Churami Aquarium and Nago Castle Ruins Park

I made it up to the aquarium on Saturday. The major highlight was definitely the worlds largest acrylic fish tank. Most of the displays were pretty boring: a shrimp in one tank, a frog in another, etc. The giant tank, however, was a different story. There were probably about a dozen types of sea creatures in there. Everything from the giant whale sharks to manta rays to schools of small fish. They even had the same tuna I caught on the Molokai sailing trip last Labor Day. I sat and stared for about an hour and a half without knowing I was there so long.


One thing I couldn't help thinking about was how the schools of fish knew to hang out with the fish that looked like them. I don't imagine that they are smart enough to know what they look like and decide to swim with the fish that they recognize as similar. Yet I didn't see one instance of fish forming multi-species schools. The tank was fairly large, but as you can see from the photos, there were a lot of fish in there. Not only that, but the fish could move an entire school, minus one or two stragglers, on a moments notice. They would all turn at the same time and move the same speed and directions. I read somewhere (I possibly read it somewhere. I rarely know where I learned the things that I say) that there was an electrical current in schools of fish. That they, in essence, could share a collective brain by all becoming receivers and transmitters of the electrical impulses. I'm not sure if that is factual or not, but one thing for sure was that they somehow always knew what the other fish would do. There was no single leader. There was no domino effect. Just a perfectly timed movement of 100 fish. It was very interesting to watch, to say the least.


My day ended with me taking the wrong Hwy 71 three times on the way home. I have no idea why, but there are three different Hwy 71s on the north part of the island. Even if one is a city road, one a county, and one a state highway, it still doesn't seem very logical. Not to me, at least. On the bright side, I got to see a lot of the countryside that I wouldn't have seen otherwise.

My Sunday was also spent in the north part of the island. Last week a guy from work that has been helping me out a ton invited me to spend a day at the castle ruins (I didn't actually see any ruins). He cautioned me, with a raised eyebrow, "I'm gonna have the kids."

The park itself was pretty amazing. It had to have easily been over 100 acres, with dozens of trails and multiple parks with playground equipment "for the kids." Yeah, right. One of the parks had the craziest equipment I have ever seen: climbing nets, zip lines, a 50m slide with built in rollers (insanely fast), log walls, and more S.W.A.T. style training obstacles. It was like a baby ninja training camp.

While at the park, I spent about 30 minutes doing the adult thing of talking with the kids' dad (about work things, no less) and eating Pocky Sticks. After that I made up an excuse about how one of the kids might have been stuck half way a giant tube made of steel and net (that actually made a loop-de-loop) and that I should go help. Forty-five minutes, two games of monster, and one pair of stained and ripped shorts later, I had been on every ride at least twice and had made three small but energetic friends.



The rest of the day entailed walking some of the hiking trails and drinking lots of lemon iced tea. Later that evening, after having dinner at their house, I was completely drained. My hats off to all parents out there. Kids, especially at the ages of 3, 5 (and a half, don't forget), and almost 8, don't ever stop moving. I don't think I could have used more energy had I ran a marathon that day. I had a blast.

In other exciting news, a China Airlines plane burst into a ball of flame on the runway at Naha International Airport, about 30 miles from here. Interestingly enough, I am supposed to take that same flight in exactly two weeks from today. I really hope they have an extra plane in reserve for us. It's times like those that I really feel guilty that I often get the exit row, but rarely read the instructions on how to use the door. Everyone made it out alive, so it seems not everyone is unable to tear themselves away from the 36" baseball bat flashlight or inflatable travel Jacuzzis in Skymall during the safety demonstration like I am.

Adminstrator Not Required

We were able to get a non-networked laptop with a clean hard drive to allow us to install programs. From there I just move the pictures to my thumb drive. We bypassed the administrator roadblock.


Yesterday evening I got out of work fairly early. The first thing I noticed after leaving the confines of my office was that the sun was shining. It had been about a week of clouds and rain (and we have another super-typhoon on the way. When will it start affecting us? Friday or Saturday, of course.). Last weekend, driving along the coast, I picked out a couple of good spots for an evening such as last night. It wasn't the most spectacular sunset ever known to man, but just having the chance to go to the beach and watch the sky and water change is always worth it.

This was taken in wide angle mode.

This was taken in macro mode. I like this picture, despite it being a little dark. I had the flash off, so that didn't help. I am generally against using the flash, but according to the manual, the camera corrects for the flash and makes everything look natural. I'm a bit skeptical.

This is another wide angle shot. I took some pictures using the stitch assist, but I can't upload them to this website. It's unfortunate, because there is one that I really like. It is a 180 degree view of the mountains, beach, sky, and water.

Here is an example of the fine dining I have been having. Ramen and eggs cooking in my coffee pot. I have recently stepped it up to angel hair pasta and sauce.

Here is what driving looked like last Saturday. It made for a good time, but this picture was taken about an hour and a half into the drive. I was so close, yet so very far away. I didn't make it much farther than this.

Too Much Water, No Fish

This past weekend the plan was to go to the Churaumi Aquarium on the north part of the island. I recently bought a camera that my parents sent to me (thanks Mom and Dad!), so I was eager to try some of the features that I convinced myself that I needed (it has an aquarium setting, after all).

The trip was doomed before it even began. We had been getting some very heavy rains late last week. When I got to my car in the morning, I found the driver's side to be filled with about three inches of standing water. Nice. When I bought the car, the seller did mention a leak; however, he didn't let on to the magnitude of it. He said that they couldn't ever figure out where it came from. After doing a thorough inspection, I found that the leak was coming from two screw holes at the base of the driver's door frame. Of course, the screws were no where to be seen. I spent about twenty minutes bailing water with the ash tray that I pulled out of the console. All this in a torrential downpour.

After working up my appetite bailing water, I headed to MaxValu supermarket (in Japanese it is pronounced ma-ka-su-va-loo) and got two trays of sashimi and one of sushi. I figured I would just make it a fish themed day, plus I had over 1000 yen in change that I was tired of looking at. Incidentally, spoken language is not necessary when you drop two handfuls of change onto a cashier's counter in a busy supermarket. In that instance, her body language was enough to make me understand that counting 10 yen coins was not a favorite hobby of that particular cashier. Feeling relieved of my burden of coins, I sat in the parking lot eating tray after tray of fish while watching the rain fall and listening to Interpol. Admittedly, it was a fairly depressing sight and it made for some inquisitive looks from the locals. At that point, I was the fish in the aquarium, and the Japanese were me (except they were the ones getting wet, and I was dry; all but me feet, at least).

As I drove to the north side of the island, the rain did not let up. In fact, it started coming down harder. It is amazing how much soil an island can give up and not appear to be any smaller. For miles and miles driving along the coast there were rivers of orange water spewing into the ocean. In some places, the orange water's path to the ocean paid no regard to the roads. After about an hour into the drive I reached my first closed road. The water was about two feet deep on the main road. I followed some locals into cramped alley's and dirt roads passing by dozens of tombs the size of small house and by-passed the closed section. This was not the last time I would do so.

I never made it to my final destination. Too many road closures and heavy rains. After every closure, I would take to the side streets and mountain roads trying to find a way around. There were many dead ends and many U-turns on winding mountain lanes. It was quite comical the way all of us would go about finding roads. I would see the same car three or four times as each of us would try a different route, find it led to a dead end, go back to the main road and try another route. It was a bit like the old movies with a person going into a door only to come out on the opposite side of the hallway two doors down. All in all, I probably had more fun driving through the floods than I would have at the aquarium.

After I finally gave up, I came up with a plan B. I went to see the Bourne Ultimatum for a second time that weekend and went to an all-you-can-eat place with a couple of friends. It was one of those places with a gas flame in the middle of the table. You order raw meat and cook it yourself. My two friends were done after an hour of eating. I was trying to explain to them that if you are going to spend 2000 yen on a meal, it is in no way an "all you want to eat" dining experience. No no. All you can eat means that you may have to push yourself beyond your comfort zone and go ahead and order up some more sirloin and kimchee even though you aren't sure you can finish it. After watching me eat for another hour and a half I think they realized two things: 1. I wasn't joking about the can part, and 2. They don't want to go to an all you can eat place with me ever again.

Pics will be on the way, I just need to figure out how to upload them. My work computer claims that I need to be an administrator to plug my camera into it. So picky.

Jammin'

After only three short weeks of waiting, I got my Amazon order in. It is music. The past day or so I have been using my TV and DVD player to listen to my new music, but it seemed like such as waste of energy, not to mention bothersome, to listen that way. I just got done ripping the music to my MP3 players, so I should be all set for listening without the 27" TV blaring that blue screen at me from across the room.

I had never heard of Feist until I was reading one of the blogs to which Jim contributes. The review of her new CD was good enough that I bought both albums mentioned in the review ("The Reminder" and "Let It Die") without ever hearing her sing. It was as good purchase (click on the review link and you just may but it, too).

And, of course, you can never go wrong with Interpol. They are one of those bands who's music makes me remember where and when I heard them. The first time I ever heard them was in college. My TA for American History 1919-1945 was playing their album "Turn On the Bright Lights" before class. The song that specifically stuck with me was NYC, which was their biggest success off that album. Their next album, "Antics," I bought just before taking a trip. It was my theme music during my Christmas 2004 visit to New York to hang out with my grade school pen-pal (yeah, I said it. ), Kate. Whenever I hear that album, I am back in New York City. This last album, "Our Love to Admire" just may become associated with Japan. Time will tell.

Other than that, not too much new (obviously, when I write about getting CDs in the mail, there isn't "too much new" and definitely not anything exciting going on). Today is the day that I, armed with my new albums, will take to my car and explore the island. These past three weeks I have fallen into a very exciting Friday night pattern which has bled into the whole weekend. I get off of work around 6:30 on Friday, eat some Ramen, get a few movies, and do laundry. Somehow I look forward to those evenings. Something about fresh clothes, junk food, and movies is appealing. Then, I generally sleep 12 hours and spend the rest of the weekend reading. Not this weekend, though. Today I go out! (I just need to get off the computer...)