal change from US/Europe type living I suppose it is OK.  The concept of the bedroom i.e. the room where the bed  is in English, or Schlafzimmer, room where you sleep in German, or Chambre a Coucher, room where you lie down in French, does not really exist in Okinawa. There is a room where you do stuff that you transform into a sleeping place when you feel the time is right. When you are done sleeping you stash the sleeping stuff in a wardrobe and the room becomes a room where you do stuff again.

So imagine the next bit as an animation starting with room where you do stuff through the intermediary stages to return to room where you do stuff again.

Room where you do stuff

Tatami mats!

Futon!

Duvet!

Pillows and IPad

The wheel of fortune