I go into work a little late but it doesn't matter, none of the other teachers seem to be in. I can't remember if I said but it is the summer holidays so there is little work to do, the teachers who do come in to work only do so to run sports clubs. I meet Natsu-sensei (english teacher), her english is very good, she runs the tennis club so I go and play with the kids, we chat a bit. So I meet a guy at the school, he's some sort of secretary, anyway he surfs and I mention I want to surf. Monday is a half day, normally I would then have a conversation class from 6 to 9 but it is the holidays. Anyway I get back to my house and have a nap and am woken up by the surfing dude at about 4pm, he's like lets surf now! So off we go and surf. It was a loooooooooooong paddle out to the waves (at the edge of the reef) but totally worth it. The waves are pretty small but that’s ok, I caught a couple although I was a little nervous of the coral. It was shallow enough i could stand on the coral, which isn't a good idea becasue it's pretty sharp and very hard there are also spiky sea urchins etc. After surfing we paddle back as it is getting dark and I then go and watch the Teiko drummers. These dudes are awesome, they are practicing for the festivals this weekend and also for a competition. They are seriously good, hopefully I will get to try it out at some point. The picture shows the elementry school, it's about twice as large as they need. The island used to have a population of around 6000 in the 50's but this has slowly declined to the present 2000.

Well it’s Sunday. I have another sleep in, much needed. Today I go snorkling with Kumiama-san and Yoshiaki-san again but this time it’s serious! Haha well we have diving knives and hooky things and a spear thing, it’s shell fish hunting time! We paddle out in a kayak and then off we go. I guess we are out there for several hours but I don’t actually know, it’s so fascinating time just slips by. I get a few shell fish including one of the clam like things, called shokuguy here, we only get three of those in total so I reckon that’s good. I had fun following some colourful fish around, they didn’t seem too bothered. I really need to get the all weather case for my camera so I can take some underwater shots. Tonight there was another festival, although this one was at the old folks home and therefore more sedate. Okinawans (and probably Japanese in general) revere their seniors. One okinwan chap explained that the festival banner had been written in gold because their old people were precious like gold, nice. There were food stalls (lots of nice freshly cooked food), drinks and traditional Okinawan dances performed, oh and there were fireworks (hanabi in Japanese – literally meaning flowerfire). We then had a barby with all the shell fish we had gathered and drank and chatted (well attempted to talk) until some silly late time.