Afternoon on the Waterfront

Sunday, May 10, 2008--Naha, Okinawa

It feels like more than a week since I departed Texas. I have done so much. Plus, it seems that there is so much more time available when there is no way to have English interaction.

I decided to make my outing today to the parks and the beach. They are in the opposite direction of where I have explored so far here. It was quiet when I went out about noon walking eastward. I planned my route to take me by one of the larger parks in town and then to bring me back by another.

The first park was full of people. There were two youth teams starting a baseball game. It was interesting to watch the procedure. Each team stood in a line along their sideline. Then at a signal, they rushed to form single lines in front of each other from the batter`s box to the pitcher`s mound. They bowed together--each team toward the opposite. Something was said (the rules of good behavior?), then they bowed to each other again and broke formation and ran to their positions to start the game. Some of the boys on the sidelines saw me and said, "Herro!" in their best Japanese-English where the pronunciation of the letter "l" is almost impossible.

When I reached the waterfront, I walked along it toward the in-town beach. I passed an interesting park area that has obviously been claimed as a home by some homeless men including one who has an urge to be a folk artist. He had made various constructions around the area out of articles he had pulled from trash. It was interesting much in the way the Orange House in Houston is.

There were only a few people at the beach. It is small, but has the most beautiful water--a Caribbean-type blue-green. Most of the ones in the water were young boys. Some young men were sunbathing on the edge. A couple of families were there, including one tourist family who arrived with their boy still in diapers. I remained and watched for about an hour.

Another large park proved not to be as interesting as the first. So I continued to town where the main street was blocked off for 6 hours in the afternoon. It was alive with people enjoying a festival-type atmosphere. Children were doing chalk painting on the pavement. Jugglers and unibike riders were performing. A group of students here as tourists had brought horse-dragon-type uniforms and were entertaining everyone.

I went for a late luncheon-early dinner at a restaurant my guidebook had recommended. I had the "hot-hot" which was a hot curry filled with several small pieces of pork and two portions of poached egg whites. It came with a tiny (half-dollar sized) salad, a plate of yellow rice, and another half-dollar sized dessert of sweet yogurt.

In the evening, I returned to my room to read. I am going through my books too fast. The reason is that there is nothing in English to pass my time--no TV, no newspapers, no people along the way, etc. I finished reading The Gardens of Kyoto by Kate Walbert and gave it 3 stars out of 4. Afterwards, I watched TV a little just to see what is on Japanese TV.