Happy Birthday To Me!

Yes, October 30th was my 23rd birthday! Happy Birthday to me!

I went on a 5-day trip to the Yaeyama Islands, in the extreme southwest corner of Japan... even further southwest than Okinawa. Look for Taiwan on the map and then move your finger a little bit to the right and up just a touch...
Here's the rundown.

Wednesday October 27 (regular day off)

Got up early, and caught the monorail to the airport. My flight was at about half past eight, and I arrived on Ishigaki Island (24 degrees N) approximately one hour later. I slept for half the flight.
Looking on a map I picked up at Ishigaki Airport, it didn't seem all that far to the centre of town, where the port was. So I gave the waiting buses and taxis a miss and headed off with my big pack on my back.
ONE HOUR LATER... I arrived at the port. I should've paid the 200 yen for the bus. I wanted to find a place to camp first, so I looked again at my map and saw a camp-site on the northern side of the island. With my limited reading ability in Japanese, I couldn't work out the pronunciation of the kanji. Mehara? Beihara? Turns out on pointing it out to a taxi driver (I couldn't find the right buses) the pronunciation is Yonehara... I was kinda close?
It was quite expensive to get to the campsite (about half an hour's drive), but I paid the taxi driver and unpacked my gear. I found a nice clear spot between some trees, free of ant nests or trails, and set up the tent I'd borrowed from Len.
By this stage it was just after noon. With the tent set up, I unrolled my brand new sleeping bag (bought the night before), blew up my air-pillow (also bought the night before) and immediately fell asleep. I woke up at six pm, and found the other campers building up their camp fire. With the wind coming in straight off the sea, it was rather cold. They invited me to join them for dinner, which was rice and (fresh-caught) fish stew, cooked over the fire. A couple of the Japanese guys had some chain-and-cloth fire-dancing things which they soaked in gasoline, dipped in the fire, and then swung around themselves like flaming nunchakus. The one other non-Japanese camper (a Frenchman) accompanied them on West African drum and didgeridu (though not at the same time). I got most of it on video. We chatted for several hours in broken Japanese and broken English. The guy I spent most of the time talking to had been at the campsite for two months, working on the island as a tree-chopper. When he arrived he had only a hammock, and since then he had bought a tent and sleeping bag.
At about ten pm I called it a night. And having called it a night, I went to sleep.


Thursday October 28 (regular day off)

I woke up around 9am and joined a couple of the guys around their fire, which was now mostly ash, where they had a pot of soup slowly simmering. We chatted some more in broken Japanese and English on various topics. One of those topics was Vegemite, which they brought up. One of them mentioned it, and the others wanted to know what it looked like, what it tasted like, and what it was made of. We established that it was made from yeast (took some explaining and an electronic dictionary to sort this out), looked like chocolate (one guy knew someone who'd gone to Australia and made this tragic mixup... put too much on his sandwich), and was salty. I tried to say it tasted a little like soy sauce, but was saltier... and you ate it on toast or bread, or as part of a sandwich with tomato, lettuce, cheese, etc. They found it very interesting, and one guy said he'd try it one day (he plans to go to Australia in the near future).
As we sat we ate some jerky-type meat, which they said was smoked emu. Apparently there's an emu farm, or ostrich farm (another guy told me that night that the soup was with ostrich meat), nearby and they got cheap meat. Whatever bird it was, it tasted good.
I had brought with me one of those little souvenir koalas with the clasping arms, and took photos of it at the beach, holding on to tree branches. Ah, the things I do to amuse myself. I then showed the picture on my digital camera to the Japanese guys, and one of them wasn't sure of the scale in the picture, and thought perhaps it was a real koala. I then showed them the toy, which they thought was funny. This started my mini-holiday-tradition of taking a picture of the koala on each of the islands I visited.
At 12 noon I decided to go off for a hike... yeah, great idea, Glenn. I hiked along the road for about 2 hours or so, stopping halfway at a bread shop for a very nice large bread roll. Along the way I saw a set of stairs by the side of the road, near a bridge, and found a little waterfall tucked away in the pseudo-jungle. Along with the koala, I had brought along with me a stuffed-toy Melissa had given me - a white seal pup dressed in a removable velcroed suit that made him look like a blue killer whale. I took a picture of the seal at the waterfall. And another picture of the little koala, this time with the waterfall in the background. Back on the road, I ended up in a little village called Yoshihara, where I decided to stop at the bus stop. I'd seen a few buses pass me on my way there, so I figured there must be some going the other direction, even if the sign said the next bus was at 4pm. Sure enough at about 2.30pm or 3pm there was a bus, and I caught it back to the campsite.
I went into my tent and snoozed for another couple hours. I woke up just before dinner and helped break up some wood for the fire. This time the guys had cooked spaghetti, and once again they invited me to join them. Free food is something you should never turn down... unless the person offering it is wearing all black, has a pointed goatee, an evil grin, and a top hat, but that's another story.
We spent the evening (a full moon) sitting around the fire and talking and just basically having a relaxing evening. At about 10 or 11 I went to bed.


Friday October 29 (Dermott worked for me)

I woke up at 6.30am, packed up the tent, packed my bags, and walked out onto the main road at 7am. Checking the bus stop, the next bus heading my way was at 8.33... and I didn't really feel like waiting an hour and a half. So I hiked for a bit over an hour west, and stopped at the Yoshihara bus stop again to wait for about fifteen minutes. The bus came along and half an hour of scenic driving later, I was back in Ishigaki City.
I went to the tour company whose brochure I'd grabbed at the airport, and reserved their day-tour of Iriomote for the following day. The lady asked me a question in Japanese which I didn't get, so she called over someone else to help me. Before I could say what good English she had, I looked up and realised she was a foreigner... American-ish accent, but probably Canadian. She explained the course for me, and gave me an English printout.
I left there and went for a walk to find a cheap hotel. Most harbourside hotels started at around 5000 yen a night, but there were two cheaper options. One pension (Japanese "penshon", from the Spanish for small hotel) was 3,980 yen a night per person for two people... or 4,500 a night for one. It was only three minutes on foot from the port. The other option was a dorm-style guesthouse at 1,800 a night, but there was no-one home. A phone number was provided on the door for such an eventuality, but my battery had completely died the night before. Check-in for the pension wasn't till 3pm, so I decided to go to another island.
I went back to Hirata Tours and booked a cycling tour of Taketomi Island... it included the return ferry fare (the return time was left open), and the bike rental.
Taketomi is ten minutes away from Ishigaki, and at the port I was met by a minibus which drove the three minutes into the village to the bicycle rental store. There was a basket on the front, so I put my water bottle in there along with the map they gave me of the island. Taketomi is about 5-6 square kilometres, so it's easy to cycle everywhere.
Being in a coral sea, Taketomi has a couple beaches with the famous "star sand"... according to Dad and the brochures, it's actually the exoskeletal remains of tiny creatures called foriminifera (spelling?) that are like little parasites living off coral... or something. Anyway, they look like sand, but are in the shape of a 5-pointed star. You really have to sift through the sand to find them, though. You can buy little jars of it in Naha for around 300 yen, but my girlfriend Melissa wanted some that I had got myself from the beach. I got three grains from Taketomi...
I continued cycling around the island, to Kondoi Beach. It being low tide, I was able to wade out to the rather large sandbar just offshore. I put my backpack down on the sand, and started to wade further out into the lagoon-like sea. Looking back, a group of crows had landed near my bag, and were rather vigourously investigating the beach-towel draped over it. I ran back and scared them away, and from then on kept the bag with me.
At the westernmost point on the island there is a concrete jetty which gives you views to Kondoi Beach to the south, and then out west to Kohama Island, and north to part of Ishigaki Island. I took a series of pictures to capture the 180-degree view.
In the centre of the island there is a raised viewing platform which apparently gives you great views. The concrete stairs were extremely narrow and high, very very steep indeed, and I wasn't game to go up it. I got good enough pictures from the base of the platform. Taketomi's narrow streets (with the exception of the few main roads) are all covered in white sand, and all the houses have the traditional wooden walls and orange-tiled roofs, and their yards are enclosed with low walls made of sea-rocks. Very picturesque, and old-Okinawa style. Like what a lot of the main island of Okinawa probably looked like before the Yanks bombed the hell out of it...
I got back to Ishigaki City and checked into the pension, using my very little Japanese and the staff's very little English to get everything sorted out. I plugged my phone in to charge and took a hot shower... ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
For dinner I had Yaeyama soba at a small restaurant above the bus terminal, just across the street from my pension. Mainland soba is a long thin noodle made from buckwheat, but Okinawa soba and Yaeyama soba are made from wheat, so they are a yellowish-whitish colour rather than brown. Whereas Okinawa soba is flat and wide, Yaeyama soba is round like fat spaghetti. It's really nice, especially with mango juice.
The pension locked their front door at 9pm, so I went back there just before 9 and went to my room. I read a bit, and listened to some Third Day before going to bed.


Saturday October 30 (Tara worked for me)

MY BIRTHDAY!!!! 23 TODAY! 23 TODAY!

Woke up early, and headed down to the port. My ferry left at 8.40, and headed for Iriomote. I'm not sure, but I think I slept part of the way there, it being a 40-minute ferry ride.
The different tour companies use the same lettering system for their package tours, so that whether I bought my ticket through this company or that, the same one-day "Iriomote Adventure Tour" was "M Course". The buses were lined up waiting for us at Ohara port, each one with a different letter of the alphabet in the top of the front window. I headed for the "M" bus, and got a seat inside.
The next stop was on the other side of the island, so we got a guided tour of the coast road from our friendly bus driver. I wish my Japanese was better, cause I would have got more of his lame tour-guide jokes. As it was I only got one. The others at the back of the bus found it more amusing.
I should pause here and fill some of the readers in on the island of Iriomote. It is 90% virgin rainforest, and is home to several protected endangered species. There is a serpent-eagle and a kind of turtle, but the most famous of their rare animals is the Iriomote Yamaneko (literally "mountain-cat"), or Iriomote Lynx, or Iriomote Wildcat. I read somewhere they estimate a population of about 200 cats, only on this one island in Japan. Iriomote is also home to all three of Japan's mangrove species, and we saw a lot of mangroves in the coastal areas! In the centre of the island are a couple mountains, about 4-500 metres high.
The bus tour ended up at the Urauchi River, on the northwest side of Iriomote. The bus driver pointed out the nearby restaurant, which was included in the tour, and told us he'd be back at 1.40pm. Here we got into a river boat and headed upriver, past more mangroves, until we reached some rapids. This was where we got out and walked. The boat pilot told us to be back by 12.40. Half an hour's hike further along the river, you come to Maryudo Falls, and about five or so minutes further up, Kanpire Falls. Both had fantastic scenery, with mountains overshadowing us, jungle all around, and the rushing river. Worth every second, and every yen, but boy you work up a sweat walking through jungle in the middle of the day. Once again I took photos with the seal and koala!
After a relaxing return trip on the river, we went into the restaurant. Everyone's place was already set out, with boxes of bento (pre-packed lunch) on the tables. Unlike the plastic compartments you get in convenience stores, these bentos were in wooden trays, with a solid wooden lid. Inside was a bit of goya chanpuru (stir-fried bitter melon with egg and tofu), some pork, beni-imo (purple - and I mean very purple - sweet potato) tempura, fish tempura, and a few other things, and rice. To wash it all down there was ice-cold goya tea, which may not be the greatest taste on its own, but it goes very well with the food. They also gave us a sample of their locally produced awamori (Okinawan alcohol, made from rice or sugarcane), which also goes down very nicely when mixed with goya tea. After lunch I visited the souvenir shop and took the chance to buy a few Christmas pressies for rellies back home.
Our next stop on the bus ride was Hoshinozuna Beach, on the northwestern edge of Iriomote. Hoshi-no-zuna means "star-sand", and this particular beach is famous for being highly concentrated with the stuff. I bought a couple little empty bottles (100 yen each) from the old lady running the beach-side stall, and headed down to the sand. Rather than sifting through it, you can just scoop it up into the jar and have about 75-80% star-sand and the rest plain old boring normal sand. I figured Melissa would be happier with this jar than with my three grains from Taketomi.
One of the souvenirs I had bought was a little stuffed-toy Yamaneko for myself, and I took a picture of it posed in a beachside plant. I may not have seen a real one, but I have a picture of a fake one in the wild...
The next stop was a little village called Mihara on the eastern side of the island. On the way there the bus slowed down and we saw one of the Iriomote eagles sitting on a power line. Mihara is just across from a little island called Yubu-jima, which is just about joined to Iriomote at extreme low tide. Here we got taken across the shallow strait in carts drawn by water buffalo, while the cart-drivers played us traditional songs accompanying themselves on sanshin. A very unique experience, I must say.
Yubu-jima was just about wiped out some years back in a really big typhoon, and most of the residents moved to Iriomote. After the typhoon someone built a large tropical botanical garden which takes up most of the little island, and this is its main feature now. That and a souvenir shop featuring water-buffalo motif objects. We had about 45 minutes to wander freely through the gardens, filled with tropical plants from around the world. There are also a few cages with animals. One monkey, playing in its tree. Some ducks and chickens, and a few peacocks. A couple ponies. A family of Okinawan wild boar. A couple goats. And in another cage, I saw an ostrich. Strange thing to see in Japan, yeah? Well, in the same enclosure, just behind the ostrich, I saw a single emu!
* Side note - I took my camera to work today (1 November) and showed the photo of the emu to Arina, who is from Tasmania. I said "Look what I saw on Yubu-jima!" He looked at it, and then said "We have those back home, you know..." :)
From Yubu-jima we took the buffalo-carts back to the main island where the bus driver was once again waiting for us. We climbed back in and he took us back to the port, the final destination for the tour. The ferry headed back to Ishigaki, and after dinner I went back to the pension. I spoke on the phone to my parents for about 40 minutes, then called Melissa (who was in Tokyo sightseeing with her brother who's flown out here on holiday). During both phone calls, my phone kept cutting out. In my hotel room, my reception kept fluctuating. I found a spot in the room where I had three bars, but mid-sentence suddenly we'd be cut off and I'd have one bar, and try to redial. Strange...
Having received various birthday congratulations and miscellaneous conversational addendum (he he aren't big words fun!), I then unpacked my bags and repacked them so that everything fit neatly together. When my parents were here in September they brought me a large backpack, with a detachable daypack. Very handy for travelling. The carrying straps on the large compartment tuck away and can be zipped up so it becomes like a regular carry bag, and the straps on the small pack (I say small, but it's like the usual daily-use backpack) also tuck away for when it gets attached to the larger section. With everything packed ready for the next day, I went to sleep.


October 31 (paid holiday)

Woke up early, and enjoyed the free breakfast put on by the pension. It consisted of a couple pieces of bacon, an omelette, and a salad of shredded cabbage, carrot and cucumber. Then I checked out of the hotel, and wandered down to the port. Should I take a ferry across to Kohama island, which looked nice in the brochure, or go back to Taketomi? I opted for Taketomi, as I wanted some more photos there. I hadn't yet taken pictures with the koala or seal, and wanted some pictures of the feral cats on the beach. Why the cats? Well, so I can tell students that even if I didn't see any "yamaneko", I did see some beach-cats, or "hamaneko"! He he!
So I went over to Taketomi (only 580 yen each way by ferry) and put my large backpack into one of the storage lockers (500 yen). WARNING - do not ever leave a camera with a knotted strap on top of a locker while putting a bag into the locker. When you shut the door, the probability of the strap hanging down, and the knot getting caught on the other side of the door, is HIGHLY LIKELY. After trying hard to pull on the strap and squeeze it out, I had to use my key, open the locker, and then lock it again, costing me another 500 yen.
Having spent that extra money on the locker, I decided not to hire a bike and instead just hike around the island. At a slow pace, it takes about half an hour from the port on the northern side to go to the star-sand beach on the southern side. I got pictures of the koala, and the seal, and yes, quite a few of the beach-cats. And I got a good picture of one of the traditional Taketomi houses... complete with satellite dish on the tiled rooftop. :)
As I headed down towards the western jetty, I could hear the familiar sound of someone playing a sanshin. I didn't remember there being speakers on the island, like there were on Yubu-jima... and sure enough when I got onto the beach there was a girl sitting on the rocks practising her sanshin. She was down on holiday from Tokyo, and said she had been playing sanshin for 3 days... I suspect she already plays shamisen, the mainland variation, cause she was pretty good. We talked for a bit more and then she played another song. When I told her I was down here on my birthday holiday, she even played me the melody of "Happy Birthday" on the sanshin... very cool, and I got it on video.
It started to get cloudy, and a few drops started to fall, so I made my way back to the ferry terminal. By the time I got there I was quite wet, having to walk all the way with no shelter, and only my small towel wrapped over my head. I took my glasses off, cause when it's raining they're like a windscreen with no wipers... useless.
In Ishigaki City I went to a restaurant and had Yaeyama soba again. It was excellent. Then I went next door to a souvenir shop and bought a couple boxes of mango chocolate... one for the Nova staffroom, one for the Japanese Nova staff, and one for Melissa.
Then I went to the bus terminal, just round the corner, and bought a ticket for the airport. I arrived at the airport just before 3pm... and my flight was at 5.15. Oh well, I had a book to read, and a portable CD player. So I listened to Third Day and Tree 63 and Skillet. My flight was delayed arriving, so I eventually left just after 5.30, and got into Naha about 45 minutes later.
I usually sleep when I travel, whether it's on a ferry, or a plane, or even a bus into the city for uni, or in the car on the way across Brisbane to my grandparents' house... but this flight was different. They gave us apple juice, so I stayed awake for that. But then I just couldn't get to sleep. I lay against the window and closed my eyes, but just couldn't sleep! I opened my eyes, and saw an island out the window in the fading sunlight. By its outline and size I figured it (correctly, I later found by checking a map) to be Miyako, about halfway between Ishigaki and Okinawa. The next thing I knew there was a shuddering - were we descending? No, we were taxiing along the runway in Naha and it was dark outside - I had fallen asleep after all, even if only for about 10 minutes!


And...

That was my trip!