mangroves and waterfalls

Nanae's friends know of all the good places, and took us on a very fun tour of the northern part of the island.

We first stopped off at a small family soba restaurant, which serves monstrous bowls of delicious okinawan soba. This is a bit of a story in itself, as on mainland Japan, soba is a buckwheat noodle, often served is a sweet broth. On Okinawa, the soba are in fact wheat noodles, resembling the mainland udon noodles. The broth is an intriguing mix of subtle soy sauce and heavy duty peppery taste, which is, on the mainland, more associated with ramen (wheat) noodles.

So, after this tasty totally-unlike-soba soba lunch, we headed away from the coast, up a small river valley to an even smaller stream, to go see the waterfall. Here, we found that news had gotten out, and that the whole US army had taken up residence there. Although this meant the chances of seeing any beasties in the stream was nil, we still had a very enjoyable ramble up the stream, amongst giant fern trees and lianas worthy of a Tarzan remake.

The waterfall was very spectacular, too, as the stream wad been really quite calm most of the way, and then you come around a corner and you have this beautiful waterfall, with a small swimming pool at the base. And contrary to what I am used to in France, the water was not freezing cold!

After that entertaining visit, we drove to the other side of the island, to go see the mangroves. They are a fascinating place, with animal life everywhere you look, and vegetation that looks as if it could get up and walk around, too.

The tide was just coming in as we got there, and so we got to see both the mud inhabitants, as the fish coming in for feeding.

I spent a very fun half hour watching mud-skippers, who totally lived up to the oddness I had expected of them;

... and crabs. I don't know if it's the eyes, or the way they scuttle sideways, or just their bubbling clumsiness, but I find all crabs hilarious, and these were no exception.

Hot and tired but our eyes full of stars, we made our way back to the university, ready to face another week of DNA extractions and, hopefully, amplifications.

Shuri

The island of Okinawa used to be the hub of the Ryukyu kindom, which served as a hub for commerce between China and Japan. The castle of Shuri, house of the king of the Ryukyu kingdom, is located on a small hill overlooking the port at Naha, and, like so many castles, is mostly built on the ruins of the previous destroyed or burnt-down castles.

Now Shuri is a fortified castle, and like all fortified castles, the point is that there is a clear separation between what is inside the walls and what is outside the walls. Shuri does, however, have one peculiarity, and that is that there is nothing, if fact, inside the walls. Having caught on to the fact that you needed to have guards on top of the walls to protect them, they thought it would be a huge waste of space to have to put guard housing inside the walls, thereby taking up valuable ornamental garden space.

It would be much easier to put the guard housing up on top of the walls, where the guards have to be anyway. That leaves plenty of space for the royal ornamental gardens, and still have space for a big inside courtyard where you can have dances to entertain your guests.

We saw 3 different dances, which were all interesting, but they were all very very slow dances.

The royal family's quarters were very impressive, with many many small chambers everywhere, and a very ornate throne room in laquered wood, with 2 large sliding doors in the wall. When open, the dignitaries sitting on tatami mats in the courtyard could look up and see the king sitting in his throne. I thought that was a really neat idea, as it gives a clear image of "I am the king and you are guests", and also avoids over-crowding of the throne room, which could only accommodate about 30 people.

It was a very fun visit, as the Ryukyus were clearly not Japan (and are still very different), and were much more under chinese influence.

After that, we went to an old sacred place, with many odd rock formations and some big stalagtites. As it is all lava deposit, it is very interesting, and very different from the sandstone formations I'm used to.

From there, we just drove up the coast, which is absolutely beautiful, with many small islands and islets all over the place, and everything overgrown with exhuberant vegetation.

We even had our first jellyfish sighting: a dozen large scyphozoans swimming around is the crystal-clear water. We tried to catch one for work, but they refused to come close to the shore, even when we called "here, jelly, jelly, jelly!". Not at all cooperative.

We then rounded off the day by going to an okinawan eisa performance. This is a mix of dancing and drum playing, which is very fast and energetic, in a complete contrast to the slighly lethargic traditional dances we had seen earlier. And it is very very impressive and entertaining!