Of course I am back in Japan yet again - Oct and Nov 2018 - Page 4

Near my hotel, a back hoe has climbed a pile of rubble. You dont really see this in Australia, but its very common all over Asia. They always look to me like they are about to topple over.

This sign is not where the bus left from, and its a crap photo, but its here because the bottom half is a giant e-ink screen. I had never seen such a thing before. Pressing the button to the right of it (hard to see here) caused it to refresh in a manner just like an Amazon Kindle, except its the size of an A2 piece of paper.

This is where I got off the bus. A pig to greet the pig man!

Before heading up the hill I checked out the beach. The sand looked crap but the water with the mountains in the background looked nice. The journey was a mix of nice green areas and very industrial areas. Much more industrial than I was expecting.

A view of the city of Nago, and my mountain behind it (I think). I notice my usage of brackets is back.

Its a covered street. But I would not call it a covered shopping street, since all the shops are shut. This was the case later in the day when I returned also.

These are photos of Japans version of the Danish style dolphin hunt! Just like in Denmark, boats surround pods of dolphins and force them into Nago bay where hungry locals stab them with spears until the sea turns red. Its a great festival the whole family can enjoy!

This is the nice path ascending to the castle ruins, somewhat ruined by the steel hand rail. Ruins ruined. I amuse myself.

From this angle, Nago looks like a sizeable metropolis, it is not.

The temple, as ever. There was no one around.

This path was a false start, it went up to a grave of some importance, probably the actual ruins, I then had to follow it back down again.

Nice mid level view from where I suspect the castle ruins are. Probably the best view of the day.

I still wanted to get up that mountain. Its not much of a mountain, but its a mountain, and I will take any mountain if thats the only mountain on offer.

After following an access track around the bottom for a few kilometres, I found a sign posted path up, complete with ropes! This was a very good challenging path, good to go up, probably not great to come down. The only issue was I had not brought my gloves with me, so my poor girly hands suffered on the rough ropes!

Behold, the view across Okinawa, you can see the ocean on the other side.

The abandoned city of Nago. Its easy to confuse the names Naha and Nago, at one point I started typing Naho.

Another small city and a dolphin murdering bay.

The best photo of me yet!!!!! The very humid weather is giving me an awesome afro hairstyle. I dont try to fight it.

The path down (now that I found it from the top) was very easy, with stairs most of the way. I was glad I accidentally found my alternative path.

It looked nice in the afternoon sun.

The final bit before emerging in the scout camp was a small ravine of moss covered rocks. At times I had to place one foot in front of the other to fit.
Despite the long expensive (but then partially refunded) bus ride, I was very glad I found myself a mountain in Nago.

First I headed off into a side street, not a great photo but there were hundreds of little restaurants, often with people sitting on coke crates outside. This reminded me a lot of Taiwan.

Ivory is still available for purchase in Japan. The great Japanese elephant has been extinct for centuries.

Here we have a shop cat. His focus never shifts from the horizon. He's seen things......

I couldnt work out if this guy was selling stuff, or just proudly displaying his collection of empty bottles.

Strangely, much of the actual market stays open until 9pm, including fish and meat areas. I am used to these shutting early. Some stalls are shut but at least 50% are open.

I think I found the end of the market. There was every kind of street covering, bright and new down to dull and old as depicted here.

These are not fishing supplies, apparently its a store dedicated to trinkets to hang off jewelery. Weird.

Heres the photo I took in the park where the guy was making a movie about balancing a ping pong ball on his nose.

Park cat. He was also quite happy to pose for me, even the orange pre focus light thing didnt bother him.

Some of the shops are nicer than the usual tourist fare. None of them have a NO PHOTO attitude that I picked up on.

Here is another shop dedicated to jewelry, exclusively silver jewelry, which requires a Porsche.

An underground zoo. They have the usual things like owls and hedgehogs for you to torture, but they also claim to have an otter? Otters have terrifying sharp teeth!

My dinner tonight was delicious. It is wholemeal soba, advertised as 'brown soba with germ', lots of vegetables and allegedly, some local Okinawa pork. It was the best noodles I have had on this trip so far and very cheap.

I was amused that not only have the orange cones and barriers been erected around these road works, but some rope has been strung across the area as well, just in case a helicopter planned to land on this spot.
Whoever makes the black and yellow rope in Okinawa is rich, its everywhere! On the mountain yesterday there were kilometres of it.

On my journey I had to cross a number of bridges. Enjoy the view. Clear blue skies all morning.

Of course, there was a small shrine to hike up and enjoy the view. Below we have old people golf. Its like golf but you throw/roll a 'bowl' into a big hoop placed on the 'green' that is actually 'brown'. 'Quotes'.

I always enjoy the colorful anime characters decorating graves in shrines.

What kind of day would it be without a red torii gate in Japan?

The only 'train' in Okinawa (yes more quotes and brackets too) is the Naha monorail. I like impressive infrastructure.

Racist! If you have kept up with the news you will know that Japanese schools are expelling students who do not dye their hair Japanese black.

This is a very impressive playground on the side of a hill. I can think of 10 ways to die here. I got half way down before I got stuck.

Here is the view of the far side of Naha, which is a large city.

Here is a view of a small rubbish dump on the grounds of the old castle with the main part of the city behind it. That rubbish is visible from the viewing platform on the navy headquarters grounds, quite surprising!

Now I am inside the museum. The main claim here that I am suspicious of is that the Japanese naval offices were finally defeated when they were gassed by US marines. Internet says -
'However, despite the intense anti-Japanese feelings and the steady increase in budget and personnel for the Chemical Warfare Service (CWS) during the war, the United States never used lethal gases in the Pacific.'.

It is a very small museum but there is quite a bit of English. The people selling the tickets told me to spend time reading everything in the musuem in detail.

Now I shall descend into the tunnels.

Like all war related things in Japan, first I must pass the paper cranes.

It seems a long way down, I guess its not really, but it is solid rock.

Darkest photo of the day. I find it weird that apparently they had to dig it by pick and shovel in a hurry, yet they have carved fake tree logs / roots into the walls?

The tunnels go for a few hundred metres. There are a few areas still off limits according to a map.

This salt covered room is where the lower ranks slept standing up.

Some of the tunnels are very narrow and low. There were not a lot of emergency exits, I was checking!

The main tunnel.

Despite a hundred guys sleeping standing up, this is the commanding officers banquet hall.

On my return journey I passed through some mangrove swamps. I did not see any crocodiles.

Heres me in the near future. Staring at birds in mangroves through multiple telescopes.

Enjoy one more view of Naha for the day.

I cut through the backstreets to get back to my hotel and its off limits washing machine. Naha is not all bright and colorful tourist friendly areas after all.

Its an Osprey! Have I ever seen one before? I think I did. Here in Okinawa they are despised, and cited as the main reason they want the US air force bases gone. The Osprey you see, also known as a tilt rotor plane, has a bad habit of firing off one of its rotors and then spinning to the ground and killing school children.

As I walked down narrow streets to the beach, I wondered what that enormous building was. It was not a building at all but a Chinese cruise ship.

And here we have the beach. So beautiful. So natural. So freeway. The so (x) joke is worn out. I dont care.

Here is cat island. Except its not. Its Okinawa island, with cats. Lots of cats.

Every Japan trip I have to do a vending machine photo, so here it is. These ones were in a weird spot in the lawn.

Here is the temple begging for forgiveness for the crappy beach of Naha.

Around the corner a bit is another crappy beach, with a nightclub barbecue area at the end of the concrete. There was no one there but the music was pumping. Drop it like its hot.

I decided to take another shot of the cruise ship.

Here is a particularly bright area of town. It is the new bus terminal I ranted about yesterday. Its also a department store and restaurants. I found out it only opened just over a week ago. No wonder the bus area is disorganised.

Its a Max Brenner bald headed man chocolate shop. Only interesting because they went out of business in Australia a week or so ago. I hear they buy sniper rifles for Israeli soldiers! From wikipedia -
The Strauss Group states on their website that they provide care packages to soldiers in the IDF's Golani Brigade, leading to activists targeting Max Brenner stores for boycotts Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign. In 2011, pro-Palestinian activist group Students for Palestine organized a series of protests outside Max Brenner outlets in Australia. The protest in Melbourne led to 19 arrests.

For dinner tonight, Japanese pasta. It is soy sauce flavoured, with an almost raw egg on top. Also Chinese sausage. I think I have now had all the main food groups of Japan. Now I can do repeats.

Oh yeah, its election day. I was in Japan when Trump won. Will anything blow up?

Tonights photo of the main street of Naha.

Mecha robot things, attack! This is the best of the junk shops because of all the weird things like this they have. They are at least 5 times busier than all the competing stores.

Okinawa seems to be particularly interested in selling small trinkets like this. Generally of the cat / dragon hybrid thing but also turtles, whales, dolphins, all of which are delicious.

I like the early morning light reflecting off the open sewer. I took a similar shot here in the afternoon on another night I think.

Due to Japans ongoing labour shortage, there was a call for volunteers to drive the monorail. I knocked 3 other people out cold to claim my rightful place as monorail driver for the day.

If you come to Naha, ride the monorail, the views are awesome. Towards the castle it goes up a long steep hill that gives a very cool perspective of the place which I failed to capture in a photograph.

Here I was shooting DIRECTLY INTO THE HEART OF THE SUN to capture the castle moat. There was a strange singing group performing nearby that featured everyone trying to sing a different song simultaneously. Bonus points if you clapped out of time.

I dont even know if these walls are original. There were some other parts of the wall that looked very old and just like a pile of rubble. So are they 1992 walls or slightly older re creation walls?

It was a very busy place.

Before entering, I climbed up through the garden for a view of greater Naha. I am glad I did, because as you will see, they do not like you getting a view from anywhere else!

I am pretty sure these are 1992 walls.

OK, here is the castle and the strange forecourt, and a lot of people. It looks nice from a distance.

But get up close and you can see its just a plastic sheet.

Inside you follow the preferred route for about 30 minutes, through long wooden rooms of pictures and lots of NO PHOTO imperial guards. One of the places you can photo is the throne. To me that text says, earth world mountain central.

Here is a wooden model of the modern concrete and steel castle.

I like the models.

NO VIEW FOR YOU! I have no idea why not? Those stairs look brand new.

Here is another dead end from where I thought I might enjoy a view.

Instead all you can do is exit, without getting a good view of the compound. Maybe they are hiding the fact the whole thing is just a facade with a shed on the back of it?

My return journey featured many snakes.

I spotted a heap of shops from the viewpoint of the monorail, which affords an excellent view, so I got off and at first was horrified at this large abandoned high end luxury goods duty free store, Hilton hotel and car rental collection zone.

Fortunately over the road was a better larger poorer person shopping centre with numerous food courts and cafes.

It had all the Japan favorites, including Tokyu Hands. It extends a long way around the corner.

The weather was really nice today, I sat outside in this area and had my 2nd coffee. There was also a big cinema complex in this facility, showing the Freddie Mercury film.

This looks like it could be the new Imperial Navy Headquarters, but it is actually the Okinawan prefectural art gallery.

I decided that wherever I was, must be the non tourist centre of town. There were a lot of useful shops but none selling Hawaiian shirts.

Wherever there are government buildings in Japan I have noticed these little bento box selling food trucks lined up at lunch time. Presumably office workers are not allowed to cross the road to the shopping centre at lunch time.

My longer return journey to the hotel went past a different sewer system. Okinawa is a traditional water village. The water appears to have bleach in it.

Tsunami's are very real here. There are signs everywhere about how far above sea level you are.

I went to the supermarket for lunch. The good thing about Japanese supermarkets is they all have little seating areas with a microwave if you want it to eat the food you just purchased. I always microwave my sushi to improve the flavour. Generally these places also have free water (bleached), and a bathroom. Very convenient.

What is going on here? We have pole dancing whores combined with children with cat whiskers painted on their faces?

Here is the sun setting over the East China Sea.

And here is a Japanese coast guard ship that patrols the East China Sea, they are not allowed to have an actual navy still I dont think. Actually I just checked, the coast guard is different, and their main task is to repel North Korean fishermen.

Over the road from the military base is this theater shaped like a samurai helmet. I believe every Japanese city has one the same. Inside they mainly do karate demonstrations.

The local baseball stadium appears to be under construction. I was surprised that its all open at the back like this. I threw a few pitches.

I cant get enough monorail.

Inside the shopping centre the 'Frozen Fair' was on, because everything is better frozen.

The food court in this place was promising, but no, I must resist, I selected my dinner last night.

This photo is for my mother. I fell Okinawa has a higher penetration of mister donut than any other Japanese city. It is having a lasting effect.

I went here and bought an entire new wardrobe! In all seriousness, theres a lot of huge people here. Island life combined with mister donut.

I wanted to go here for dinner! The Chinese character for chilli is there. Oh well.

Instead, I went and had my vegetarian curry thing, for only 650 yen! I was very satisfied because it was cheap. This was in the basement of a department store where I could sit at the counter and glare at everybody as they went past.

After my cheap dinner, I treated myself to the Okinawan specialty, purple sweet potato tartlet. It was tiny. Now I want ten more. Maybe for breakfast tomorrow before I go to the airport?