Day 361

JAPAN - OKINAWA (DAY 3)

On my third day in Japan (and second in Okinawa) I woke up early and headed to Cape Maeda, which is supposed to be the best snorkeling site on the main island.  (Okinawa is actually a group of islands, but I never ventured off the main island, Okinawa Honto.)  It wasn't far from Chatan, where I had stayed the previous night.  I'd probably have stayed there longer, but the place was full.

To give you an idea of where everything is, here's a map.  On this map, the red diamond on the bottom is the airport, the red square is Cape Zanpa (a swimming beach), and the red circle is Cape Maeda.   Chatan is halfway between Okinawa City and Ginowan, on the west coast.  It took about 40 minutes to get there, and the driving is great--smooth roads, decent highway speeds (it feels faster because it's in kilometers), and friendly drivers.  I like Japanese roads.

I stopped in Yomitan, hoping to find a cheap icebox.  There's an American village there, and it's pretty built-up, but it was too early and nothing was open yet.  Nothing in Japan opens until 10am.

I arrived at Cape Maeda around 9am, and the place was already packed.  It's an extremely popular site for divers and snorkelers.  There's a small parking lot with zero shade whatsoever.  I put on a tee-shirt but no sunblock because I still hadn't found any.  (I was smart and brought face sunblock with me though.  Phew.)  

Apparently the Street View car got here at like 5am.  Where is everybody?!

Don't let the parking lot fool you, Cape Maeda is beautiful.

You have to walk down a lot of stairs, but it's a nice snorkel site!

Wider view.

I brought my camera in the cheap underwater case I bought, and I took about a zillion photos.  I make no claims of being a 'photographer.'  I am a person with a camera who takes photos.  That said, for the price of my camera set-up, I think I got some decent shots.  Here's some of the good ones from today:

Lemon butterflyfish.

A scorpionfish!  These guys are experts at blending in.  They can be hard to spot, but this guy's camo isn't so great.

This is Thalassoma lutescens.  It appears to go by several names, including Green Moon Wrasse and Banana Wrasse.

Common names are ridiculous and change based on where you are.

Rabbitfish!

A wee crowned pufferfish.

A variety.

More variety.

No clue.

I am too lazy to keep identifying fish.  Not sorry.

Pipefish!

I've never seen one of these guys.  Reminds me of this toy I had when I was a kid that wobbled a lot.

More rabbitfish.

A new type of butterflyfish for me!  I've never seen these guys before.

Awww isn't he cute?

A grumpy little anemonefish (like Nemo) in a super-cool anemone.

More anemonefish in a somewhat-less-cool anemone.

Barracuda getting cleaned by cleaner fish!

Definitely a wrasse.  Probably a Green Moon Wrasse.

Eel!

Closer up to the eel.

Goodbye, eel.

Striped surgeonfish.

I spent about two hours in the water before I realized that I was getting absolutely fried.  I know I'm getting sunburnt when I feel inexplicably drained of energy.  I got out of the water, threw my stuff on the roof of my car, and promptly fell asleep under a pavilion for about an hour.  Fortunately none of my snorkeling stuff had been stolen while I was sleeping--this is Japan, after all.  When I woke up it was about noon, and I took a quick walk to check out what else was at Cape Maeda.

Feels like the rainforest!

There are lots of small trees with long spiky leaves called Adan trees, and on these little trees are a fruit that resembles a pineapple.  I think they're edible, but I didn't try to eat one.

Wikipedia tells me that it's an Old World plant, and it grows quickly.

The walk was very pretty.  And very, very hot and sunny.

Remember: click any photo to make it larger.

After my walk I was getting hungry, so I packed up my stuff and hopped in the car to look for food.

On the way back to the main road (it's not very far, maybe a three-minute drive) I noticed a sign for a guesthouse.  I needed a place to stay for the night so I went to check it out.  The Akachichi guesthouse was full for the night and also out of my price range, but it was lovely.  I spent about 20 minutes talking with the owner (an American man) and his friend, a Japanese woman with perfect English.  They were very nice, and gave me some pointers on things to see.  They even pointed me toward a cheaper guesthouse right across the street, where I ended up staying for the next three nights.  Before I left, the woman gave me two bottles of sunblock, just because I didn't know where to find it!  I'm very, very glad I stopped there.

If I haven't mentioned it yet, this trip would have been a bit of a nightmare if not for the generous help of many, many Japanese people.  So many people went out of their way to help me despite the language barrier.  I'm sure I wouldn't have received as much help if I had been that lost in most parts of America.

Anyway, I never did find a proper place to eat, but I did make my way back down south to Yomitan (where I had gone earlier in the morning) to see a castle ruins site.  For 'ruins,' I thought it was in pretty good shape!  I got lucky and was, for most of the time, the only person there.  It's very cool to experience something so old while completely alone.  You feel a bit like a ghost.  In a good way.

You have to walk up a small hill to get to the front gate.

This is the site of the Zakimi Castle ruins.  The castle was built in the 1400's by Chuzan Kingdom, which ruled over the central area of the main island of Okinawa.  The Chuzan Kingdom used it to fight against the Hokuzan Kingdom from the north part of the island, but eventually the two kingdoms combined into the Ryukyu Kingdom.  Today it's a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Click to make me bigger.

Let's go inside.

A second doorway to another level of the castle!

Click to make me bigger.

Not very disabled friendly, I'm afraid.  (Good thing I'm not disabled.)

It looks so old and weathered!  I love it!

On the second level, there used to be a structure.  It's obviously not there now.  If it's not too windy, you can go up these stairs onto the wall and check it all out from the top.

View from the top.  Click to make me bigger.

After visiting Zakimi Castle, I saw a sign for another pottery village in Yomitan.  I had to go!

An actual working (not at the moment) kiln built into the side of a hill, traditional Okinawan style.

Does the inside of the kiln remind you of a snake, or is it just me?

Actually the whole thing kinda reminds me of a snake.

Unfortunately this one was not as cool as the one in Naha, and I didn't buy anything.  It was ridiculously hot, too.  I didn't drink enough water and ended up feeling rather sick and dizzy.  Not fun.  Fortunately I recovered after drinking a ton of water, and I was pleasantly surprised by the wonderful spiders on the street.  One was so large that I actually gasped out loud and made a family laugh.  It was much larger than any I saw in Australia.

Beautiful orb weaver.  (This is not the huge one.  That guy will come later.)

Angry orb weaver.

For scale.  The spider is still about six or seven inches behind my hand.  I'm not a totally crazy person, after all.

Nom nom nom.

Here's the sucker that made me gasp.  This thing is ENORMOUS.  I'm not sure the photos really do it justice.  A large bug box would cramp this guy.  A cat carrier would be more appropriate.

HUUUUUGE.

And also beautiful.

It wasn't just big spiders either!  I haven't seen these little armored cuties since I lived in Australia.

I also noticed some strange little houses while I was spider-hunting.

Oh my, who could live here?

You might have guessed, but yep, they're full of dead people.

They're like little neighborhoods for the dead.

These are called "haka" and the ashes and bones of dead family members are in here.  Families of the dead take care of the haka.  They're all very clean and some had fresh flowers, despite being kind of in the middle of nowhere.  There's a special day in April when the whole family will gather to pay their respects and more or less have a picnic.  Several had fresh flowers.

I am under the impression that the haka are unique to Okinawa.  I visited a small cemetery in Narita (in mainland Japan) and it was nothing like this.  The haka are everywhere in Okinawa; I saw dozens in random places on the sides of the road.

It appears that you can add an awning to this one.

All the graves had one or two cups with the same blue-and-white pattern on them.  Later, in the shops, I saw the same cups and bowls in a separate section from the rest of the ceramics.  I think they are special grave sets.

I had already decided to stay at the hostel at Cape Maeda, which meant driving north again.  I wanted to find another grocery store, but it turns out they're few and far between on the island.  (I later learned that there was on in Yomitan, where I already was.  Whoops.)  I drove north for a bit until I hit Onna, at which point I decided I should probably stop and ask for directions.

I stopped my car outside a restaurant, and almost immediately a young man came to see if I needed help.  (Maybe I wasn't supposed to park there?)  I managed to get directions to a grocery store entirely in Japanese, which I suppose isn't an enormous accomplishment, but it still felt pretty cool.  The purple line on the map is my route from Yomitan to Onna and then down to Ishikawa, which is on the east coast of the island.  Fortunately, the island is pretty skinny at that point.

The purple line is my path from Yomitan to the grocery store.
The red line is my path back to my hostel for the night at Cape Maeda.

I thought I had gotten lost again and stopped at a Lawson's (which, like Family Mart, is a popular convenience store that is a million times better than an American 'convenience store') and was assured that the grocery store was just a little farther down the road.

So I hopped back in my car, and lo and behold, there it was!

Thank you, Google Street View.

I went inside and saw many interesting things.

Strange lamps.

More strange lamps.  The one on the left spins.

There are revolving lights inside.

Need some new floors in your home?  No problemo.  Anything you want comes on a roll.  It's like if JoAnn Fabrics and Home Depot had an ugly baby.

These aren't the only faux-hardwood floor or tile options.

We've got grass, more tile, and anything a garage might need.

Even rugs come on a roll!  Amazing!

I found a lot of cheap teaware here, so... I bought all of it.  No, really.  I bought a lot of teaware.  I mailed it all home.  I have a problem.  I also found a styrofoam cooler for five bucks!  I really needed that.

And here's some vacuum-sealed corn!

Hm.  I doubt it's buttered and salted.

I was extremely disappointed by the very, very meager food selection at this grocery store.  I was also boggled by the strange amount of home remodeling stuff.  Well I hope you see where this is going, because I certainly did not.  Let's take one more look at that Street View photo...

Now you might not be able to read Japanese letters (or maybe you can and you've already realized that I'm a moron) but I can.  On the right side it reads "ho-mu sentaa tabata."  Go ahead, read that out loud.

HOME CENTER TABATA.  This is a home repair store.  I went grocery shopping at the Japanese version of Home Depot.  *long sigh*

Okay, let's take a look at that Street View one more time...

Theeeeere it is.

The grocery store is literally right next door.  I actually walked over there.  Got everything I needed but still felt like a moron.

But a moron with food!  And thanks to my mistake, a moron with teaware and a styrofoam esky!  So I happily drove back to my hostel.

Looks like a hotel.

Hostel on the left, and the first intersection (which is in the photo but is hard to see) is a 2-minute drive to Cape Maeda.

The hostel was called Yado Cyuramarti, and it was Y2000 (about $20) a night.  It's a dormitory-style hostel with six beds per room, but the room is big and the beds are bunked with a desk under each one.  The rooms were clean, although the bathroom a little less so, and there was aircon!  Plus it was a three-minute drive from the best snorkeling spot on the island.  I had one roommate, a Japanese girl who spoke pretty good English and was very nice and quiet.  And thank the heavens, she didn't snore.

I fixed up my dinner and happily scarfed it down before showering and passing out in bed.  I'll get around to showing all the crazy foods I ate... but not now.  Coming soon: whale shark dive, more diving, more snorkeling, and more weird stuff.  I promise.  :)

Cheers,
Ashton