Here is an interlude post about my trip to Okinawa. Next week, back to bonsai, where I hope to share some wonderful old bonsai on Honshu.
The city of Naha, at the southern end of Okinawa.
At the top of the main island is a large laurel forest. I went up there for a few days.
At the guest house I misunderstood the food situation. Thought there would be dinner, as we were miles from town. The owner was busy and said he’d take me in the next day so I could shop. So I didn’t eat for 24 hours. I survived off a drink vending machine on property. An inadvertent juice fast.
These vending machines are everywhere. They’re even nowhere. A little delivery truck trundles up the barren road once every couple weeks to supply the mistaken.
Site of my starvation
Laurels and tree fern. Okinawa is subtropical, around 60 F this time of year. This is the dry season.
Azalea
Fire-bellied Newt. I shouldn’t have picked this up, as a friend later told me. The newt’s skin has toxins.
A protector deity on a roof. Behind the lion grows a sapling pine, I think a Ryukyu Pine. “Ryukyu” is the name of the sea-trading Okinawan culture that dates back thousands of years.
Photo courtesy Merlin app
I did some birding, including trying to find this bird, the Okinawa Rail. It’s a sneaky shorebird that lives in the lush laurel woods and it eluded me for several days. I heard many of them in the deep ravines but had no intention of slithering to my demise over a bird so intent on not being seen. That they were only described to science in 1981 is no mystery to me.
It’s rural and quiet in the north. Or so I thought on the first day.
Right at 6 pm a loudspeaker blared out over the sparsely inhabited forest: It’s time to go home to your children, the day is done, good night.
This was LOUD. And it made me jump—
What?! A fire, an earthquake, a liquid beverage delivery?!
Then, my feathers smoothed out again, a huge shape swooped in to hang on a branch. Another few flew by. Bats, flying foxes with 3-foot wingspans.
Another evening shock. Would they quietly munch on fruit as advertised, or skip that amuse-bouche and go for the main course?
This place wasn’t good for my health.
Back in the south in a rice paddy. Many crops grew there, including taro.
Impressive root flares help stabilize these tree mangroves in the mud.
A quiet street in a small coastal town.
The current trend in Okinawan homes is concrete, with a brutalist flare.
A more typical older home.
Back in Naha for the flight to Tokyo, I found this sidewalk with embedded broken pottery shards.
Naha is proud of its past potters. Here the masonry wall of a building holds a platter.
Next week, Obuse, Japan—where I studied under Mr. Suzuki.