Well, it's certainly tropical. Words cannot describe how hard it rained yesterday.
However, the rain didn't stop me from heading out on a long bus journey (even longer when you get utterly lost in a Japanese-only bus network) to the Peace Memorial Park down in southern Okinawa. Despite having to walk around it in the rain (the museum was good for a nice dry hour, though), it was really quite sobering, as well as being quite unusual for a war cemetery, listing Okinawan civilians and foreign troops killed in the fighting right alongside the Japanese soldiers. This caused some controversy, but I can't see why it should be any other way.
Anyway, I'll let a couple of photos speak for themselves.
The above is the 'flame of peace', which wasn't lit because it was raining. Oh well.
This is the first real good view I got of the Okinawan coastline (despite it being an island...), which is the view from the end of the Peace Park.
Last night I found this wierd restaurant, in which I had a wonderful seafood pasta dish (right out of the sea about an hour ago, I suspect). I met a couple of American guys at the Peace Park, who were being contracted by the Navy and flying to an aircraft carrier today, so we all went in together. It's absurd and kinda tacky, but that's half of the fun, and the food was suprisingly good. Check it out.
Afterwards I found a neat little back-street Izakaya (Japanese pub, basically) with live Okinawan music and beer from the classic Okinawan brewery (Orion beer is an Okinawan institution).
The weather today has been really nice so I think the rain has moved out now. I went and booked my ferry to Ishigaki today (leaves on Wednesday), which turns out to be a 14 hour overnight journey, from where I can get a short ferry out to Iriomote-jima. For some inexplicable reason ferries only seem to run to Ishigaki every couple of days, and only run back to Naha once a week, but it's all worked out fairly well anyway, giving me about a week down there, which should be just about right.
I also found a microbrewery serving great food here so I grabbed some lunch and tried one of their brews (they're called Helios and you will NEVER drink it anywhere else), and ended up scoring one of the spectacular tall glasses they use. Lord knows how I'll send it back to the UK, but I'm going to try, since it beats most of the tacky souvenirs you can buy around here (like these stupid supposedly-comical cartoon Shisas. I want a real Shisa instead, but there are none small enough to take home).
Anyway, my time at this manga cafe (a cafe of sorts where you get a comfy chair, free soft drinks, access to a PC with a huge screen and a massive library of manga comics to flick through, all for about 400 Yen an hour) is running out so I should move on. I'll try to upload some more photos when I get back from Iriomote, if not before.
Sayonnara,
James
EDIT: But not before I got a mention on Planet Rock, which is officially available 'All over the planet' thanks to the wonders of internet streaming radio. Thanks, Rob Birnie.
