Zamami Island!

 Today was a good day to be packing up and traveling to a new island. There have been announcements over the town loudspeaker for the last few days about an "unexploded ordinance detonation" set for this afternoon. Wild that in 2026, 80 years after the end of the war, they are still finding mines and bombs.

So, we packed up and caught an early ferry to Zamami, a larger island about 2 miles north of Aka. 

It's a larger city, as well, with a very nice visitor's center. We dropped our luggage at the hotel (a "pension house") and headed to the center. We browsed all the tourist material they had, then, with about 5 hours to kill before we could check in, and no snorkeling under threat of explosion, we got some delicious drinks from the cafe and hung out in the center for quite a while

I got a delicious lime juice with Shikuwasa, a small citrus fruit native to Okinawa.
Sumi got what looked like a chocolate sundae with a little coffee added.

There was an upstairs terrance with ample seating and free wifi, so we moved up there and spent quite a bit of time catching up on work and booking a possible snorkeling excursion tomorrow, though it's going to rain. The only question is how much and for how long. We'll see if we're able to go or not.

Finally, unable to wait any longer for a real meal, we walked over to "Yuyu Spicy Curry", a lunch cafe that served a variety of curry, including vegan curry. But first, the outside:

Cafe? Or Ghibli museum?

Hiding in the cactus

It was basically a patio with a few tables. The menu was small and simple and hung on a cork board.

Let's see...curry, curry, oh and some curry. And ice cream.

I am positive it was partially due to nothing but cold, convenience store food, aside from the izakaya adventure the first night in Aka that doesn't count. But it was really good.

Sumi's chicken curry with spiced shikuwasa lemonade

My chicken curry with a coke. I was already starting to get sleepy...

It was not Japanese curry. It was not real Indian curry. It was...some other kind of curry, but it was tasty. The spicy part was supposed to be adding chili powder to it (the server forgot to bring it to us at first) but it was plenty good without it. They had a few interesting ingredients added to the dish, as well. Grilled mango and coconut, both blended with the curry spice. It was surprisingly good and so very satisfying after very blah food for several days.

One other interesting feature of Zamami are...cats.

Apparently, Zamami is famous for it's feral cat population

How did we not know this?!!?

The only stoplight on the island...has a cat crossing sign

Murals on the sea wall

Trying to blend in

A little miffed at being photographed

Z.A.C. is the Zamami Island Community Cat Project

This is the local Kuroneko shop

They have small structures with litter boxes inside in various places around town

And very strict rules

And then....there is our hotel...

I don't think we can stay here...

After getting into the hotel, unpacking and finally doing laundry, we walked up to their local supermarket. Notice no quotes there. It was small, but it was a real store. We finally were able to buy some cereal! Japan has a good brand of muesli that is stocked in most stores that is quite good. We grabbed some snacks, happy to not have to try and put together a meal plan this time, and headed back to the hotel.

Now, Japanese snacks are an art form. Often they are regular salty things, like corn chips, nuts, crackers. And sometimes they can get a little...exotic. They love to make odd flavors for fun, but their odd flavors are often some bizarre bit of seafood that no one should ever eat. Ever. I like to find different kinds of snacks to try when we're over here. I found some kare-bei, curry rice crackers, that looked interesting. I like curry (surprise!) and I like senbei, so I gave it a shot (spoiler: they're really heavy, really strong, and really good. I could only eat 3 crackers before being full and done, but thumbs up from me). And this particular snack display perfectly sums up my Japanese shopping experiences.

Curry Senbei, yum! Dried miniature aliens...um...

There were a number of restaurants in Zamami and we intend to try a few of them, especially with the threat of some possibly heavy rain and high winds over the next few days. We got very lucky with our weather the past few days on Aka with perfect sunshine and light breezes. Unfortunately, some of the restaurants will be closed for a while.