Day Twenty

Wow, day twenty! Let's get right to it.

Now that the diving was behind us, it was time to see the rest of what Okinawa had to offer. We'd dealt with most things under the sea, so what did they have going on at the surface?

We'd heard of two things Okinawa was famous for; Glass, and Pineapples. Everything is pineapples. Every shop, every store on every street, half the merchandise was pineapple themed. Happy looking pineapples, favourite characters from various origins holding pineapples, gum, candy, and chocolate in the flavour of pineapples, and even our rental car agreement stipulated that "You can eat pineapples as much as you like." (That is not a joke, see the deal here)

All the literature and maps of Okinawa kept pointing towards one thing...Pineapple Park. Imagine the disneyland...of pineapples. That's this place. 

We'd passed it on the way to the aquarium but it had closed by the time we'd gotten finished with the fishes. Today was P-day. Tucked behind the unassuming giant pineapple statue at the side of highway 58, this place promised a free ride on the pineapple cart with the price of admission. 

This is in fact a golf cart....an electric, autonomous golf cart, shaped like a massive pineapple. To say it was unsettling was to say the least...in order to get on the golf cart, one had to first have their photo taken with the mascot, an anthropomorphic mustachioed pineapple. 

We piled into the cart, and the automated voice described fascinating pineapple related facts, such as the origin of the word pineapple. Did you know it descends from the words "pine" and "apple" ? Such wisdom!

Over and over in the background plays the pineapple song. The Japanese word for pineapple by the way, is Pinapurru. It's just a Katakana pronounciation of the english. 

Katakana for those who don't know, is the alphabet used for the writing of foreign words. It's more or less Hiragana, but more angular and with some changes, though there are the same amount of characters, and they all symbolize the same mouth sounds. You can sort of "speak" Katakana at the Japanese and most of the time they'll understand, if you don't know the Japanese word. This takes a little bit of getting used to, because it really feels at first like you're trying to put on a bad Japanese accent, and speak English. It feels like you're making fun of them, but if you know the alphabet you can actually communicate quite a bit this way, and they appreciate you trying. The reason is, I think, because a number of Japanese words are English words in Katakana. Beer = Biru, Cake = Keki, Pineapple = Pinapurru, etc. If you don't know how to say "ticket" you can ask where to get a "tiketo". "Doko wa tiketo desu ka?" It feels wrong, but it works quite right. 

This pineapple song though was only about five words, and most of them were Pinapurru. It just played endlessly on repeat, like the song that doesn't end, from Lambchop Sing-a-long. If you really got into it though, for a cool thirty dollars you could own the instructional DVD, and learn the accompanying dance. Yikes.

We got off our pineapple cart ride, and walked inside what we assumed was the pineapple museum...to find...sea shells? How the relationship between seashells and pineapples was established, i'm not sure. For whatever reason, there were two or three large rooms of seashells of all types, some available for purchase. After being directed through the seashell giftshop, we saw a pineapple archway over the next door and knew we were back on track.

Or were we?

I can't read much Japanese, so I'm not sure of the relationship between Christopher Columbus and pineapples, but it sure looks to be significant. There he is with his sextant, examining the stars and accidentally discovering pineapples...where...he then....brought them to Japan? I don't get it...

There was also a brief pictographical mural describing the making of pineapple wine. Oddly, the pineapple being made into wine doesn't get anthropomorphized until after he's juiced. Know this people - don't juice your pineapples...that's when they become sentient!!! Pineapple juice is plotting its sugary takeover on shelves across the world!!!

Fortunately, Okinawa has signed on to combat the pineapple invasion by first exorcising the ghosts of pineapple past, giving the juice a fever, and bottling it, which of course makes it fall asleep. Thank goodness. 

The rest of Pineapple Park was less of a park and more of a many-tiered gift shop. It just went on and on and on and on. Pineapple wine, pineapple juice, pineapple cake, pineapple pie, pineapple tarts & cream puffs, pineapple flan, pineapple trifle, pineapple jelly, pineapple ice cream, and yes...actual pineapples. It went on forever. 

After pineapple park, we listened to the NHK to try to shake the pineapple song out of our heads. The NHK is essentially the Japanese CBC. It's a government radio/television station, commercial free, and largely news. We of course managed to turn on to some odd avant-garde performances of people imitating animal sounds, and strange maniacal cartoon laughter. When the news at noon began, so did our speculation. 

Each of us know a teeny bit of Japanese, and together we sort of say aloud each word that we understand, and use it to piece together what the radio's saying. In this case, it was easy. We kept hearing Ichiro, Ichiro, Ichiro. For those that don't know, Ichiro is an MLB player from Japan, and here in Japan he's a massive celebrity. He's living the Japanese dream, make it in America as a baseball star. He was made to hit in America. We started thinking...how big is Ichiro? Does the news at noon have an Ichiro update built in? Impossible...but...perhaps?

We found out later on that Ichiro had been traded to the New York Yankees, and gone from the worst team in the league, to the best. This made the opening headline of the news at noon. If Canada is a hockey country, then damn - Japan is a baseball country. 

I've also got to talk a moment also about some of the cars i've seen...because it's really just too much to touch. Bill Bailey, the UK comedian talks about the naming conventions of cars, and how what they promise in a name always must be vigor, testosterone, power, and elegance. Those sorts of things are what a car name must evoke. The Hyundai Sonata, the Dodge Viper, the Ford Mustang. Elegance...danger...surging forth. 

Japan is not like that. 

We've commented on a number of ads that we've seen that promise you a happy life, if you buy their product. Western ads tend to promise success, status, "cool"ness, and good looks. Japanese ads tend to promise Life, and having a happy one. Happy hair, happy life. Good teeth, good life. No music, no life? (most of these are very real taglines). This thinking dominates all Japanese advertising. That, and cuteness. So is it really a surprise to see cars like the Honda Life, the Daihatsu Move, the Suzuki Works, the Nissan Wingroad, and my personal absolute favourite:

That's right. The car is called the That's. 

"Allright, it's time to go."

"Are you driving, or am I?"

"I'll drive. We'll take the That's."

What is this evocative of? It's not even a noun!!! Who is this car meant to appeal to? What a bizarre idea. The Honda That's. Imagine the marketing meeting where it was pitched. It must've sounded like an Abbot and Costello routine. 

Anyway - moving on.

We made a point to try and see some actual Okinawan culture now that we'd left the Pineapple Park. We'd heard that nearby there was a glass-blowing place, and we could see real Okinawan glass being made right before our eyes.

After getting lost three times, having passed the poorly-signed "Glass House in the Woods" each time, we finally found it. It wasn't really in the woods, but it was surrounded by an excess of potted plants. I suppose that's forest enough for some people.

We had a look, and got to see some glass being blown, some glass being melted, and people lined up to create their own glass wonders...mostly cups. We would've participated, but you need to allow three days for local delivery, so your glass can cool. Instead I asked if I could walk around and film a little bit. They obliged. 

After getting some shots of the place in full swing (and full heat) I was suddenly told to stop. 

"This way." I was told. "Stand here. Please wait."

At first I was a bit perturbed. Not because I got booted out of the shop, just because it's decidedly un-Japanese to suddenly un-invite someone to do something. I didn't know really what was up. 

Then, this happened.

I've probably watched this footage fifteen or twenty times. My mind is still blown. Seeing him pull that out of thin air using only a pair of pliers, and less than a minute of his time absolutely amazed me in every way. I didn't even know what to say really, except thanks for showing me. I always had been curious about how glass is created, but never did I imagine it'd be done like this. Watch this again and see if you can pinpoint at what moment you realized what it was he was making. 

This was an unreal way to finish out the day in Okinawa. We had a flight to catch, so we raced back down to Naha, packed our stuff out of the hostel, returned the rental car, and were off to the airport. 

Because of my airpass (only available for purchase outside of Japan, and only to people with an international flight booked within 60 days) we had to take separate flights, but I'd managed to book us departures only 15 minutes apart. To avoid the chaotic scramble of our first airport meeting, we decided to meet at the baggage claim area, before heading out anywhere. 

This of course, didn't work out because I realized immediately upon getting my bag...that we'd flown into different terminals. Fortunately I was able to hop on a shuttle bus, rip around the airport, and dash to the other domestic flights exit before Lindsay had her bags. This time, it all worked out. Until of course we tried getting to the hotel.

An overly helpful security guard had continued to try to help me, even though I knew where I was going. The maps at the airport are all in English as well as Japanese, this guy didn't speak any English, and I kept trying to explain "Daijobu. Ike masu." Which is "It's okay, I am going." He wouldn't have any of it. He had to help.

This is another element of Japanese culture i've started to notice, is the excessive helpfulness. It's not the same as the Canadian helpfulness, which is sort of apathetic. We think, oh I can help to help this person, i'll definitely do it. Oh, I can't help them after all? Ah, oh well, I tried. In Japan, the offer comes almost out of fear. They think, I must help this person...I have to. Even if their english is awful, or helping us is beyond their capacity, they will try so hard, suspend everything they're doing, and bend over backwards to help. And if you don't need help, but they think you do (and remember, you're foreign, so you need help whether you like it or not) then goddamn it they're going to help you. 

This poor guy was finally able to tell us that the last available shuttle bus had left, and we'd need a taxi. I didn't think this was true...because I'd chosen where we were staying strictly based on being able to get there without having to take a cab (which is ludicrously expensive). So we walked out to a different shuttle bus area, and a bus that said "Airport <---> Hotel" on the side rolled in. 

"Sumimasen, doko wa hoteru JAL city desu ka?" We asked in our addled Japanese.

"Ahh, Hotel JAL city." the driver responded in perfect, animated English. "The last shuttle, already left."

We sighed, our backs full of packs, our feet worn, and our minds tired.

Now you have to imagine him saying this, gesturing with his hands and including several dramatic pauses.

"However...if you take this bus to the international terminal...we'll get there for 12:12. There's a shuttle there...that comes at 12:20. That means...you can connect."

We looked up, confused. 

"So...Get on the Bus!!!!" he singsonged in a loud and really silly caricature of a voice. We both nearly died laughing, thanking him profusely.

That put us in such a great mood - the helpfulness of Japan never fails, and regardless of their motivation, many people, even most people seem to really, genuinely enjoy being able to help you.

Welcome to Tokyo! 

-Jeff

Day Nineteen

Ahhhhhhh....another day under the sea.

To back up for a quick moment - last night I saw an e-mail from Jan (with whom we'd dived). He'd had an ear infection and had been diving with earplugs, but it had gotten much worse, and he wasn't able to equalize. This makes diving impossible, so he'd put the word out to contact Doug from Reef Encounters, to see if we could dive with him. 

I got this e-mail pretty late at night, so I got in touch with Doug before 7am, as per Jan's instructions. He seemed a bit put out about me tagging along at the last second, but I found out later he'd just woken up. Nobody wants to deal with anything remotely complicated when they've been awake five minutes. Fair enough.

We went out to the shop, Doug took us out to the boat, and we learned there were just five of us (him included) diving that day, with a boat to ourselves that would take as many as 24. Most excellent. 

It's pretty unusual for the boat captain to come along diving, usually someone stays behind but in this case it was just Lindsay left topside to snorkel and read. At least someone was there to call for help in case something went wrong...

Everything went pretty right though, and I dove with an older gentleman named Max, and Doug's assistant who's name escapes me. We were diving on a pair of mountains with peaks at about 30 feet below surface, and a big valley between the two at 75-80. You could just see one peak in the distance from the other...it was pretty spectacular. 

Looking carefully, the second peak can be seen on the right...tilt your screen to change the contrast a bit...

Doug's assistant was a really hands-on sort of diver...in a way I'm not a fan of. He's very much into picking things up, holding on to stuff, and demonstrating by way of touch...often in a destructive way. For example, when sea cucumbers are about to be eaten, they have a defense mechanism that sprays out silk strands in all directions to frighten off the predator, as though it's about to eat something poisoned. If you pick them up, or toss them about, they'll do it on command. It doesn't hurt the sea cucumber per se, it just seems kind of invasive, and a little disrespectful. Something to show off to the tourists. I'm not a fan.

That aside, he was a great diver to lead the way because he's damn good at spotting things. He found an enormous amount of cool stuff, many things i'd never seen before.

There was a fair bit of current on this site, which makes it a little more work to cruise along. You always dive against the current, so when you're done you can lean back and let the water push you back to the boat. At some points, we were kicking hard just to stay in place, but for the most part the sea mounts shadowed us from the wind. 

Then one of the scariest things ever happened. 

We were swimming from the farther peak, over the valley back to the first peak, and I was shooting a slow pan of the landscape, when I saw this in the corner of my eye.

I snapped around as fast as I could and there was a GIANT SNAKE TWO INCHES FROM MY FACE.

Fortunately, he was clearly as scared as I was and immediately turned around to dash away...but HOLY CRAP I was nervous as all hell. Had I not been wearing a full wetsuit, I would've felt it hit my leg as I turned...it was RIGHT next to me. The weird thing is we were off the reef, so it's not as though I passed too close to it by mistake...it must have come up to see what was happening, or something. I don't know...I'm just glad nobody got bitten. Yeesh.

Most of the snakes on Okinawa are Blue-banded Sea Kraits, as I mentioned before they're poisonous, but not particularly dangerous. This one, looked to be a beaked sea snake. Here's the info on the beaked sea snake...you can look at the photo and judge for yourself what it was, but whatever it was...I keep watching the footage and getting the serious shivers. 

The second dive was a little less eventful, but no less exciting. Gorgeous soft corals of every imaginable variety, strange fish with rear-set top and bottom dorsal fins, and ball coral, another thing i'd never seen before - frilled and spotted on the outside, white and smooth as a hard-boiled egg on the inside. It looked like a dragon's egg.

Doug's right hand man found a little Moray Eel (see him in there?)

A really big puffer fish (almost three feet)

And at our exit point...a real prize

...a Lionfish! My camera battery died just as we approached it, but I caught this shot of it...it was so regal and beautiful. It looked like a fantastical pirate ship, it's fins spread apart like oars from the deck and it's dorsal fin like a series of sails. It looked effortless in the current, drifting along looking for food. We had a three minute safety stop, so we hung out with the lionfish and watched it do it's thing. 

Two dives and 40 degree heat and I was wiped. Hadn't  been sleeping much since the days had been so busy, and started so early. We grabbed some pizza at an italian place outside America town and headed north to Nago, where we'd been told there was quite a bit to see. 

Nago's the far north end of the island, but not too far from Naha, the capital. Maybe just under two hours...the roads keep you going pretty slow, and there aren't really any highways. Not having an english GPS we sort of used it for a map, and got more and more detailed when asking for directions. We'd heard that Okinawa's aquarium is the 3rd largest in the world...so we went to have a look (in keeping with the day's theme).

I don't know if the moniker "3rd largest in the world" refers to the physical water-tank portion, but the grounds of this place were ENORMOUS. Stretching out across acres, it took almost 25 minutes to walk from where we parked to the main event, a massive series of underwater habitats ranging from coral reef, to deep sea.

I'll tell you, seeing Japanese kids be kids has been pretty interesting. They're not yet old enough to have what it means to be Japanese fully ingrained, so they're spontaneous, sometimes loud, highly inquisitive, and totally uninhibited. The parents react two ways - by laughing, as though seeing something bizarre for the first time, and by being somewhat confused, uncertain, and hushing the child into obedience. This one kid had a total lack of inhibition. He came to the aquarium to be a fish.

His dad was totally happy to let him go to town in this fountain, and he sort of crouched by the sidelines and laughed, amazed. I'm sure part of this is the wonder of seeing your child do something for the first time, but it was oddly refreshing to see a Japanese person enjoy their kid go wild in public for all to see. He was clearly having the time of his life...and it's nice to know that the sterner parts of the culture aren't instilled quite so strongly at an early age...or maybe it's that they have their place. At the end of the day, a kid playing in a water fountain is just being a kid...it doesn't matter where you're from. But I digress...

The Okinawa aquarium starts with a touch tank, much in the vein of the Mote Marine Museum in Florida I've been to with my family, and you can handle starfish and sea cucumbers and the like. This tank is weird though...it's pretty wide, and one side's against the wall, so the animals naturally crawl to the centre to avoid being handled...and there's a person who's job is to stand at the back with a big long pool utensil, and shove them against the glass so they're accessible for touching...I didn't feel very good about that.

I know that aquariums are not the most ethical places (a la zoos) but I'm fascinated by underwater life, so i'd never really really clued in to it before...and I don't know if it's aquariums in general, or just Japan (which is notorious for it's unethical sea life treatment; see The Cove, Sharkwater, Whale Wars, etc) but this one really put the knife in me. It was still fascinating...but what became more fascinating was the spectacle, and the way these massive crowds responded to it. 

The other odd thing was seeing this stuff after diving with much of it this morning. Puffer fish, parrotfish, and much of the smaller life seemed someone listless in their tiny tanks...prone to swimming in endless circles like so many goldfish. There were some young sharks as well. 

I saw a lionfish much like the one i'd seen earlier, only with far less majesty than his oceangoing counterpart. 

Then there were the Jellies.

Jellyfish are always beautiful...and they always display them under blacklights so they look particularly psychedelic. The motion of them is what's so interesting...it's hypnotic. I don't understand jellyfish. When I look at a creature, or a human, or anything alive, really - I imagine that inside of it is a whole network of tubes, nerves, veins, and other biological machinery that makes it work, somehow. I don't need to know how, I just need to know that the parts are there within. With a jellyfish, it's not like that. You see everything. You see right through them, and see every part of them. They're all membrane, flesh and tendril. Where is the brain? The heart? What makes it go? It's like a glass sculpture of an animal...it has no business perambulating about the ocean. 

We came upon the main attraction - a massive tank, with fifty foot high glass, containing no less than three Whale Sharks.

I'm fascinated by the whale shark. It's the largest fish (remember, whales aren't fish) in the ocean. I went all the way to Honduras a few years ago to try to get a chance to swim with one but in spite of doing many dives, and being there in the peak of the season, I was not so lucky. So it was amazing to come face to face with the giant in the flesh, at last.

I felt pretty awful about it though. When the shark was fed, it lay straight up and down in the water to access the surface, and was easily the height of the tank it was in. That's no way for something to be kept, let alone with two others of it's size, let alone with the dozens of rays, sharks, fish, et al that were in there with it. I think what really put the bad taste in my mouth was the spectacle. You can become very critical of something when you're outside the language. Seeing what was going on, but not being able to understand it, you really put your own perspective and interpretation into it. Have you ever watched a TV show on mute, and tried to figure out the plot? That's what it was like. The thing was, this was an easy show to read. The shark was to be fed according to it's schedule. The announcer doled out some facts, as well as some precautionary tidbits about how well it's treated here. And lo, the people did stare.

It's the purpose that hurt me. These animals aren't here for research, nor for observation. They're here to be gawked at, by thousands of eyes, all day. They're fed on a schedule that's fed to the tourists, and people come, and stare, and ooh, and ahh. 

This is not what I would want my life to be - and I can't in good conscience wish that life on anyone.

After that, the aquarium kind of seemed like a sad place. Everything written excitedly on the walls with exclamation marks. Kids running amok, spellbound by the giant fish. Sharks in a bare aquarium, circling aimlessly, over and over and over, eyes dead. The end of the walk through the aquarium was literally dead, preserved things in formaldehyde.

The face of a basking shark, 14 feet long, and quite dead.

An oddly grotesque ending to the charade of the aquarium - as though to say "This is where we put them when they die." We stepped out to a beach just outside to sit for a moment. It was a nice reprieve. 

We'd heard a dolphin show starting up as we walked back to the car, but neither of us really wanted anything to do with it. The dolphin tanks were really, really small, and the announcer, kooky music, and canned crowd responses carried across the empty promenade of the entranceway. 

It was getting on in the day, so we drove back to Naha and talked about what we'd seen. 

We'd heard the owner of our hostel owned a bar on the second floor of the building, and when we'd settled into our room, we had found two tokens for a free drink there. So we though it would be a good time to check it out. 

We were, again, the only folks there. Monday it seems is no better than Sunday for the night scene on Okinawa. The navy's in bed, and the natives have to work tomorrow. Our bartender spoke a little bit of English though, and taught us some Okinawan dialect slang. Hai tai, for hello, Hai sai (if you're female) and instead of "Ite!" when you hurt yourself, it's "Agaaa!" Ouch. She was going to visit her sister in Vancouver in the coming months. We told her what to expect, and urged her on. We got to speak a bit of Japanese too, which was getting a little easier.

Two guys dropped into the bar, and we took turns playing songs on the speakers in the place. One was visiting his girlfriend in the military, the other a local who was a friend of his. He gave me his business card, which had the ambiguous job title of "Solutions Provider". I wondered about what he did...

Another long and drawn out day in the sun left us gassed, so we headed to bed after two beers to catch an early start on the day tomorrow - when we'd planned to visit Okinawa's most famous and nefarious tourist trap... Pineapple Park.

Stay tuned. 

-Jeff