The Quiet Ripple Defines The Pond

Best fun yesterday as we inaugurate our latest research facility. Let me introduce to you the  – OIST Marine Science Station.  So; big event, VIPs, speeches, television, cats doing funny stuff. However the defining memory was a performance of Tanchame by the Serigaki Sanchin Serenade. This mesmerizing ensemble is made up from staff at the university who are sanchin sensei and dance doyennes.  The dance is emblematic of the relationship between Okinawa and the sea.  Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThwcHbLIs-I

The Serigaki Sanshin Serenade crew were much better.

Go Ami, Computer support, the most important function at a university. Go Naoko, who runs the Mathematical Soft Matter Unit

I loved it.

Congratulations to the Serigaki Sanshin Serenade!

Thanks to everyone who made it so much fun.

We will study this sort of stuff.

Here is the official version.

http://www.oist.jp/news-center/news/2016/7/14/oist-marine-science-station-%E2%80%93-open-worldwide-research

It is Saturday so I go to the Fish Market at Toya.

Huge fish

That is enough of that. The guys have come to slash the undergrowth that has been encroaching steadily around the house. Sometimes it is difficult to get out of the front door.

Jungly stuff

During the proceedings my neighbor, Nagahama san, comes to chat. I notice that he is carrying a samurai sword. This is quite unusual on Okinawa. I try not to mention it but after some very rare mime patterns I understand that he wants me to come to his house to look at his Samurai armor.

Nagahama san in shinto moment

He lets me shoot his gun

So, I am not sure what to make of this.

Anyway, the guys slash energetically in the heat and humility.

There is a wall there that I have not seen for 3 years.

Yay new garden

Aregato gozaimasu!

Before

I don’t like sponge cake

There is a typhoon hammering into Taiwan. We expect the wake tomorrow. Hence brooding feel to photo.

Where the snakes live.

I like my new garden.

So, I go to Tokyo. I get into Haneda at midnight on Wednesday. I head straight to my beloved First Cabin Hotel. I have written about this place before.

https://quietripple.wordpress.com/2014/10/04/one-of-those-days/

https://quietripple.wordpress.com/2015/12/07/first-class-cabin/

I get off the plane. 5 minutes later I am showering in a school like communal bathroom and 10 mins later I am fast asleep in my little cabin – perfect hotel.

I rise very early and walk out of my hotel straight to the subway, which is all part of the Haneda complex. I am slowly getting better in dealing with the Tokyo metro. Not that I have ever had serious upset. It is more that I have less paranoia about getting on the wrong train or worse still, not getting off at the right station.

Haneda subway- eat me

I slam my suica card onto turnstile sensor. It beeps very satisfactorily and let’s me through. I have a rush of accomplishment. The station and the train is gleaming and spotless in the morning sun. I want to lick the floor.

Gelato

My greatest challenge with the metro is remembering the name of the station or stations, as you usually have to change, that I am going to. I look at my instruction sheet and my first station is Kamata. 5 minutes later I have forgotten. Was it Karena, Karaja, Karama, Keraba? I have to drag out my instructions again.

It was Kamata

I go through this process every 10 minutes or so. Part of the atrophy of age is the inability to retain the names of Tokyo subway stations for more than 5 minutes. Anyway I whizz across Tokyo and get to where I am going. I am meeting a colleague at the station but I am some 40 mins early. I gambol into the sunny streets looking for mischief and breakfast.

Today is Tanabata

Tanabata,  takes place on the 7th day of the 7th month of the year, when, according to a Chinese legend, the two stars Altair and Vega, which are usually separated from each other by the milky way, are able to meet. Get it?

You  write your wishes on a piece of paper, and hang that piece of paper on a special bamboo tree, it then comes true.  My wish is to find somewhere to have breakfast. It comes true!

A lot of Japanese restaurants have machines where you choose your food and pay. The machine spews out a ticket that you present to the staff. They then bring the food and typically you eat it.

You can pay for your meal with your Suica card. This is your travel card, check out button middle right. I do so and feel very sophisticated. I mean who cares about choosing the right wine in fancy French restaurant a la James Bond. True sophistication comes from  paying for your breakfast with your travel card in an obscure part of South Tokyo. James Bond would have asked for help.

Bleakfast! 400 yen, which is 28 post Brexit pounds.

I meet Natori san and do work stuff involving marine exploration ships and deep sea submarines.

Japan’s new deep water research vessel.

The guy in the middle is a total hero. He has made 200 deep sea dives in this manned sub. Deep sea like 6000 metres. He is now unable to smile.

We then train it back to Haneda, fly to Okinawa, drive back to the university and I chair a committee thing at 5:30.

Summertime Fuji

It has long been an ambition to sail up to Seragaki harbor and there take amazing photos of rare terns, er Roseate and Black Naped.

In previous years there has been a maelstrom of terns. Hundreds of pairs nesting on the rock outside Serigaki. So I go there by sail, anchor, take the best photos ever .

Unfortunately, this year few or no terns are on the island. I have driven up  there several times to check. There are few terns

Notwithstanding, I set off this morning with the firm belief that hundreds of terns will have arrived overnight.

I hope

The wind is coming straight offshore at 30kph. Perfect as I reach all the way up to Seragaki in less than 2 hours. It is hot.  Sun scorches skin.

I sail from little blue dot to little mauve pin

Complex tacking to get into the harbor but  I know the Scaffie well.

Let’s go crazy with the Terns

There are no terns. I knew this, but my dream said otherwise.

There is actually one Black Naped Tern and he does not like me being in his hood. He attacks me vigorously as  I walk around.

This my hood

Beautiful bird

So, I row out after a less than dreamlike visit to Serigaki.

Eton

The wind is strong offshore and I hurtle home.

The best place to be on a hot Okinawan Saturday is in a sail boat

I do not know what I have done to offend the Shinto Sea Seniors but each time I sail home they change the wind just as I am nearing home. I am thundering home, dreaming of food and very, very, cold drinks when the wind disappears, only to re-appear from the South West. South West means blowing directly from where I want to go.

You have no idea how character forming it is to beat back and forth over the last 10% of a sailing trip. Especially after 5 hours at sea in the hot, hot sun.

Anyway half way across Tancha Bay, I unzip my diving bag to get water. The zip breaks.  It is a  very important moment. I have talked about this bag before.

https://quietripple.wordpress.com/2011/04/23/one-of-the-lads/

She has been with me through all the tortuous struggles of my life. She has been big enough to hold all my possessions at earlier stages, my sons have lain in her as babies, I recently, like 2 weeks ago, went on a business trip and my stuff was perfectly encapsulated in my Spirotechnique bag. I own nothing that I acquired before this bag, which I acquired in 1975 in Oran, Algeria.

But her zip has gone so she is trash.

Boo Hoo. At least she died at sea.

Tough times for English folk. Conveniently, I call myself Scottish. This has consistently been a help in my peripatetic career. People like the Scots but generally do not like the English. Why is this?

Anyway, I have been neglecting Lady Sunset. She is so beautiful but after a while you get kinda immured to beauty. You no longer notice it. Big mistake.

All hail Lady Sunset! The last couple of days.

Dog

Cat

Labbit

I go for a delightful evening sail. I gently beat out to the reef and then run down into Shioya harbor.  Things start getting out of control when I go aground just beside the two big rocks that jut out in the middle of the harbor. After much foolishness, I beat back home. The wind has got up and a big squall is coming in. Luckily I find a bottle of cold white wine in a freezer bag. I miss the mooring twice. Well, the second time I pick it up but I am going way too fast and am nearly pulled out of the boat.

Good fun.

Plumeria goes from strength to strength.

The gracious Rumi san, who runs the Sunset Beach House,

https://quietripple.wordpress.com/2016/04/09/plumeria/

has given me lots and lots of cuttings. I now have 14 plumeria.

I awake, still stunned by the absurdity of the UK voting to leave Europe.

A quick Kipling break:

“WINDS of the World, give answer! They are whimpering to and fro—
And what should they know of England who only England know?—
The poor little street-bred people that vapour and fume and brag,
They are lifting their heads in the stillness to yelp at the English Flag!”

What can I do to relieve my gloom? I know, look at dead fish.

Marlin

I go down to the Toya fish harbor to get my prescription filled.

Big boy Tuna

I mean how stupid can people be? Leave Europe?  Even in a Japanese fish market it makes no sense.

I buy an Octopus,  which makes me feel better. It is an Octopus. Sometimes they are missing tentacles, which makes them Septopus or even Sexopus.

My first Plumeria blooms

Summer Solstice Sunset

It is my great honor to represent the university at the remembrance ceremony to mark the end of the Battle of Okinawa on 23 June 1945.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okinawa_Memorial_Day

The Battle of Okinawa was grotesque beyond imagination.

The ceremony was very moving. It is a big deal. Prime Minister Abe and senior members of the Cabinet are there. Caroline Kennedy, US  Ambassador, is there. We sit two security rows behind Abe.

They translate the main speeches for the 6 Gaijin present.

The battle  was inconceivably fierce. It destroyed every building, burnt every single tree and all vegetation. It left a wasteland of mud, maggots and blood.  About 35% of the civilian population of the island were slain. Women and children mostly.

Onaga san is the Governor of Okinawa. He got it right, “We cannot forget the unimaginable absurdity and cruelty of the war our people experienced.”

My remembrance Karyushi

Love and peace to you, people of Okinawa.

So, we have been through the rainy season and without a doubt the Summer has arrived. This weekend has been glorious.

7:30 this morning

I spend all day paying attention to the Scaffie, who I think suspects my clumsy philandering with another boat. We go for a long sail out beyond Cape Zampa. Brilliantly white terns screech as they fish around the boat. By the time I get back to the mooring at lunchtime-ish the tide is far out and I anchor the Scaffie er far out.

Amazing colors

I then go for an afternoon sail.

I put my false teeth in the waterproof bag

Close hauled.

I then go for a sunset sail.

It is gloriously warm

Sunset at sea

In between sailing, I watch the rugby internationals, which someone has kindly posted on YouTube.

Time to watch Australia v England

There is also a full moon

Work tomorrow.

So Atsuko has a wedding celebration. The real deal was in Tokyo a couple of months ago.

I have worked with Atsuko since I arrived at OIST and she is my heart’s delight.

Okinawan weddings are the best.

Ami dances

The girls dance

Arisa sings

Here is the program

Wonderful evening. Thank you Atsuko.