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.