Winter ponderings

While I am much more of a summer / hot weather person and the thought of winter approaching does vex my subtropical-born blood vessels with fears of death-by-freezing, I managed to find some consolation from an ad on the train, which reminded me that Japan is an archipelago of volcanic activity, which also means I am never far away from an onsen (hot spring). This, and on the other side of the spectrum mother nature has also blessed or cursed this country with lots of mountains and an uncomfortable proximity to Russia, which means there are plenty of places where idiots like myself, for whatever reason should choose to do so, can strap sticks or planks onto our feet, get our freezing selves to the peak of said mountains, and attempt to get back down in one relatively unharmed piece. 

These two things - onsen and snowboarding - are the two out of three things that may have a chance of plucking me out of my shelter of warmth as I wait for summer to resume. 

The third thing is a combination of good food (preferably piping hot) and good company. 

Good food is easy to obtain anywhere in this country. The challenge is deciding where to go. The other challenge is finding said "good company" to share this good food with. 

Since moving to Tokyo 7 months ago, I have made a small handful of friends, but not yet  enough in this city of madness. 

Thus I am conflicted. On one hand I want to make full use of my undecidedly limited time in Japan and experience as much as possible this country has to offer - the hot springs, the frozen mountains, the countryside, the metropolises...but on the other hand, I want to invest in knowing Tokyo, in knowing people, because human connections last longer than experiences. 

I guess the challenge will be to find that balance. Or find a way to stretch time...

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Food, glorious Okinawan food

Three and a half days of rain during a visit to Okinawa meant a lot more time for food.

Okinawan Soba - simple, delicious, and completely different from soba from mainland Japan. Okinawan soba is made up of thick white noodles, stodgy soup and spare ribs. Mainland soba has thin grey buckwheat noodles, clearer soup and no pork (usually plain). I definitely prefer the Okinawan version - and this 'guidebook noodle shop' served the perfect bowl of this culinary wonder. So simple but so tasty.

Okinawa is by the sea, thus famous for its seafood. At one of the 'michi no eki' (rest stops) we found shellfish covered in sea-urchin sauce (actually it was more like sea-urchin flavoured mayo).

Mango + pineapple + passion fruit shaved ice. Nuff said.

Black pork shabu-shabu. I'm not sure if black pig is natively Okinawan (it seems to be more well-known as a Kagoshima thing) but who cares - it was mouthwatering.

The nearest cafe our GPS found us served surprisingly good coffee.  Coffee standards are generally pretty low in Japan, despite how much coffee is drunk in this nation. 

Tacos and tortillas are easy to find around Okinawa due to the large American presence and influence in Okinawa.

"Can fish smell bread?"

Okinawa day 4

The sky looked a bit brighter than the previous days but there were still patches of clouds about. We set out early for Cape Maeda, back to the dive shop we went to two days before, to try our luck on this very last day for snorkeling at the famous Blue Cave. On the way there the dive shop girl called and basically said we had to hurry 'cause the winds were coming in again - so pedal went down and resumed 'Tokyo speed' (Okinawans drive noticeably slower than Tokyoites - typical).

We quickly changed into wetsuits, the sky quickly changed into a shade of grey, and the winds quickly picked up even more. The sky was starting to spit with rain. But we pressed on!

We were quickly driven out to the pier and was rushed onto the boat by Miss A (dive shop girl). The boat ride out was ridiculously bumpy, and I got pretty soaked by the waves splashing in my face. We got near the cliff, the sea was very choppy. There were a couple of other boats around, bobbing around violently.

It was a bit daunting at first to jump into the very choppy water, but it wasn't too bad once we got in the water, and we had a round floaty thing to cling onto as we all swam towards the cave.

The water was very clear, and the coral was beautiful, and saw lots of fish and a few divers on the sea bed below.

The cave was a short swim away. Inside the cave, the water was very calm, no wind, very quiet. The light from outside shone in, and it looked like a swimming pool lit up at night - and no exaggerations about the cave being blue. I gotta say Miss A is a better diver than a photographer, but still happy that she took her waterproof camera and took photos for us. She said that in the summer, there's sometimes a queue to get into this cave, and it could get really crowded. But on this day we had the cave all to ourselves - thanks to the awful weather. There was no coral inside the cave (as there's not a lot of light) but there were still small groups of fish.

Miss A also somehow managed to sneak in some bread, and as soon as we started feeding the fish, more and more came and were literally eating off our hands.

Can fish smell bread in the water? It literally took seconds from the bread hitting the water to us being surrounded by hordes of fish. It wasn't scary though. Kinda cute actually.

The sun came out once we were done with snorkeling.

After showering and changing and getting our CD of photos, we left the dive shop and headed to the American Village for tacos and an afternoon on the beach, stopping by a lighthouse on a cliff for some scenery. The beach was a little boring - we thought there'd be fish or whatever to see but there wasn't. But we were too tired to care. I found 2 x 100 yen coins in the public shower facilities which charged 100 yen for 3 minutes - so my 6 minute shower was free.

The long journey home involved driving back to Naha for a final bowl of Okinawan soba, returning the rental car, airport, aeroplane, airport, train, train, home.

Planning my next trip back to Okinawa

I will definitely need to come back for the diving - probably do it in the winter to avoid the crowds. And I'd come back for the food too.

Which reminds me - I will do a post on Okinawan food. Later.

Okinawa - storms, soba, sea

I have so many trips that are worth blogging...let me start with the easy one firsts.

When life throws you storms on a beach holiday, what do you do?

We were 4 days in Okinawa, it rained for 3.

Before takeoff, the BnB at Zamami Island told us that ferries between Naha (main island) and Zamami were cancelled 'cause of strong winds. A typhoon was nearby. With island-hopping cancelled, we grabbed a rental car at the airport, re-designed our itinerary, re-booked all our accommodation, drove up the mountains, settled into one of many cafes of this trip, watched the clouds come in, and nursed our headaches from all the re-shufflings.

The view on a sunny cloud-less day would have been super nice. But at least the mango dessert was yummy.

Anywhere outside of Naha in Okinawa was pretty sleepy.

We found one restaurant near our Airbnb.

Our Airbnb in Toyohara (near Nago) was very decent.


On the second day we rocked up to a dive shop near Maeda to try our luck - diving for me and snorkeling for the other two. Alas, no luck was to be had - winds were high, rainclouds were in, boats weren't going out anymore. They said they'll call us tomorrow. So back up north we went, stopping by a 'michi no eki' 道の駅 (literally translated as: a stop on the road - so, like a rest stop) for some good Okinawan food (will elaborate on food below) before hitting the world-famous Churaumi Aquarium.

The aquarium was big-ish, but not as big as I had expected it to be - we were done in an hour. Partially because it was so crowded and I didn't have the patience to see everything because that would have involved waiting in queues. And I am a fairly impatient person.

The whale shark tank was very impressive. But also a bit depressing - the tank seemed a bit small for the 3 massive whale sharks, a bunch of manta rays, nurse sharks (I think), schools of tuna, one dolphin, and other fishes. Taking into account how big the whale sharks were and how many other fish were in there, the tank seemed kinda small, and all they did was circling the tank over and over and over again. The lone dolphin kept hassling the divers who were in there trying to clean the tank.

They also had a couple of manatee pools - but they were literally just a couple manatees in swimming pools, nothing else. Same for the sea-turtle pool. No 'habitat' whatsoever. I don't think I'm being too demanding right?

We spent the rest of the afternoon standing on a beach, skipping stones, watching the waves, chasing lonely sea cucumbers, staring out into the raging sea, figuring out what we'd do for the rest of this holiday if the weather doesn't improve.

Fun times getting grossed out by sea cucumbers

Our feet were getting too crinkly from standing on a beach that we couldn't swim in, so we flopped back into the car, asked the GPS to find us a cafe nearby, and got caffeinated with some (surprisingly) good coffee from a little one-woman coffee shop in a random back street in the sleepy town of Nago.

For dinner we found some taco rice, a 'typical' Okinawan dish. More like 20th century Okinawan, or at least since the US army starting prodding around these islands.

The taco-rice restaurant had really good roast chicken. And cute little pots of cactus.

Day 3 - during the night I was woken up by the rain and the wind, the morning was still grey - so still no snorkeling or diving. Which meant no diving for the trip 'cause you have to leave at least 24 hours between diving and flying :(

Okinawan Soba

I'm usually a bit wary of guidebook-suggested anything, because they're usually rammed with tourists and they're between OK and mediocre. But we decided to go check out the Okinawan Soba place mentioned in the guidebook anyway - I was right about it being crowded and we had to wait a little while, but it was certainly much better than mediocre. It was fantastic - I'm not sure how such a simple dish of noodles and soup and pork ribs can taste so good but it was delicious.

Still raining.

So onto our next cafe, which was also guidebook-suggested, which took us up windy roads into the woods, not another car in sight, but soon enough we arrived at a house in the middle of nowhere surrounded by vegetation and butterflies. The coffee was mediocre (again proving one of my points about guidebooks) but the view and the atmosphere was gold - listening to the sound of rain splashing on the leaves and branches around us, a light mist covering the surrounding mountains like a shroud...

What tranquility looks like

We did a bit more driving, beach-standing, caffeine-injecting before tucking into some mouth-watering pork shabu shabu for dinner.

Will continue with day 4 tomorrow!

(Several photos courtesy of Mike http://www.mikemisc.com/)

6 months in

In the last 5 months I've...

- Found a one-bedroom apartment just outside the Yamanote Line (the 'circle line') and moved out of the luxurious-but-rather-sterile serviced apartment that I housed me for a month in the heart of Tokyo

- Got most of my furniture second hand - sofa and bed from craigslist, microwave and fridge from a recycle shop, coffee table from a colleague...but I'm still missing a dining table and a desk for my room, but I've resolved not to buy new furniture and stick to second hand 'cause the world doesn't need new furniture

- Flown quite a bit...London x 2, Helsinki  x 2, Hong Kong x 3, Vancouver, New York, Munich, Okinawa

- Had 6 visitors stay with me

- Joined 2 badminton circles

- Flown only once in economy class

- Gone hiking twice outside of Tokyo

- Gone to one (massive) music festival (Fuji Rock!) (but only for one day) and saw The Vaccines, Owl City, and FOO FIGHTERS with Dave Grohl rocking out while sitting on a "throne" made of guitar necks and his leg in a cast

- Eaten Timbits for the first time

- Killed a plant

- Found a church

- Petted owls

- Learned (and still learning) a lot at work, and still trying to find a rhythm in my week and daily routine

- Gotten sick once

I might elaborate on some of those points in future blog posts when/if I have time or remember that I actually have a blog. Meanwhile, instagram has kind of taken over as my photo-blog...sadly.

Owl Therapy

This was probably one of the most therapeutic things I've done in my life - going to an owl cafe in Tokyo.

Apple store woes

I just spent a good half an hour queueing in the Apple store waiting to be served at the the so-called "Genius bar" for technical help on my laptop. Only to be told I had to buy a new laptop charger. All the while there are men and women in blue apple t-shirts just milling around doing not-very-much.

At the same time my mum went to the transport department (note a government department) and got her car license renewed in under 15 minutes.

What just happened.