Saturday, July 12, 2003

*... can i get a witness? ...*
a week ago i had a knock on my door, so i jumped up to answer it hoping it was the postman with some surprise for me (it was my birthday, afterall). When I opened the door, I was met by two white-hatted ladies who immediately started jabbering in Japanese. So I played my usual wide-eyed "wakarimasen" (I don't understand) gig, so they switched to English: "Hello, do you know about the Jehovah Witnesses...?" It took a lot of concentration for me not to laugh, and squeak out "Yo hablo espanol." in the hopes they wouldn't speak Spanish and go away. Unfortunately they recognized it ("Ah! Supein-go de!") but they took their leave anyway...

This morning i had in my mailbox a huge pamphlet all about Jehovah Witnesses... in Spanish.
3:58 PM

Friday, July 11, 2003

*... tadaaaiimaaaa!! ...*
i'm baaaaaack! In Niigata, that is, and none to happy about it. Mostly because i was greeted with buckets and buckets of rain, but also because i was greeted with the stares and manners of the people here that like to remind me that I am foreign and different and not worthy of the same courtesies. Ick. The only time I felt like that in Okinawa was when people would speak only to Setsuko, assuming I didn't understand. But overall people were super-friendly and so CHILL.
To make things more un-chill, my little malaria-ruse seems to have backfired a bit, and I may be coming back state-side sooner than planned. Let's see if my cleverness or, let's admit it, bald-faced lying can get me out of this one...
Oh, and for all you karate folks in Cali, when Ojiisan-sensei graces y'all with his presence in a few weeks and mentions something along the lines of "Midori says hi" (as he promised he would do), well, that would be me. It turns out that I have the world's most difficult name to pronounce or remember, so after a while he just started calling me "green", as in green belt. He was also calling Setty "Kanako", but that one's a mystery to us.
4:35 PM

Thursday, July 10, 2003

*... recipe for fun ...*
take one highly-revered, slightly-scary, and very famous karate sensei, add one bottle of Jack Daniels, and shake with vigor, and you are guaranteed a fun night in Naha... more on that soon...
Our 2 days in Naha were adventurous and full of meeting people. On Tuesday we hopped on some ghetto bikes and headed to the beach and the beautiful blue waters. Unfortunately the waters were not only under our feet but over our head as it started raining hard enough for us to take shelter so our stuff wouldn't get completely wet. Under the awning we met 2 Mormon missionaries in full white-shirted regalia, and got to talking to them for a while. I'm not too sure it's OK with their rules to be talking to a girl in a bikini but I think they were grateful for the English conversation. And I have a date with one of them in a year and a half to tour the SD temple... I would say "score!" but damn that whole religion hurdle... On our way home we stopped at a restaurant that happened to have live entertainment that night, and we were lucky enough to be placed right next to the stage. The guy playing was really nice and spoke to us the whole night under the guise of speaking to everyone in the audience. During his intermission I decided to join a table full of 9 guys who seemed to be having a juggling contest. Unfortunately Setsuko missed taking pictures because Kei called to say that he was way too busy for the likes of us. I tried giving him a guilt trip, but I guess my feminine wiles don't cross some lines. Bummer.
Wednesday we checked out Shuri castle and (with the rain, again) walked all about it, but Setty didn't want to go inside, so we didn't. (I did, but oh well). We tracked down some Shuri-soba and i convinced her to search for Ojiisan-sensei at the small arts college behind the castle. We had no problem finding him, only a problem in actually approaching him. You have to understand, I have heard horror stories and know only really fierce looking pictures of this man. But he saw us peeking in and invited us to watch the rest of his badminton match with one of his students. Afterwards we went up to his office and got to know Ojiisan-sensei and his followers. The most surprising part was this fierce karate-r is also a fierce giggle-r and if he and KoCho sensei got in a giggle contest, it would be tough to call. Eventually we left him, souveniers and autographs in hand, and went back to the city to introduce Setsuko to tacos. They were good, but there ain't nothing like the real thing, baby. Meanwhile Ojiisan-sensei was trying to get a hold of us on Setsuko's celly. When we finally realized this, he ordered us into a taxi armed with tomato juice. The rest of the evening was spent traipsing around Naha and patronizing Ojiisan-sensei's many many friends, drinking a LOT, dancing (the man can jitterbug, but his disco needs some work) and trying to understand what the heck he was saying...
Ossu, sensei. Ossu.
7:24 PM

Tuesday, July 08, 2003

*... it's like coming home ...*
i knew that I was supposed to be an Okinawan kinda girl. It doesn't feel like Japan here, it feels like I actually belong. Strange. Setsuko and i had a pretty uneventful flight over here and our first stop was Okinawa City, in the middle of the main island. Okinawa has no train system which means i got to see the sights from inside the shadiest buses i have ever been privvy to ride. We stayed with the Nakamura family, where "mama-chan" and manobumade us feel very welcome. Mama-chan is a great cook, and she kept feeding us and feeding us and was just so cute. Manobu took us diving yesterday, and i'm really surprised that I didn't drown considering that i kept laughing every time we went underwater, and thus would spit out my regulator and inhale water. But i managed to re-learn how to breathe, and had an amazing tour of under the crystal blue seas of Okinawa. Overall Manobu was way impressed that he was able to teach me the basics of staying alive underwater completely in Japanese. (go me! go me! it's my birthday!) And we managed to set a record; Setsuko is the first person in known history (well, his limited historical knowledge) to have her ear bitten by a fish... hahaha
Today we headed back to Naha and are currently in a really seedy looking guesthouse. Even seedy for me, and I put up with a lot. I have a feeling PrettyPrettyPrincess Setsuko might be having a bigger problem with all this. Our consolation? Naha has boba!! yes!! I tell ya, it really feels like home... i do have a sense of accomplishment comes from managing to track down a member of the RyueiRyu crew completely by word of mouth. Sensei told me wo look up Kei while I was in Okinawa, and to do that, find Ojiisan-sensei. When we got to Naha airport, Setty happened to mention Ojiisan-sensei's name, and the lady at information immediately knew who she was talking about. She gave us a number to call, and they gave us a number to call, who then gave us Ojiisan-sensei's number. Even Manobu knew who he was. Ojiisan-sensei gave us Kei's number, and we should be meeting up with him if he's not too busy. It's a small world after all.
12:56 PM