Readings for November 17, 2008

We'll start with some interesting news on crime:
"Where can I get a bag?" there has been a recent spate of arrests involving marijuana use here in Japan, most notably being the two sumo wrestlers that were arrested. If I understand correctly, it is not illegal to cultivate marijuana in Japan if you are a Shinto priest. It's not that Shinto advocates the smoking of marijuana, but the use of the plant is necessary for certain ritual purposes. By far, the most abused drugs in Japan are alcohol and amphetamines. In fact, amphetamines were such a problem in the wake of the War in the Pacific that it is illegal to have over the counter cold medicines like Nyquil or Sudafed here because of their potential use in manufacturing meth.

The Elderly Life of Crime - Japan's population is becoming lopsided, with the fastest-growing section of the population being those over the age of 65. Meanwhile, fewer and fewer babies are being born. This means that the university system here is becoming bankrupt, and that health care and social security measures for the elderly are being eroded because the State is reducing the funding for these programs. In response, more and more of the elderly are becoming criminals. I am having hard time finding a better example of why poverty is such a major concern. Typically poverty looks like distended bellies in a remote part of the globe, but the reality is that poverty is pernicious and ubiquitous. And sometimes a rational response to poverty is crime. Being a prisoner here provides not only three hots and a cot, but it also provides a reliable schedule of tasks to be completed and a consistent relationship between those that are jailed and those that treat them within the criminal justice system. Many of these criminal elderly lack precisely these cornerstones to personhood as conceived here in Japan.

Google and the Battle for Nihongo - Google Trends, that fun-filled zeitgeist site is doing well here in Japan. I think it's really interesting to see the rise of English education in Japan and the concomitant rise in katakana-izing Japanese. For those that don't know, the Japanese have a special syllabary (they don't use an alphabet, but combinations of consonants and vowels) so that they can recreate the sounds of foreign languages. As an example my name is Paul but the Japanese don't have an "L" sound in their syllabary so to get as close as they can to my name it becomes Po-Ru. Once you know how to read katakana you would be amazed at how much you can get done here in Japan. That doesn't mean that you can write very much, though. For reading and speaking, katakana is very powerful; for writing and more "adult" reading you must really know hiragana and kanji. Hiragana are the native Japanese syllabary, taken from Chinese characters, and it is from these that katakana are developed. Kanji are the Japanese versions of Chinese characters (hanji). Kanji are awesome for communicating complicated ideas and are simply necessary to be considered as educated as a high school student. But, katakana are used to communicate foreign words (and so, ideas) and this exoticism is tres chic among the younger Japanese. So, even native things get katakana-ized but there is the potential erosion of the use of kanji which is a star in the constellation of cultural artifacts, like Shinto, or natto, that makes the Japanese "Japanese." This "Japanese"-ness is a constant talking point among the Japanese. As an American it's hard for me to relate because when I learn about America I learn about 250 years - the Japanese learn about a period that is nearly ten times as long.

Mail-a-Squid - It seems counter-intuitive that a society that stresses the collective as the Japanese do should simultaneously be so fanatical about the local. The best paradigm for understanding this phenomena (again, part of what makes Japan so "Japanese") is Thomas Kasulis' Intimacy or Integrity. In the above article we learn about the Wakayama Prefecture's fishing cooperative that is trying to promote interest in their region by selling New Year's (a family time like Thanksgiving and Christmas combined) greeting cards made out of dried squid. Dried squid is like the beef jerky of America - ubiquitous.

And Speaking of Processed Meats That Are Ubiquitous in Okinawa - Aww, Spam. The world economy is in a profound shift (which looks like apocalypse for Wall Street) and when the U.S. has to tighten its belt, it also buys a ton of canned meat. This canned meat tendency goes wherever poorer Americans go and Okinawa has become a major Spam-eating center.

Nago's Pineapple Park!

Back in May we had some guests visit from overseas. We took them to the best place we could think of: Nago's Pineapple Park. Classic.

You get there and can take an electric golf cart from the future which drives itself around a field of pineapples while you are guided by "Pineapple herself" telling you interesting things about pineapples.

Then you get bombarded with pineapple products. The wine ain't all bad, but this is something you want to share with a lot of people so that you only have to drink a little. The best was the pineapple white chocolate.

Making Glass at Onna Glass

We went to the Onna Glass Factory on 58 in Onna-son and I've got photos to show it!

Okinawa is known for its beach glass, Ryukyuan glass I think I've heard it called. In any touristy-shop worth its sea salt you should find at least 10 pieces of glass made here in the Okinawa. I'm not totally fluent in communicating the aesthetics of glass but I can tell you how I understand Ryukyuan glass, which is to say it seems to be generally rustic but the master glass makers here also create amazing sculptures and abstract compositions - way better than Chihuly's stuff that was all over Atlanta for so long.

A lot of the glass I see here is pretty playful, which was what I was hoping to be able to get when we went to the shop. Word to the wise, bring a friend that can communicate in Japanese because there are a number of things you can do at the shop. When you arrive you are greeted by what looks like the gift shop, but is actually the staging area for your experience. Throughout this room are glass works in different shapes and colors and dimensions. The size and color largely determine the cost of the glass making experience.

I chose blue because it's cheap and also because that's the color I think of most when I think Okinawa. I chose to make one that was pretty playful and really not much bigger than a standard "rocks" glass at a bar. It had several divets put into it that accomodated my fingers nicely - ergonomic, but not nerdy; relaxed. Shinpai shinai de, ii sa! Which is the most complicated thing I can say in Uchinaguchi (the indigenous Okinawan language), it means, basically, don't worry, everything will be okay. That's what this cup told me.

So, you walk in and you realize just how committed you have to be to the artform to do this in Okinawa: it's crazy hot in the factory! Crazy hot.


This was another one of many experiences I've had here in Okinawa where I am allowed to do really UNSAFE things with minimal concern. Like walking around these blast furnaces wearing shorts and flip flops.

But don't worry, you really can't hurt yourself because you will be surrounded by, like, a dozen people. Sometimes I felt like I was being corralled by the artisans, bringing a depth of meaning to the old phrase, "like a bull in a china shop."



After you've gone through the several steps for making your piece, they put the glass into a furnace that is less hot than where it can slowly cool over the next 12 hours or so. This way it doesn't shatter. You can pick it up from them the next day.

Kumejima!

We went to beautiful Kumejima last month to run the 10k portion of their annual marathon. I cannot recommend enough to those of you in the area this race. Hands-down this was the most generous race I've participated in: we were given really nice technical shirts (not the usual cotton tshirt), each of us got a bottle of Kumesen awamori, we got free cookies, and we were given a coupon for 400 yen to use in the food booths after the race was finished. Nice!

Kumejima is west of Okinawa honto, we took the Kumejima ferry from the port in Naha and the trip was about 3 hours. This is a great ferry ride because you pass several other isladns, like Tokashiki and so it feels nice and scenic.

The ferry leaves the port around 8:30 and arrives in Kumejima around noon. We checked into a nice place that had two seperate guest houses. Ours was closer to the Eefu イフ beach and had two seperate rooms and boathrooms. The rooms were just down the street from an internet cafe/video/moped rental place, Lucky Gate.
(ain't much in Kumejima)
Heads-up for lunch: the restaurants in the staging area all keep seperate lunch and dinner hours. That means you should really put your stuff down in the hotel and get to a restaurant before they close at 1pm. We found a nice place, just down from Lucky Gate (my only point of reference now) that was open after 1:30 and we had what chicken tastes like:

We went down to the beach but the coral had all died out (which is becoming increasingly true around the islands). That said, the water was like a bath and the nearby hilss made it quite scenic. I later noticed after my swim the sign that warns about warm water=more jellyfish. Not that I'm saying ignore these signs, but, I've only seen one jellyfish in the Okinawa area during my snorkelings around the island. I think the signs should be heeded, but not keep you from swimming.
On the way back from the beach I saw a couple of bits of grafitti from GUN, who seems to own the entire Ryukyuan Kingdom.

We tried to rent a moped so we could explore the island, but the number of tourists running the race the next day meant that there were no mopeds for us. So, we rented a car and drove around the island. I really dropped the ball and didn't take nearly enough pictures while we were there (which was really only 24 hours). Kumejima has a large number of traditional wooden houses in the Ryukyuan style and they're just gorgeous to take in. If you've been to Ryukyu Mura (the traditional Ryukyuan village theme park) and been inside these homes in the summer you know how awesome they are. Driving around I even saw an owl.

One of the coolest things I've seen in nature has to be the Kumejima Tatami Ishi. These are cross sections of volcanic basalt columns that look like neatly-arranged tatami or turtle carapaces:



There are much better pictures of these online, so I recommend googleing them.

I learned later that after the Japanese took control of the Ryukyu Kingdom during the 19th century they exiled many of the royals to Kumejima.

Being Homeless in Japan: Netcafes, video parlors

I've been writing a lot at my other blog, KudzuKongzi, lately and noticed that I've been writing a little about Japan as well as the other things I'm concerned with at that blog.

As I've written, Japan's homeless population is a little hard to see in part because they're not faced with only sleeping outside - some may also be net cafe refugees.

Another possibility is that those with minimal family ties in Japan and some amount of savings are taking their money to Southeast Asia where the cost of living is lower and their pensions would go further.

All of this is to say that Labor as practiced in Japan is different from what I'm used to in the U.S. (which is to say, in the U.S. organized labor is a lame duck movement now).

Today, the Japan Times offers a nice explanation about netcafes, 24 hour karaoke boxes, and video parlors.

On Japan-China Relations

I've intentionally avoided any writing about Japan-China, or the War in the Pacific (WWII), or security issues in the region because I wanted to find the right feel for this story and to read more and understand better the moment in history that I am entering.

I have a friend living in Sichuan, China as a Peace Corps volunteer and it's begun some interesting conversation. My studies include a lot about Classical Chinese philosophies as well as East Asia and politics in general. As I learn more about the history of this beautiful little island I understand better the forces at work in the world over the past 150 years. If you know the history of Okinawa, you know an-awful-lot about the trajectory of the history of the world in these 150 years.

Recently he and I were discussing the constant call from China (particularly) for the Japanese to apologize for the war crimes committed by the Japanese during the War in the Pacific. The Chinese (as well as Koreans and Taiwanese) feel the Japanese haven't apologized enough - even though there have been at least 45 official apologies from the Japanese. And this got me thinking about that dog of a documentary, Yakusuni.

Below is an excerpt from my email to my friend in China:

Of course, some might like an apology a la Australia's apology to the Aborigines; but what we want and what we need are two different things. There was a recent documentary that was released here called Yasukuni which was hyped as this controversial take on the Meiji Era shrine to the war dead. But it was pretty terrible and offered nothing illuminating on the subject. The central issue, clearly, being that Yasukuni was created in a spirit not so disimilar to the West's adoption of fireworks: after the West had cracked open the region, the Japanese decided they'd better start following the West's lead. They saw that the West had perfected the use of the God-King-State Complex with its various Official Organs. By reinstating the Emperor, they needed the pomp of rituals to whup the poor into a frenzy and literally created the myth of the Emperor-God and what we think of Shinto today. Fortunately for Shinto there are some good books in English being written. Hopefully this message will become clearer in our lifetime.

The war between China and Japan was a long time coming and at the beginning of the 20th century this war was seen as expedient for both countries because China clearly was being crippled by the West and hoped to rally its people once more by beating the Japanese. The Japanese, having watched for millennia, accurately assessed the weakness of China and, just like China, hoping to demonstrate to the West who was the top of the pops, waged a war to create the most favorable conditions for them in the face of the West's world domination plans. Immediately it was the conquering of Okinawa and Taiwan, but by taking Hokkaido, Korea, and Manchuria they hoped to keep Russia, France, Britain, and the U.S. at bay. Of course, the West would have none of that.

Conan the Praying Dog!!!

The week before the 沖縄全島エイサまつり (All-Island Eisa Festival) we drove down to Kannondo Temple to receive a blessing for our upcoming performance and to show proper filial piety to our ancestors.

Japan is not a religious place, in the sense that Westerners mean it, in fact, when Admiral Perry forced Japan to surrender its ports to Western ships he demanded that the Japanese also allow the traders to establish churches as they pleased and that freedom of religion by enacted. The Japanese had no idea what he meant, and so they had to create a word that meant religion in the sens that Westerners meant. To this day the Japanese do not believe themselves to be religious at all, but you will see nearly all Japanese people visiting Shinto shrines, praying in Buddhist temples, and even having Christian wedding ceremonies (albeit Christian in the most "Walt Disney Presents" manner, replete with Cinderella-Princess dress). That's because religion in the Western sense means a way of seeing the world that assumes that there is this world and then there is the more real, more perfect, Heavenly world where God(s) live.

In Japan, as most of East Asia, there is no other world in which you might find something divine. This world is perfectible according to the perfection of practices, i.e. meditation, chanting, etc. And so, when you visit Japan, you will see the red torii gates, the shimenawa (the hemp ropes tied around trees), the zig-zag paper called shide. You will see Buddhist temples and monks walking the streets in the morning silently asking for alms. And the history of Japan is a history of feuding Buddhist temples, of the Imperial Appropriation of Shinto for the justification of becoming a Colonial power (thanks to the Japanese being forced open they came to the West and realized they needed some of that opiate of the masses to get the common folk to die en masse for the Emperor just like the Pope in the Middle Ages).

But Okinawa is not Japanese in this way. Okinawa has a long tradition of women shamans that acted as mediums between a world of the dead and the forces of life and death. More prominently over the past several hundred years, the Ryukyu Kingdom ("Okinawa" before becoming a colony of Japan) looked almost completely to the great power in the region for the past millenia, China. From China the Ryukyuans learned statecraft, which meant they learned Confucianism. Confucianism holds as a central tenet the veneration of those that came before us, our ancestors; and this resonated with the (now) Okinawans. So into Confucianism were the Ryukyuans that the Chinese gave as a symbol of affection a plaque to hang above Shuruijo (the castle where the Ryukyuan Emperor lived) that says this is the land of perfected propriety, which is a high honor in the Confucian worldview.

And so the Okinawans never really built many Shinto shrines or Buddhist temples. When the Japanese formally colonized Okinawa in the 19th century they brought with them a real need for a Buddhist temple, but the only place that colonizing Japanese would want to live in this (to their minds at that time) backward place was the capital, Naha. And so today we have Kannondo* Temple where Conan the Praying Dog lives.
*Kannon is the Japanese name for the Chinese Guan Yin, or the Sanskrit Avalokitesvara, do just means (the/a/on) "path of-"

Kannondo is a Zen sect (apparently, according to the world news reports) and I am not surprised by this praying dog business because there is a classic Zen parable where a monk asked Master Joshu (as he is known in Japan):

"If there is no world beyond this one (no heavenly, or Nirvana state - Nirvana being a Hindu belief), then everything must be of the same nature as the Buddha. Do dogs have Buddha-nature?"
To which Joshu answered, "Mu," which is a negation but also not a negation.

This is a very famous koan that Zen students must consider as they develop their understanding of the Zen path. So, of course, Kannondo next to Shuri Castle will have a dog that prays, why not?

The monk who watches out for Conan (who is named, apparently, after Sir Conan Arthur Doyle, not the Barbarian, or Mr. O'Brian), was super nice to us and in exchange for translating a letter he received in English from someone in India, he gave us some nice postcards which I will be sending out soon.

Here's the graphic evidence, you're moment of Zen, if you will:

We even made it onto Conan's personal webpage:
http://gasshouken.ti-da.net/

ぜんざい Zenzai!!!!

Zenzai is not an esoteric branch of Buddhism, it does not require you to contemplate a koan.

It simply requires that you enjoy the coolness that this Okinawan desert offers to beat the heat. But, I'm going describe something that you're going to think is repulsive. After moving here I realized that I know next to nothing about Japanese cuisine (even less about the rest of East Asian food) and maybe I understand why now: were you to write an article about it, no one in America would eat it.

Hell, look at sushi. I work with gaijin that, although they live here, refuse to eat sushi, because it's raw. I can't believe it.

Anyhow, this summer I've picked up another research project: finding the most delicious zenzai on the island. I'll let you know who the winner is later in the year.

So what is zenzai? Take a look:

Okinawan zenzai is made from shaved ice, little balls of mochi (which is a really sweet rice ball-type-cake), sometimes condensed milk (so sweet and yummy), and kidney beans that have been stewed in a sweet syrup.

I hadja until then, huh?
"Sweet kidney beans? Don't we make spicy chili in a tomato sauce out of kidney beans?"
Yeah, but you'll just have to trust me that zenzai is awesome. Below is my favorite zenzai recipe so far, from Blue Dog Cafe in Takahara, it features a coffee/cocoa base. Yummadumdum!

Cultural Differences

When my wife and I came for the interview here last year we saw a funny picture:

Yeah, a bumper sticker of a pot leaf that says, "DRUGS" oh those wacky teenaged Japanese!

But then when we moved here I saw it everywhere:



and then even in one of the conference rooms here at the Institute!

I started asking around and learned that the Japanese like this shape, they associate it with American "Cool Stuff." But they don't know what it means. Kinda like those Americans that get "Kanji" tattoos, where they think it says something like "Vicious" or "Fast" but it really says "Sushi."

The Amazing (& Delicious) Dragon Fruit

I moved here and was convinced by the phrase "sub-tropical environment" that I would be eating mangoes and papayas and all manner of delicious fruit all the time. But that's just not the case.

The soil of Okinawa just isn't that rich and the fresh water supply is not that consistent, apparently. So, the farmers have taken a very conservative approach to cultivating new crops: stick with what we know works-kind of thinking.

So, while mangoes do in fact grow here, they are quite expensive (like $60!) because they can be sold to the mainlanders on export very profitably.

What does grow here that is delicious and this summer is cheap and everywhere is the dragonfruit:

You split them down the middle to reveal something that looks like a beat and a potato with lots of seeds and super juicy:

cut this in half (so you've quartered the dragonfruit) and you should find that you can basically peel the fruit out of it's skin:

then dig in! Be aware that these things will stain so maybe use a utensil:


I'd been seeing what I thought were just enormous cacti in everyone's gardens this spring but now I know that they are the source of this delicious fruit:

all's I can say is おいしいそう! (oishii so, it looks delicious!)

Really Loud, Large Bugs

We have them in the South, too. But it seems like the (what I always thought were called cicadas) weren't this loud. Maybe it's 'cause we're all jammed in together and so the noise seems much closer.

Here there are two kinds of these bugs and they're locally known as semi and kuma(bear) semi.

Here are some Crocodilehunter-style videos of the wild life here in Okinawa:


and why not a video of this lizard, too?

Japanese Surfers

There's a scene in Lost in Translation where the character played by Bill Murray is at a party in Tokyo and he's just been told that his host likes to surf, "You surf?" That's how I felt too. I mean, surfing is, of course, really only done in a few places: Hawai`i, Australia, maybe Costa Rica, and then maybe Florida; I don't know. My understanding is that surfing only exists in these few places.

Then I moved to Okinawa and noticed that the locals really like surfing-related stuff. I figured it was due to being in a sub-tropical environment. But then, while in Kyoto, I was told that the owner of our guest house met many Japanese surfers in Bali and these surfers had begun their careers in Okinawa.

But whenever I went to the places where I thought I was told there was surfing I saw only placid ocean.

Then a tropical storm was in the region and the surf was up:

Okinawan Microcosmos

I loved the film Microcosmos and so inspired I took my handy　携帯電話 (cell phone, FOMA P905i) which includes a video camera and I went to some beaches. Here's one of a snail:


And here are some following crabs:

What To Do in the Event of an Earthquake

I live in Japan and that means earthquakes will happen. Although historically Okinawa has not sustained the same magnitude of earthquakes (and their subsequent destruction) as in the mainland, we are far from immune to them.

For example, yesterday we had a pretty significant earthquake here. The seismic effects of the quake (whose epicenter was north and west of the main island, Okinawa Honto) was measured at JMA 3. JMA stands for Japan Meteorological Agency. At JMA 3 the following are likely to be observed:
"Rather strong. Slight shaking of houses and buildings, rattling of doors and Japanese sliding doors (shoji). The water surface of a vessel can be seen to ripple. Felt to be slightly surprising, and sleeping persons wake up, but they do not run outside or feel afraid. Many people outside feel it, but some pedestrians may not." (This is from an explanation of the scale here)

We were in our 日本語 (Japanese language) class when the quake began and it lasted for about thirty seconds. It was bizarre feeling the earth move around like that, like being drunk and then laying down.

I'm including a link to a .pdf that gives pretty great information about what to do if an earthquake strikes:

If outdoors

• Avoid stone walls and vending machines
• Get away from buildings and go to the nearest open space

If at the office

• Protect your head with a cushion and get under a desk
• Get away from book cases, and tall furniture; the best places are uncluttered hallways and lobby areas
• Watch for objects underfoot (such as broken glass or sharp metal)
• Don't use an elevator, use the stairs; if you're in an elevator, use the emergency phone

At the Supermarket

• Cover your head and get away from aisle displays that might fall on you
• Get under a sturdy desk or near a support column
• Do not rush to the exit: follow instructions issued by the store personnel

When Driving

• Pull over to the left (or whatever side you drive on)
• Do not leave the car until the tremors subside
• Close your windows, turn off the car, and leave the keys in the ignition with the doors unlocked
• Do not try to evacuate by car

The big worry with an earthquake is being crushed by walls or vending machines or other large pieces of furniture or building frontages.
The next biggest concern is that gas lines will be ruptured and cause serious fires; so, turn off the gas as soon as you can.

[UPDATED 12:18pm]
Here's an article from Scientific American the same magazine my wife was published in last year.

Cell Phones in Japan

There can be no doubt that the cell phones in Japan are better than any other in the world. And that's common knowledge now. The big news for Americans, I think, is that Apple has finally signed a deal with Softbank to sell the iPhone here in Japan.

This will be pretty interesting to watch over the next 12 months because the last 12 months has had a lot of debate about the success of an iPhone here. No one would argue that Apple won't make a nice buck here, but there is a question as to the "wow" factor of an iPhone in Japan. The only advantage that an iPhone would have here over other cell phones would appear to be that handy little touch screen interface.

In response, DoCoMo, the leading cell phone service in Japan has released lots of PR about its new phones and new services to meet the expectations of the market. One such response can be found here.

The video's a little long but I think it's worth watching as it shows you some of the plans they have for how cell phones will interact with people in the not-too-distant future of Japan. It starts on a small island that looks an awful lot like Okinawa (there's a guy wearing a kariyushi shirt later at the airport later), and that's neat.

But what I'd like to point out is the granpa. Or what an ideal grampa in an ideal future would look like in Japan. He would of course be physically fit and take his grandson to a waterfall. But he would also have two, count 'em: two, girlfriends. One, of course, will be a caucasian blond woman. Now, these won't necessarily be romantic relationships. Part of what is lost on Westerners with the allure of the geisha is that older Japanese men don't want sexual partners in geisha, they want companionship and eye candy for other older Japanese men to envy.

But that's for a later discussion.

Also, a discussion of the role of Okinawa in WWII is going to be necessary in the future. But it's gonna be kind of an emotional bit of writing - because it's a pretty intense story.

Ryukyu Mura

My co-workers and I went to Ryukyu Mura, which is like a traditional Okinawan Village Themepark. Before being called Okinawa by the Japanese, these islands were called Ryukyu. They were an independent, but poor, kingdom which had its golden age a couple hundred years ago when it was trading freely with China, Korea, Japan, and most of South East Asia. The Japanese conquered Okinawa in the late 19th century and has been slowly eliminating the indigenous culture since then. This village presents a Disney-fied version of what is "Traditional Ryukyuan" living. That said, I highly recommend visiting here, because it's a beautiful park and it's a lot of fun. Especially when they start doing the traditional dances, etc.

The Okinawans don't think of themselves as Japanese, they have a very unique culture that is a blend of indigenous ways of being and heavy influences from both Japan and China. Champuru, mixed, culture. Here you can see the influence of Chinese dragon dances, brought to Okinawa you get something a little different:

When the Japanese conquered the Ryukyus, they forcibly disarmed the population. Prior to this, there had been Okinawan samurai-warrior-types. From this the Okinawans developed the martial art system, Karate, which means "empty hand." In order to teach this deadly art, the Okinawans had to find ways to make it seem like they weren't doing anything particularly lethal, like dancing. If you watch in these videos carefully you will see that these dances are also very much like the movements that you learn in karate:



Here is a bit of the Eisa dance, which is pretty rousing:



No party is done in Okinawa until everyone dances as a group. This is when the really giant gaijin (not-Japanese), me, was picked out of the crowd and had to dance with everyone:

Shisa Dogs

The picture in the masthead I took when I first visited Okinawa in 2007 and I didn't really know much other than these lion/dogs were a traditional Okinawan decoration/amulet. They are everywhere:

at intersections

at bridges (this is leaving Ikei Island)

Entrances (this is from Ocean Expo Park)

this one is at the entrance to the Peace Park's Peace Museum.

The story of the shisa is a really interesting one and I suggest you read more at this wikipedia entry.

Southeast Botanical Gardens

The Southeast Botanical Gardens in Chibana are great. Really great. It's very cheap (about 1,000 yen, but they give you 500 yen in credit at the gift shop), and it has some really neat things to see:

like this cactus-y tree (?)

Okinawa has gorgeous flowers and lots of orchids (which you note immediately after you leave the airplane in Naha).
Here's something called a Jade Plant


There are so many gorgeous things to see at this place that I kinda gave up and just started taking pictures of things that were of interest to me like these guys:

On the left is the bottle palm, I don't know what that is on the right. In both is some kind of tropical mistletoe.


These two above were in the Enchanted Forest section.

This has to be one of my favorite signs (next to the sign at Naha Airport that states puddings are not allowed):

But the real highlight has to be the carp. They're disgusting.

So I took several videos:

You can feed them, there's a vending machine (of course) full of fish food and it's gotta be the best 100 yen you can spend.
Here's me gettin' more riled up:

and here is their bizarre crescendo:


The website for the Southeast Botanical Gardens:
http://www.sebg.co.jp/e/