The Quiet Ripple Defines The Pond

So, another hymn of praise to life in Japan. Today is a public holiday. Japanese Foundation Day (Kenkoku Kinen no Hi). It celebrates the foundation of Japan, commemorating the ascension to the throne of the mythical first emperor, Emperor Jimmu in 660 B.C.

See you Jimmy!

Tomorrow is Friday, which I have taken off.  4 day weekend! I have plenty of stuff to worry about but as I get older I find I am able to disassociate work concerns from enjoying life.

A 4 day weekend with projects in warm, springish, Okinawa. Yay!

Project one is to paint the mighty Hi Jet an inch thick. Okinawa by the sea is a terrible place for all things material and the mighty Hi Jet has developed a fairly severe skin condition of rust. I have no intention to do a good job but rather I intend to cover up the damage for a while.

“Now get you to my lady’s chamber and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favor she must come.” Well adjusted Hamlet is speaking to a skull.

But before that I buy food.

Where I buy food

Outside where I buy food

So I devote the See You Jimmy holiday to primping up the truck.

“I love the confidence that makeup gives me.”

“Beneath the makeup and behind the smile I am just a girl who wishes for the world.”

Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.

So, over the next few days I will slather white paint make up on the mighty Hi Jet. It will not be a cure to the rust, it will but skin and film the ulcerous place. It will lay a flattering unction on.

On the way back from Toronto I spend a day of meetings in Tokyo. You have to love Tokyo. Er, take my word for it.

Lunch in the sky

Lunch. I am on  a diet.

Shimibashi, Tokyo’s first rail station. I tell you, they have come a long way since.

Youhei and I do 4 separate meetings in different parts of town from 11:30 to 6:30. I am comatose throughout. We then catch the 8:00 flight back to Okinawa.

Ginza from a meeting room.

It is now 12:40. I am home and wide awake but uncertain which day it is.

The city in which I am in also boasts excellent Irish music. I go to a session in a bar called Dora Keogh. There is much academic discussion the the correct pronunciation of Keogh. Is it just ‘key’ or maybe ‘key-yoff’ or then again ‘cough” maybe ‘kay -er’ ?

I say  ‘KO’ but frankly try to avoid saying it at all.

Whose name will not be spoken

The inside of Irish bars look like penitentiary eating spaces.

Anyway  chez Nora hosts one of the great sessions. The night I was there it was 5 fiddles, box, pipes and mandolin things. All the aforementioned playing at the level where mutual congratulation is no longer needed. I played more reels than in the last 6 months in Okinawa.

The fiddler on the right plays with the Chieftains

Such fun.

Anything useful that I have learned came from The Children’s Encyclopedia which I read, all 10 volumes, several times, from cover to cover, when I was 9. Our set must have been published in the 1930s and it had wonderful sort of green black and white photos of sights in the colonies. One which stuck in my mind was of the hotel I am now staying in that in 1929 was the tallest building in the British Empire.

All you will ever need to know.

The hotel is no longer the tallest building.

From  my window.

It is a great place full of old style British themes.

You lose.

We are the champions

Arthur Mee impersonator

This is my Auntie Margie RIP, pinning a rose to Arthur Mee’s chest. No seriously, it is.

Boring talk? Look at the ceiling.

I always enjoyed Ezra Pound’s parody of”Sumer Is Icumen In”

Winter is icumen in,
Lhude sing Goddamm,
Raineth drop and staineth slop,
And how the wind doth ramm!
Sing: Goddamm.
Skiddeth bus and sloppeth us,
An ague hath my ham.
Freezeth river, turneth liver,
Damm you; Sing: Goddamm.
Goddamm, Goddamm, ’tis why I am, Goddamm,
So ‘gainst the winter’s balm.
Sing goddamm, damm, sing goddamm,
Sing goddamm, sing goddamm, DAMM.

That said, in Okinawa where the sky is blue and never is heard a discouraging word, a bit of wild, wintery weather is very welcome. I wear my winter woollies and big red coat.

Add in the wind chill!

I go to Cape Manzamo.

Not a day for boating

I love a rough sea

This photo is in black and white. Note waves breaking over the rocks in the background

I do like to be beside the seaside

Wild and wistful ocean

The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore. I love living by the sea. She is versatile and inventive companion.

Cold Golden Plover

Miserable Grey Tailed Tatlers

Greenshanks or maybe Marsh Sandpiper. Age makes decision so difficult.

I look forward to spending a year on Cara.

So, I am very fond of my big, woolen, red, coat as what I wore a lot in freezing Nevada. To my delight I wore it today in Okinawa! The weather is fantastic. It is blowing a gale, raining heavily and even coldish.

Cape Zampa

I went out to Cape Zampa to get my prescription filled with fresh air and spray. Huge waves breaking over the cliffs and I got completely drenched not by rain but by sea water in the sky.

I have been diving here

Difficult to get the scale but these are big rocks

Wow

At times I felt that I might have needed gloves.

For those of you who worry that I have left Okinawa, er worry no more. Here is proof. I have moved from -20 to + 20 degrees centigrade.

Breakfast in January

I gently spruce up the Scaffie.

Warm

I look at my Hibiscus.

I grew this in a pot

I look at the what’s it called.

Can’t remember

This is my house and palm tree

I go for a walk to look at birds.

This either a Temminck’s or a Great Cormorant. Both winter here and look the same.

Can’t remember

Little Egret – notice yellow feet.

Seagull?

Amazing hibiscus everywhere

I watch an Osprey catching lunch

Notice color of sky

Missed

A little bit of bread with no cheese

My car

Okinawa is a nice place to live.

My learned brother Ian has spent a lot of time researching the life of Sir Ernest Shackleton, who is famous for Antartic exploration and for being the inspiration for Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest.”

Here  is  Ian on South Georgia doing research with a shovel.

Anyway, he has just published a paper in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medecine proposing that Shackleton had a hole in his heart. The main evidence is that Shackleton ate his dogs and clearly anyone who can eat little doggies must be lacking heart.

“Oh! it is absurd to have a hard-and-fast rule about what one should eat and what one shouldn’t. More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn’t eat.” This is a Shackleton quote on eating dogs that was snitched by Wilde. Wild is the chap on the left of the group. He later added an ‘e’ to his name and went on to be a playwright. The dogs in the photo are clearly nervous.

Here is a conversation between McNish and Shackleton during the awful voyage of the James Caird, McNish speaks first.

“How you can sit there, calmly eating muffins when we are in this horrible trouble, I can’t make out. You seem to me to be perfectly heartless.”

“Well, I can’t eat muffins in an agitated manner. The butter would probably get on my cuffs. One should always eat muffins quite calmly. It is the only way to eat them.”

“I say it’s perfectly heartless your eating muffins at all, under the circumstances.”

From this we can understand that Shackleton’s crew were all aware of their leader’s heart condition. The conversation was also shamelessly plagiarized by Wilde.

Ian at home in Clapham eating muffins.

Anyway, bravo Ian!

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/12/polar-explorer-ernest-shackleton-may-have-had-hole-in-heart-doctors-say

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/12095607/Sir-Ernest-Shackleton-suffered-from-a-hole-in-the-heart.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/a6808396.html

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/health/article4663680.ecehttp://www.medicaldaily.com/sir-ernest-shackleton-legendary-antarctic-explorer-died-congenital-heart-defect-known-369060

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3396796/Pioneering-Antarctic-explorer-Sir-Ernest-Shackleton-suffered-congenital-hole-heart.html

http://www.sciencecodex.com/a_century_after_endurance_shackleton_diagnosed_with_hole_in_the_heart-173246

http://now.howstuffworks.com/2016/01/12/the-heartbreaking-end-legendary-adventurer-sir-ernest-shackleton

So my return ticket is for the 5th January. I looked at it once about 2 months ago and noticed that the flight left late at night. However looking again just now by accident, I notice that the flight actually leaves at 12:05 am on 5 Jan. That is tonight! I have lost a day and but for a trick of fate would have shown up tomorrow and missed the plane. Here are a few random shots from a great stay in California.

James

We see breakfast

My coat.

Parking lot Nevada

Makes a change from Miso soup and seaweed for breakfast.

What?

Thanks James, thanks Ben

The goal of this  trip was to visit Ruby Lake Wildlife Reserve in Nevada. The website is very seductive, http://www.fws.gov/Refuge/Ruby_Lake/

It does not however mention that it is virtually inaccessible in the winter, that the lake is frozen and the whole region covered in feet of snow. I could have deduced this from study of weather reports but in balmy Okinawa it is difficult to integrate snow and ice into climate prognosis.

We, Ben and I, head off from San Francisco in the car with no name. It is a great car but uses a pint of oil every 100 miles, which points to something rotten in the motor. Will we get there? Will we get back?

It is really, really cold throughout the whole trip. The record being minus 18 fahrenheit -28 centigrade, in Battle  Mountain. The scenery is glorious.

East on I 80

We follow the California Trail that brought the wagon trains from the East. I 80 was essentially built over the ruts. America is big and after a day’s driving we stop in Winnemucca.

“Winnemucca’s brothel district, while smaller now than in the 1980s, is known as “The Line” or “The Ring Circle”, based on the layout of the street where the brothels are located. Sex workers in the town must register their vehicles with the local police.”^{[5]  Wikipedia.}

I thought you would like to know this.

We stay in a very cheap motel -$49.99- and eat KFC.

Next morning we head off to Battle Mountain for breakfast.

Model T in garden of collapsing house in Battle Mountain

– 3 fahrenheit ! Minus 18 centigrade

Main Street, Battle Mountain, Nevada. It is very ,very cold

On to Elko and then we head south towards Ruby lake. It starts fine as, although the road is narrow, it has been more or less cleared of snow and ice. This changes suddenly and we are confronted with a big decision – continue or turn back. The road is covered in snow, we are in the middle of nowhere, we have neither snow tyres nor chains, the car is hardly designed for off road stuff. If we slide off the road or get stuck it will be nasty as it it is way, way below freezing and there are no signs of humans. We have no gloves nor boots. Anyway there will be nothing to see when we get there as everything is frozen solid.  We go on.

Jack Rabbit dreams of Bermuda

The road to Ruby Lake.

Cosy

Log House

What is this? No field guide. I think it is a very pale Red Tailed Hawk. No it is a pale Ferruginous Hawk

We did see some birds on the way down the lonesome road. A very fine Golden Eagle who sat on his post until we were about 5 yards away and a Bald Eagle.

Trumpeter Swans, actually I now think they are Tundra Swans. Notice yellow spot on adult’s bill.

Ben at Ruby Lake. Spot the lake.

Nature Morte

Okinawa to Ruby Lake

Great trip. Here is a poor video:https://youtu.be/lcDwfAdqlsU

Well driven Ben.