Today there was a terrible earthquake just north of Tokyo and the subsequent tsunami has wreaked much havoc. First and foremost I hope that there is as little suffering as possible up there.

I was in a meeting in my office and could hear my computer going ping ping ping signaling mail arriving. The rhythm was such that I went over to see what was going on. They were mails from people all over the world kindly asking if I was OK. I felt OK but how do you know if you are dead or not?

I asked my colleagues, mainly Japanese, what was going on  and they shrugged their shoulders. We went out into a central lobby type place where 5 or 6 people were watching a TV. Horrendous pictures and film. People just went back to their desks and got on with it. No discussion.

I go back to my office and my email is full of questions. You guys knew about it before I did.

The university is on a hill and overlooks the sea. I run up the stairs to see if there is a wave coming in. I am alone. Everyone else is at their desks.

“Have you got family in Tokyo?”

” Yes”

“Are they OK ?”

” Oh I think so but I haven’t heard from them.”

I drive home along the coast road looking for trouble. The sea is millpondish.

It is now dark so I cannot sea the ocean from the balcony but it sounds flat.

I have been living an ascetic life since I have been in Okinawa. I have a beautiful apartment but no stuff. I have 1 knife 1 fork, 1 spoon, 1 cup,1 plate, 1 collapsible table, 1 collapsible chair,1 futon,3 tatami mats,2 pillows, 1 duvet, 2 trousers,2 shirts and sundries. Oh, 1 huge exercise machine, which I am actually using.

St Simeon Stylites lived on top of  a pole for 37 years

Pole dancing

I do however have a fantastic terrace with a beautiful view over the sea. I have planted some flowers and I sit writing this,

Living on your western shore

looking over the flowers to the view. Sunday morning. On Tuesday my furniture arrives and my apartment will be cluttered but comfortable.

This is winter in Okinawa. People huddle in their coats and blow on the ends of their fingers. The daily conversation – how terrible the weather is and what an exceptionally bad year this is and it must be global warming.  The conversation is the identical in London , Chicago, Vladivostock and Surinam.

“That time of year thou mayst in me behold,

When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang

Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,

Bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang.”

In fact things here are pretty good. It is  warm and usually sunny but sometimes there is a cold wind and I believe the temperature once dropped to 9 centigrade.

But er lo what Spring in yellow mantle clad er springs o’er yon far hill?

Suddenly all over the place bare trees have  spurted  beautiful yellow blossom.It is extraordinary- no leaves just outrageous yellow blooms from bare sticks. What a way to announce spring. I wish I knew what this tree is called.

Mellow Yellow

“There is no blue without yellow and without orange.”

The yellow-flower-tree is dazzling but there are many other beautiful flowers in bloom.

High Biscuit

Booger Villa

Orange stuff

Doesn’t matter where you go on Okinawa you are always close to some tombs. They are everywhere. Come out of your front door – tombs. Wander around the sugar cane fields – tombs. Hang out on the beach -tombs. I have not found one in my kitchen yet but probably not trying hard enough. As I understand it, the religion on Okinawa is one of ancestor worship. This from Wikipedia:

“Traditionally, periodic gatherings of the extended family occur at the family shinju (haka), or “tomb” (v. inf. for information concerning the traditional dates of these gatherings). The tombs resemble houses, complete with a courtyard (naa), family name markers, and “porch” upon which offerings are arranged. Inside the tomb is stored the cremated remains (funishin) of several generations of family members. Although responsibilities may vary on a case-by-case basis, generally it is the oldest male of a family whose financial responsibility is upkeep for existing tombs and establishment of new tombs once the old are full or should it be destroyed.”

while to my shame I see The imminent death of twenty thousand men That for a fantasy and trick of fame Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause, Which is not tomb enough and continent To hide the slain?

There seem to be two main designs that I will call Fortress and Pagoda. Fortress are the one you see in the photos above. They resemble horseshoes. The older ones are made from stone whereas modern ones are big slabs of very ugly concrete. Pagoda style are smaller and basically look like small  er pagodas. They are made from stone, concrete or marble.

A cluster of pagoda style with a huge fortress in the middle.

Frequently on the tombs you find Shisa. These are a pair of dogs that essentially bring good fortune.  You see them everywhere in Okinawa.Read all about it at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shisa

Wuff!

This is not an ancient tradition that is dying out.  Tomb stores are doing a thriving trade. Invest now.

Wha lies here? John Sim, ye needna' speir. Hullo, John, is that you? Ay, ay, but I'm deid noo.

Here lie the bones of Elizabeth Charlotte, Born a virgin, died a harlot. She was aye a virgin at seventeen, A remarkable thing in Aberdeen.

When Orpheus played he moved Old Nick. But when you played you made us sick.

Thanks to Robert Burns for the epitaphs.

Spotting and watching birds has been a favorite activity of mine for many years. Now I am in Okinawa and I am born again. Not “born again” like:

George W. Bush – U.S. President
Ronald Reagan – U.S. President
Jimmy Carter – U.S. President

I am born again cos I am in  a new bird environment. When birdwatching you see the first 200 or so birds  in a region in the first couple of years and then pick up rarer stuff by either luck or work. Work means going to weirdo places specifically to see birds. Thus in Europe I have seen my 200, in the US I have seen my 200 but in Okinawa  I am starting afresh.

Oriental Turtle Dove

Okinawa is cool because I think there are less than 200 birds that live or come to the island. Compare that to over 700 for the States. There is a pretty good chance that I can see them all! Yahoo, I am born again.

Without trying, these are the birds I have seen so far.

Eurasian Wigeon

Northern Pintail

Greater Scaup

Great Cormorant

Gray Heron

Great Egret

Pacific Reef Egret

Osprey

Gray-faced Buzzard

Common Moorhen

Black-winged Stilt

Common Sandpiper

Whimbrel

Temminck’s Stint

Oriental Turtle Dove

Common Kingfisher

Rook

Large-billed Crow

Pacific Swallow

Great Tit

Light-vented Bulbul

Blue Rock Thrush

Pale Thrush

Dusky Thrush

Japanese White-eye

Gray Wagtail

White Wagtail

Eurasian Tree Sparrow

Black-headed (Tricolored) Munia

Japanese White Eye

So sooner, I hope, than later, I will set off for some seious birdwatching. Those of you who are not birdwatchers, who string yourselves up in strange, complex harnesses with an orange in your mouth and a vial of Amyl Nitrate up your nose  to have thrill, think of me with my binoculars and fresh air.

My March has been ripped untimely from my possession to have new  registration plates put on and new brake pads slid in. Nissan give me a loaner, called a Nissan Roox. It has a 600cc engine and is a cuboid or solid  rectangle. I love it. As I have mentioned in a previous posting, driving in Okinawa is slow. You do not need power.

Is this the black box they are always looking for?

Space is always good and this car is 90% space.

Wuff!

At the Dentist's

I have another car that is also a black cuboid.

A black cuboid in California

600cc probably 70 mpg

4000cc probably 17mpg

Horses for courses I suppose.

The trip home is eventful. First I stop off at a vegetable stall of which there are loads. All the vegetables are seasonal in Okinawa and you can buy them straight from the farmers. I continue to forge over the Rubicon by buying some greens that look just like chrysanthemum leaves. I mime how do I cook this?  The old lady says “Boil!” 

The brown thing is not a vegetable. It is a flute

I make Sunday lunch of fish, greens, seaweed and wonderful rice. The fish is much like mackerel and delicious. The greens probably grow on you.

Before

After

Let’s spin the clock back a bit.

After buying the greens, I take a dirt road to the coast and wade through the already warm sea along the cliffy coastline. Ospreys are flying overhead. The coast line is a series of tiny coves each with a beautiful sandy beach, maybe 5 yards wide. Truly  exotic, sci-fi vegetation hangs over from the top of the cliff. Anyway, I burst  inland and come onto an enclosure in the middle of nowhere  that contains a family of white goats. Two tiny kids about a week old, a mother with a troubled look and a billy goat. He is standing on his back legs with his head and horns hopelessly tangled in the plastic netting fence. He is clearly exhausted and very distressed. I manage to free him but he doesn’t say thank you. Once again the The Ploughman Poet has been here before me.

 

Death And Dying Words Of Poor Mailie, The Author’s Only Pet Yowe. An Unco Mournfu’ Tale

1783
Type: Poem

One of the joys of living in a more or less totally foreign culture is new vegetables. You know, there are carrots and potatoes and leeks and cabbage and spinach and brussel sprouts and turnips and onions and broccoli and stuff. Here these things are exotic and there are racks of stuff I have never seen before. Huge white radishes, weirdo spinach, roots and tubers of every shape and size, purple potatoes, growths with holes in them – what are these things? What do they taste like? I have crossed the Rubicon. I have bought bizarre tubers. “Alea jacta est.”

I'm Mandy. Fly me

So, they are woody and hard. With a lot of cooking they soften up  revealing a chestnut-like flavor and texture. Very nice. I wonder what they are?

To my astonishment I have bought a home gym. I hope I use it as I have much enjoyed being reasonably fit rather than fat and old.

No matter if I use it or not because buying it was so interesting that I am already in credit. I spot it on okinawayardsales.com and contact the seller whose name is ‘navywife.’ We meet in a supermarket parking lot and I follow her across Okinawa to her apartment. Her name is Tiffany from Tennessee. She is white and I think she is about 23 years old. She has the most beautiful 3 year old daughter called Layla, who prattles to me non stop as I cast a non critical eye over the gym thing. Tiffany tells me that she and her husband are breaking up and  she just wants the gym out. She wants $100.  Can’t take it as I need a range of tools to dismantle it. Just as I am leaving Layla comes back wearing her party dress and  primps and preens  for my benefit. I hope one of my sons has a daughter.

Next evening I go back. The husband is there. He is in the Navy. His name is Luis and is 250 pounds of muscle. He comes from New York City, is  23 and black.

It was so strange. These kids seemed lost. They were in Okinawa, so far from home, they were splitting but there seemed to be no animosity, their daughter was so full of life and curiosity, he is gentle and black, she is gentle and white, they both talk to their daughter with great restraint and love, towards  me they display classic American courtesy and non- judgmentalism, they are in the military, they look to it to define how their lives will develop. Floating in a strange bubble above Okinawa.

Luis helps me bully the huge machine apart and then bully it down 3 flights of stairs and into my tiny car. It is now installed in a spare room at my place.  Who cares if I use it.

Conversation piece

Before I had ever been into a Starbucks I did not like it – the chain. I was living in Europe and maybe it was the idea of American big business getting involved in something as savoir faire  drenched as making coffee. What do those people know about coffee? I think another aspect of my previous antipathy was the choice. In France you go to a cafe and you order a cafe. Sorry can’t do accents on WordPress so just put them in yourselves. There is some choice. You could get a creme, or an expresso or an allonge but that was about it. What’s all this latte, macchiato, cappucino, iced pumpkin spiced latte, double decaf expresso, pike place roast? How vulgar.

When in California I gently changed my mind. The places were very welcoming, the staff were friendly and fast, there was always wifi and the coffee was great.  What’s more you could buy a tremendous variety of coffee right there and they would grind it for you and give you a free coffee while you were waiting.

Now I think Starbucks is just great and I worry rather about my previous pomposity. Maybe they don’t travel  well, as I realize that before yesterday I had never been in a Starbucks outside the US. Guess what?   Just beside my dentist, hub of all things Okinawan for me, is a Starbucks.

The dragon on the left has just had a cinnamon dolce creme frappuccino

The staff are even friendlier, a mixture of Japanese and Starbucks has to be the strongest customer service cocktail around, the wifi is good, the coffee is great and you can buy all kinds of  coffees which they grind for you.

Why don’t people like Starbucks?

I love Kenyan Coffee