Day 6 In Okinawa

I knew it was going to happen.  I didn’t even hope it wouldn’t because I knew it was so inevitable.  Why fight it?  What is "it"?  It is the let down, or perhaps better characterized as the end of the adrenaline rush.  I have been looking forward to coming to Okinawa for so long that I knew at some point during my return the adrenaline would wear off, and I’d find myself wondering, “is that all there is?”

Compound that feeling by the utter uselessness of the day.  The weather was bad, we spent most of our time lost looking for a few spots we never did find (we’ll try again later this week with better directions), and only succeeded in finding one of Miwa’s friends up in Nago.  Even that was a bit of a navigational fiasco that involved a dodgy map, and worse than useless locals who didn’t realize that a landmark we were looking for was only a few doors down from where they were working (reminded me a lot of the folks at the Family Mart not realizing that they were surrounded by Okinawa Soba shops).

But, in all of that, I was able to pull out a few nuggets, only slightly hampered by my inability to get my camera out to somehow immortalize the moments.

First one: the garbage men of Okinawa - they drive around in trucks doing their duty as skillfully and efficiently as any other garbage men colleagues they have around the world, but these guys do it with music blaring out of the trucks that resembles the music coming from the neighborhood ice cream man’s truck.  It seems odd to me, but nevertheless it is so.  A subset of this category is the delicate looking doilies that hang from the top of a dump truck’s cab.  We saw a lot of these trucks while traveling on all sorts of wrong roads, and every one of them had the white lace on the upper part of their windshields.  Go figure.

Second: and this is the one I really wish I had my camera for.  I only caught a glimpse of it, but it was unmistakable, and something I could only describe as a butsudan on wheels.  Now, most butsudan’s (or, alters) are fairly simple displays in a traditional family’s living room.  But every so often, while knocking doors, you’ll see a tremendously ornate, golden and black … thing…, I don’t know how to describe it.  I’ll just have to find a picture on the internet to accompany this entry.  At any rate, it’s Japan’s version of a hearse, and if you’ve ever seen it, you’ll never forget it.  Unreal, and we spotted one today.

Third: when you’re a gaijin (foreigner) and you’re speaking Japanese to a Japanese person while there’s a Japanese friend/wife with you, the Japanese person you’re speaking to won’t understand a word you’re saying.  This is something that happened to me quite a bit while kicking the Okinawan clods so many years ago, and it happened to me again – this time in Nago.  We were looking for a cycling shop, and while at a stop light, I asked a guy on the street (in Japanese), and he looked right past me at Miwa.  I repeated the question, and he continued to look at Miwa.  Now, I know she’s good looking and all, but C’MON!!! She asked him the exact same question that I did, using the same words and everything, and he promptly gave us an answer.  Sigh.  Sometimes it’s not easy being a gaijin.

That was today.  We spent a lot of time driving to places that we never got to, following signs that were misleading, and saw a friend, and a few notable cultural goodies.  I drowned my sorrows this afternoon in a lemon Acquarius that just isn’t quite as good as the original lemon version.

Oh, one other disappointment to share with you all.  For those of you who were hoping to visit the Shuri Ryubo for the express purpose of getting a donut at Dunkin Donuts, save yourself the eternal plane ride to Okinawa, the rental car, the lodging arrangements, and the drive up the Shuri hill.  It’s not there anymore.  Replaced by a McDonalds some years ago.  It is a tragic blow to Shuri’s coolness.  But what can you do?