10,000 Eisa dancers

It was a bright and sunny day….

… and the great Hulk was off to relax a bit at the beach.


Yesterday was held the 10,000-dancer Eisa festival in Naha.

By which name they mean the main shopping street in Naha was packed from one end to the other by all the local Eisa-dancing groups, all whirling and drumming in synch to the songs played over the loudspeakers.

A most enjoyable whirlwind of colours, drums and happy faces.

Shinsei-maru

Back on mainland Japan, for a 10 day cruise on the Shinsei-maru, the new ship built to replace the Tansei-maru when it was retired last year.

After an early flight into Tokyo, I raced off to JAMSTEC to pack up one of their microscopes and some extra sample jars, as I haven't quite gotten the OIST lab up to cruise specs yet. Then off to Tokyo university to help pack the cruise stuff on the truck. The truck, which turned out to be 2 huge trucks, in fact. Although there were only 2 more scientists than are usually on a Tansei cruise, the amount of stuff everyone brought seems to have increased twofold. But we've all done this before, and soon both trucks were on their way, and, after a small pit-stop to see the Sky Tree in Tokyo and meet up with all the Oppama folks, I followed suit and took a Shinkansen up to Sendai.

I had visited the Shinsei-maru when it first came to JAMSTEC last autumn, but it's different actually going on a cruise, and so after a relatively quick unpacking, we spent a busy afternoon deciding where everyone should be, what we should do with all this stuff we had brought along, and finding where the spare hooks were hidden (under the sink, of course!).

I then had a morning free, so went to visit the site where Sendai castle used to stand, and got to see the famous statue of the founder Date Masamune, and his awesome helmet.

Then it was time to go!

And with style, please!

It was the first time on this ship for many of us, and we got a good slap of 'this is how we do it, boys' right from the start. The ship has dynamic positioning through rotating propellers at the back, and so instead of leaving dock normally, we simply untied the ropes and swept away, parallel to the dock, until we were out in the central canal, where they put it in gear and we were off. The most quiet,  easy, and V.I.P. departure I've ever seen.

The ship control panel available as a touch screen in the lab, showing the main propellers set for a fixed station sampling.

The cruise itself went very well, with quite nice weather.

Well, mostly reasonable….

... and some pretty amazing sampling.

The CTD being deployed by its specialized crane.

One of the 2 dredges we deployed … and some of the cool stuff that came up in them.

We had the usual rocking water-plankton-bentos group, and we had half the crew and even the captain down on deck helping us fish!

Our first shark!

The captain and his optical illusion flounder

(that one was minute, but he made up for it by out fishing everyone the next day)

The boat is incredibly quiet, and it does not roll at all, ever, which made both everyday life on board and sampling very easy and relaxing, and soon we were steaming up to the JAMSTEC wharf, parallel-parking the boat just to impress everyone, and then spending the whole rest of the morning unpacking our luggage which had greatly increased in size and weight since Sendai. But more weight means more samples, and that's what we were out there for!

 Back to my hot and rather humid tropical island, but Fukushima, I'll be back! 

Up, up and away!

The New Year is here!

So out came the bicycle, battery all charged up, and off we went!

The 'plan' was to go about an hour up the coast on the eastern side of the island, have lunch at a small restaurant that my guide to Japan recommended, and then potter on home. This was a good plan, and like most of my plans, did not have any bearing with what I actually did.

I did set out to the eastern side of the island, passed the famed restaurant at around 10am, and continued up the coast, along the dazzling dark blue sea, framed by the tall pampas grass flowers.

Further along the coast, and at the lowest of low tide, I was admiring the big sandy flats of a small estuary, and the large hills I would soon have to cross to get to the other side of the island ….

… when I noticed the strange little while dots creating streaks along the edge of the sand flats.

Closer inspection showed them to be to be hundreds and hundreds of small white crabs, all merrily sifting through the sand.

I then huffed my way up and over the centre of the island, and zoomed down to the western coast, ending up just south of Nago city and the small peninsula on which the aquarium is.

Having needed quite a bit of help getting over the central range, I did not feel I should risk going further north to investigate Nago and the surrounding area (and running out of power on the way back). So instead flew back down to Onna village, the dark central ridge with its ferns and forests to the east, farmland and turquoise bus coral reefs to the west.

A bit over 55 km, and 5 hours later, I am very pleased with what the New Year has offered so far,

and I wish it may offer you the same!

 Happy New Year 2014!

On the road to Yamada gusuku

To counter the rather appalling lack of trains in Okinawa, I have bought myself a magnificent and powerful machine:

an electric bicycle!

After an hour charging, this lovely thing can take me whizzing to work, up and over the hill to the shopping centre, and up the nightly great hill I live on with no more effort than if this was the middle of Holland! So excited have I been about my new bicycle that I have been racing out of the house without my camera! But today (after a false start yesterday), I packed camera, tea and flashlight and set off on the hike up to, or possibly around, Yamada gusuku.

The hike starts off a little ways south of the house, and heads up into the hills, through a mixture of pine trees, reeds, spiny plants and giant tree-ferns. The first couple of valleys look almost exactly like the settings of Jurassic Park.

As the path wanders around the hills, the dirt wears out, and the old stone paving becomes visible. These roads used to be the main roads connecting the villages to the gusuku, a sort of old holy place from the 12th or 13th century, and considering their age and the all-empowering forest, it's amazing how well some of the strips of road and bridges are well-preserved.

After seeing the stone bridge, I veered off the main gusuku trail, and, following my usual attraction for water, headed down a small side path which meandered along a small stream.

More exuberant vegetation, with ferns and mosses and worts enough to fill a whole botanical garden.

A couple enthusiastic centipedes, too.

As the rock here is just layers and layers of coral rubble and limestone, there are caves and crevices absolutely everywhere, with small little dripping stalactites, and big thick columns of very very ancient stalactites that have finally reached the bottom.

The network of paths around Yamada seems to go on for ever and, who knows, we may one day stumble upon the gusuku!