Churaumi aquarium

The typhoon did not actually hit Okinawa, but we certainly got bucket-loads of rain! Luckily, the wind had died down on Sunday, and so we did not have to drive though both rain and wind.

The road was mostly empty, so driving went smoothly.

The aquarium is about an hour and a half North of the university going on the free-way. We ate lunch at a small family pizza restaurant, which, in fact, only has one kind of pizza. The pizza was delicious, and we could look down onto the beautiful coast-line while sipping our freshly-squeezed juice.

The aquarium is located on the (or a) Emerald Coast, as that is, in fact, the colour of the water, even on a somewhat cloudy and rainy day.

The aquarium is not in fact that big, but it has 2 enormous tanks which take up most of the interior.

The first of these tanks houses coral reef inhabitants (and their reef), and they've decided to put them all in the same tank, which has nooks and crannies and little dark caves where the sharks hang out.

And many of these fish were not small at all!

The first tank is, of course, just a starter, before you get to the show of this aquarium, ...

... which is the enormous tank, with its family of manta rays, and its 3 whale sharks, as well as dozens of smaller rays and several schools of fish. And it is, well, enormous. You are just awed by how big all these animals are, and how huge the tank must be. And totally boggled by the 60cm-wide silicon pane they have on display, which is the same as what the big tank is made of.

After we finished the main aquarium, we went to see the sea-turtle and dolphin tanks. The sea-turtles were nice, but the dolphins clearly stole the show, especially as they have trained not only dolphins, but also 2 false-killer whales. Although they are not, of course real killer whales, they do share the characteristics of having many big pointy teeth, and globally have a not-very-nice air about them.

This one's keeper didn't mind it licking him in the face though, so I guess appearances can be deceiving.

Then we rounded off the day by eating a hamburger at an american diner-style restaurant. The hamburgers were delicious, they had root beer (!!!), and we got to see lots of foreigners, which is good for both of us.

yo-ee-hee datta; it was a great day.

Okinawa!

Okinawa!

I really did not know what to expect of Okinawa, but as I knew it was tropical, I guess my mind was automatically drawn to the little I saw of the Gold Coast in Australia.

Okinawa, or at least the part of it I have seen so far, is not that.

Tropical, however, it is. Hot and muggy and hot.

But it is also and island, and so does have quite a lot of wind, and the vegetation in many places looks a lot like the Atlantic coast in France. With loads of wonderful pine trees and sticky-leafed bushed in the undergrowth.

There are also about 2 billion cicadas, many of which live just outside my window, it seems. And big cockroaches (not in the rooms, luckily), and poisonous snakes (I have not investigated this), and big fruit bats (Nanae saw 2 on our first night here).

The rooms we are in stretch the definition of a dorm. Nanae and I are in fact in individual rooms, with small balcony, a small kitchen area, and toilet and shower in the room.

Ryukyu university is a american-style campus, so it takes about 15minutes to walk from the rooms to the biology building. Inside the campus, the vegetations looks much more tropical, with many palms and trees with aereal roots. The biology building is about as old and run-down as the one we had in Limoges, so I feel right at home.

It was raining a bit....

Jamie's team is quite international, and everyone speaks english, with varying accents, which will make it quite hard for Nanae. And, funnily enough, I find it quite odd to hear everyone speaking English, and keep wondering why they're not speaking japanese!

Our samples will arrive on Monday, so yesterday Nanae and I read over the protocols together. It is quite profitable for us, as she learns the English she will need to read papers, and I learn the japanese, which I will need when we get back to JAMSTEC.

And for our first week-end in Okinawa, we have been gifted a typhoon! Not a full-force typhoon, as it is passing westward of here, but enough to make it interesting.

Here is a series of photos taken from my bedroom window...

5pm

6pm

7am

8am, cicadas still going strong.

Uraga - Kurihama

In a bout of non-logic, I felt like going to the beach today, before I head off to Okinawa for 3 weeks. And I wanted rocks and tide pools to peer into, so my local sandy beaches jus wouldn't do. I had originally thought of going to the beach at the end of the train line, but then thought of Uraga, as it had been so nice last year.

I had already gone to see the big lighthouse and park at Uraga last year with Mona, so I was quite happy to find I had taken a wrong turn at the station exit and was now on the other side of the little bay that seperates northern Uraga from southern Uraga and Kurihama. I thought of turning back, as it was kind of a rundown port area, but stumbled on the most lovely little shrine, again with very intricate carvings. It is always the smallest, most remote shrines that end up being the nicest ones! And this one was in a very old-type village, with many old wooden houses. Even their warehouses were nice-looking!

I followed the bay, past the old docking area, and got to saw a dazzling blue kingfisher for nearly 2 seconds, which is my longest sighting so far!

The bay opens up into the sea, and there is a small little peninsula, with signs indicating a lighthouse. This seemed odd to me, as there is such a big one just across the bay. Well, it turns out to be a very small, very old wooden lighthouse, that probably hasn't been used since Commodore Perry arrived there in 1853.

There is a small park dedicated to him at Kurihama port, but it is very hard to think what his first impressions of Japan could have been, as the coastline on that side of the small peninsula is completely covered in refineries.

It is the same kind of 2-sided peninsula as in Zushi/Kamakura, here with one side being refineries and murky, muddy water,

the other with the clearest water and cleanest beaches I've seen so far! It was, admitedly, very small, as the beaches are almost exclusively around the foot of the lighthouse. But there was almost white sand (a rarety here), and oodles of oddly-shaped rocks with tide pools!

And I so I spent a very relaxing afternoon on the beach, on the clean side, photographing various wildlife, and trying not to actually slide into the tide pools. Although just along the beach were a group of children playing in a rubber dinghy that looked soooo inviting! That must be the Okinawa effect!

I am now all set to go to Okinawa (must remember to pack my swimming suit), and go sit on the beach there! Oh, yes, and do some DNA sequencing, too, hehe.

Birthday Party 2011

As last year's birthday party had been such a success, I had worries that this one might not live up to those high standards. But I need not have worried. The party was fabulous, with everyone having a lot of fun, and eating way too much, which is what a birthday party should be like!

Thanks to the makeup skills of the Soleil-Oppama girls, of my nice "make in haha" dress (literally "made in mother", but you get the point), all the luscious food, and all the wonderful guests, I felt very special for my 25th birthday!

Many thanks to everyone for your thoughts and wishes!

Here are some photos of that wonderful moment!

(thank you to Mieko for some of these photos)