Snorkeling and Burgers

 Well the rain came in. Nothing serious, but a steady fall most of the morning. We checked with the excursion place and they said the rain/wind/thunder/Godzilla wouldn't be bad in the afternoon, so snorkeling was still a go. So we bummed around the pension house, me doing work, Sumi doing planning for later in the trip, but basically being a little lazy. 

We did a little inadvertent souvenir shopping by stopping by both stores in town looking for towels for the beach. On Aka, the prison cell hotel was basically a place for divers, so they had everything there. The pension house is larger and less prison-like, but has grilled fish for every meal (that is not an exaggeration. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner). The supermarket had many things, but big towels they did not. The other market, which was basically a souvenir shop attached to the ferry port, did have towels, but they were artistic and special. Fifty dollars worth of special. So we ended up buy about $100 worth of shirts instead...I don't get the math either, but they are very nice outdoor shirts.

He really is everywhere. Kumamon is from Kyuushuu but has become a bit of a national mascot

At 1PM we headed to the visitor center to meet up with Mika-san, who took us out to a few new spots. As we were boarding the boat, a very unafraid sea turtle stopped by for quite a while to watch us. Apparently, one of the fishermen that moors in the same place will often toss some scraps to him, so he was hopeful, but ultimately disappointed.

I can haz cheezburger?

The reefs were once again amazing. The coral is so alive here, and so many new types of fish! And a bunch of turtles. We saw like seven or eight of them floating about, along with a bunch of very poisonous (and thankfully very chill) sea snakes. Seeing a snake just swimming along underwater with the fish is a little unnerving the firs time you see it, but they are not remotely aggressive, so it's fun to watch them from up above.

Two drowned rats

After snorkeling, the rain was coming down harder. We sloshed the few blocks back to the pension house and showered, then set out to find our second meal of the trip. We were at the wrong time (4PM). All the lunch placed had closed and the dinner places didn't open until 6, and we weren't waiting that long after 2 hours of snorkeling. So we took a chance on the aptly names Zamami Burger and Pizza. It's actually a full on diving hostel with a bar/restaurant as its lobby.

The atmosphere was ultra-toned down Margaritaville. The music was like they found a midwest classic rock station from 1985, which was kind of fun and much better than some of the bad Japanese crooning covers we had to listen to earlier (Sumi could swear a guy was singing "Killing Me Softly" with a smooth jazz background). I heard "Stairway To Heaven" for the first time in at least 10 years, maybe 15. Oh, yeah, the food

With "Zamami sauce". Still don't know what it was.

The burgers were good. Like enjoyable good. This is not a guarantee in Japan. I keep saying this, but you almost have to be here to understand just how fatty they like their meat. I'm not a huge meat eater to begin with, and when I do eat it, I prefer it lean and well done. If the Japanese could get away with cooking it but still have the texture of bleeding, raw meat, they would. Soggy defines 80% of Japanese cuisine. But these were good, and heavier than we're used to.

We weren't going to get a dessert but Chocolate Brownie with Okinawa Honey isn't something I have the willpower to pass up. And, yeah, it was worth it, Okinawa Honey, based on what we had, isn't as thick or sweet as other types of honey, but it's very tasty and complimented the chocolate well. They apparently also will put it on all of their pizzas...(sigh)

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.

More Snorkeling on Aka Island

 Not a lot to report, other than we're on day 4 of convenience store food and I'm ready for something real and cooked at some point. Sumi's breakfast this morning

They sell individually wrapped jumbo carrots at the "supermarket"

But the highlight of today was our snorkeling trip in the afternoon. 

We went out on a small boat with only 6 of us, all experienced snorkels/divers. This meant we were basically set loose in the open water with vague instructions like "Don't go too far over that way". We were in slightly deeper water, but the water was so clear, it didn't matter. We saw a huge variety of fish and coral, including a very poisonous sea snake, a Moray Eel out swimming in the water (they are always bigger than you expect), and some turtles. 

Today is our last day on Aka. We move to the larger, slightly more commercial island of Zamami tomorrow. They have restaurants there.

Sumi has been collecting pictures of shisa, traditional Okinawan statuettes that are half lion, half dog that sit in pairs outside of homes to keep evil spirits out and good spirits in. They come in all shapes and sizes.

Shisa!

Shisa yaibiin!!

Um...

Snorkeling and Biking on Aka Island

It rained all night last night and we were afraid we'd not have great weather today, but boy were we wrong. After our convenience store (excuse me "Supermarket") breakfast we took a walk down to the shore to check it out.

Oh, that's right. THAT'S why we came here

The clouds had lifted and it was a gorgeous, sunny day and great scenery all around. You can't see it in these pictures, but the water out here is pure blue (white sand bottom) and SO clear you can see clear to the ocean floor even 20-30 feet deep. More on that later. We had set up to do a snorkeling excursion in the afternoon, so we had the morning to kill. 

Walking over to the "Supermarket" we stocked up on food for the next few days and walked behind it to "Rental Shop Shou". It was, um,  a rental shop. We rented a few bikes to explore the island chain. The bikes were...mamacharis. What is a mamachari?

This beautiful thing

They actually kept their rental gear in great shape. These bikes were well tuned, oiled and, clean. Not an easy task on an island with all the salt in the air. Of course, being in Japan, to say it did not fit me would be an understatement. My knees hit the handlebars when I tried to pedal (I had to squeeze myself fully between the handlebars to ride at all) and I had to sit almost where the rear basket is just to fit. I'm sure I looked athletic and graceful. But they were bikes and we got to cross over the two bridges, leading to the southern islands, Geruma and Fukaji. The entire trip was about 4 miles (these islands are not large at all) with some really nice scenery

This is an elementary/junior high school. Imagine your school grounds looking like this.

We ended at the Kerama Airport. Remember the "Supermarket"? Yeah, this airport is tiny. There is a single runway that takes up pretty much the entire island and is like if you have ever landed in a jungle, there just a bunch of trees then a single runway. Yeah, except make it a island full of small mountains.

After our leisurely ride, we headed back to our cell and napped for about half an hour we walked down to the shore to meet the SeaSir van (the company doing the snorkeling/diving excursion). The first stop was a bunch of divers and jusrt us snorkeling. The second stop was just use snorkeling. Very different from the Maldives in many ways, not least of which is that the coral is very much alive here. It was fantastic snorkeling. With the clear water and lush coral, we saw a ton of new types of fish, as well as turtles, a water snake (Sumi saw that, I did not) and a manta ray! They are rare around here in May, so we were quick lucky to see one. This is our first time seeing one in the wild. They are big. Like, really big. Nearly three times to size of the eagle rays and sand rays we saw in the Maldives.

Not the best picture, but his wingspan is about 5 feet

Our guide took this of us.

Back at the cell, we had a feast consisting of ham and cheese sandwiches and...yeah that's it. Mild sunburns despite constantly re-applying sunscreen. Gotta be careful the next few days.

The beach is littered with old coral "fossils"

Shiisa yaibiin!

Cute little painted Shiiisa

Translation: If a tsunami comes, we're all screwed. 

We have RULES in this here town.