Day 10 In Okinawa

So, my brain was fried.  Japanese for 10 straight days without maintaining it is a bit like a life-long cigarette smoker quitting cold turkey; after a while, the head starts pounding,  your arms feel like they're 15 feet long, and you begin to sincerely wonder if lung cancer is all that bad.  (Not that I've ever smoked in my life.  I'm just paraphrasing the reaction the character "Dave" had on the tv show "News Radio" after quitting coffee for 10 hours.)  I began to think perhaps that my Japanese language skills during my mission were less than the gift of tongues, and more in the neighborhood of "gift of sufficiency."  Maybe I wasn't as good as I remember.

But then, a ray of light, direct from Kobe.  Some guy sitting across from me, Miwa, and the in-laws in a little hut next to a small motel somewhere near Okuma (north of Nago) was a real talker, and I somehow understood everything he said.  Everything.  There were about 4 or 5 words he said that I didn't know, but I understood what he said, asked Miwa each time, and got the translation.

We were at a motel north of Nago, sitting in a high ceiling'd hut with a fire pit in the middle, and a brick counter top going around it.  The fire pit was there to keep us warm, the food that was served to us by the motel owner could not have been more Okinawan.  We really weren't able to figure out what kind of fish we were dissecting and eating, but we were pretty sure they caught them earlier in the day.  The only "normal" looking food served to us was sashimi, of some fish variety we spotted earlier at the Churaumi Aquarium (we'll return to this).  We each got about 7 or 8 dishes with different foods in them, none of which I know the name of (I didn't bring my notepad).  But, again, none of them could be considered as recognizable as "normal" except for the sashimi.  All very exotic, and as I followed the conversation between the mother-in-law and the Kobe guy, all very Okinawan.  Most of it was quite good.

This was a long day on the road.  We did some touristy things, I confess, but worthwhile, I think.  Since we were with the folks on this 2-day swing up to the North side, we didn't do my normal "hey, let's see where that road goes!" routine.

First stop was Manzamo, which is one of this enlaces that you will see a picture of if you Google image Okinawa.  We took pictures, and I then pet a cat (one of the few that didn't look diseased).  Next stop, Churaumi Aquarium.  This place is actually a touristy spot worth hitting, and new since my mission.  Apparently it's the second largest aquarium in the world, and it is very cool - especially when you're the tall gaijin who can look over the heads of the Japanese tourists to see displays.  More pictures were taken.  After the touristy spots, we really wanted to hit the three islands that hang off the Motobu Peninsula (Nago area), but the weather was lousy.  These islands are surrounded by spectacular reefs and turquoise waters, but most of the beauty is lost when the rain is coming down sideways, and the dark clouds above look like something out of the Book of Revelations.  We went to the motel, had an unreal amour of Okinawan ryouri, and re-established a small amount of self-confidence in my Japanese.