Amami Dog Days

This is Amami Oshima, a little island in the south of Japan. It's actually not so little compared to the other small islands of Japan, coming in at second behind Okinawa, with 715 square kilometers of land. It's halfway between Okinawa and the mainland, but not a stopover by any means. It's a pleasant, antiquated backwater that for the most part hasn't been subjected to the rampant development seen on places like Okinawa.

This is Naze City, where we live in the summer. If you look carefully, you can see our house in the lower left hand corner.

Actually, this is a more accurate portrayal of the city and its harbor. A nice dusky picture from Ogamiyama. They've obliterated all the beaches, except for the one next to the sewage treatment plant, which is actually nice, although they don't want you to swim there.

I'm not saying things aren't exciting around here, but one of the highlights of my time here was going to the beauty salon and watching my wife get bound in electric pink leggings (some kind of massage thing, I guess). I'm not saying that feet get smelly around here in the heat and humidity, but the beautician is wearing a mask.

We talked Theo into a haircut, too after they promised to make him look like the guy from Green Day.

All gelled up.

We don't have a car or motorcycle, so we're extremely limited in our choices of things to do. We walked to the habu center, which is like a circus sideshow type of thing showcasing the famously venomous native snake.  They have live habus in cages, dead habus in jars with various things that they had in their stomachs (cats, rabbits) and pictures of what happens after people get bitten. Really nasty stuff, so I'll spare you the pictures. we passed on the mongoose vs. habu "fight" (the mongoose always wins). They also sell a variety of habu products, habu skin everything , and this habu liver liquor, good for whatever ails you.

Most of the time we sit around drinking giant cups of coffee and thinking about doing something, and then it starts raining.

One other exciting thing was these senior citizens came to prune the yard. Amami is a jungle, and it takes over everything if you turn your back for a moment. These guys hacked everything. If we had had these guys in Viet Nam, we wouldn't have needed Agent Orange.

After the massacre. They even cut ALL the leaves off the cycad. I guess they'll grow back, but now it just looks like a big mud pit.

We go shopping a lot. We have to buy things every day, since we can only buy what we can carry. And that way it doesn't seem as expensive, if you're only spending $50 a day instead of $350 a week. At least we can get good American food, like Blue Seal ice cream, which I'm sure you've all heard of. Just like the sign says, they have American flavors, like sweet potato, shiiquasa, green tea, and adzuki bean. Don't even get me started about beans in ice cream.

This is our 'hood, Yanowaki. These biker gangs race up and down the street, striking fear in the hearts of the inhabitants. I saw that one of these guys had totaled his bike the other day, so maybe we're safe for now.

Feral cats are everywhere, a huge  problem here as elsewhere. Theo likes to take pictures of the multitudes that hang out in the street, napping in the middle of streets or on cars, or in front of restaurants (see Theo's cats). This is a picture of one eating the celebrated endemic Amami rabbit.

The other exciting thing we do is visit Masami's mom at her retirement home. The first time I went, I thought we were going to have dinner with her, but it seemed that she wasn't really interested in us, so we ate alone while she ate with her friends. She enjoys life, singing with her friends, and thinks she's at work. When she comes to our (her) house to visit, she always wants to go home (back to work), and we have to chase her down the street.

She's like  a totally different person now. She used to be grumpy and nag all the time, but now that she's got dementia, she's happy all the time, singing for hours on end, dancing, laughing. This is a barbecue/dance they held at the home ("Happiness"). She didn't sit with us, but at least she danced with us. We're just not fun enough for her anymore.

We do go out to eat, too. I'm not a big fan of Japanese food, but I try everything, at least once. I had octopus for lunch the other day, and I'm still chewing on it. It's not as bad as it sounds, just really really chewy. Masami made us eat natto, rotten soybeans, the other day, and that is at least as bad as it sounds. Here I'm eating a whole fried fish. It's harder to eat when your food is looking at you. Theo has a good picture of our face off on his blog.

Even though school is out now, most of the kids are busy all day with clubs or something, so mostly he sits around all day and plays computer games. We did have a barbecue party the other night and invited 6 kids. Japanese charcoal is serious, as you can see by the log above. None of those wimpy briquettes. 

After the barbecue, we shot off fireworks at the park.

I had the bright idea to bike around the island, and thought I was the only one who had thought of it, since I have never seen any other long distance bikers on the island. Then I went to this bar and saw this poster on the wall, and I see that people do it (every year?). It's 240 kilometers, and I was going to do it in three days, but after seeing this poster, and that these people do it in one day, I may modify that. It's not the distance that's the killer, it's all the steep hills, as you may be able to see from the profile on the poster. Of course, these people probably  have good road bikes and actually train for this sort of thing. And they do it in December, not in July, when it's 90 degrees with 90 per cent humidity. I was going to do it on my (t)rusty old mountain bike, but I hit a rock or something in the jungle and smashed the back rim, turning the bike from marginal to downright dangerous, since the brakes (which never were good) don't really work any more. Going 40 mph down a steep narrow road without brakes is probably not a good idea.

But I just bought a new (used) mountain type bike, so I may be able to do it in the next week or so that we're here. I'll keep you posted.