Evening all. A long weekend just passed. I spent it generally rewarding my body. Friday night was spent with a few of my more distinquished fellow ALTs. We went to a turkish restaurant (passable) and then danced in a club/lounge with live music. We topped off the night with karaoke untill the wee hours. Much fun not least because it has been a looooooooong time since I have done that. Managed two all you can eat american breakfasts and caught a movie. 'Flags of our fathers' I do recomend it. Here is a picture of the Okinawa JET comunities newest cutest couple!!!!!......yeah ok I am kidding but cute picture deshoo? OK now scroll down for my caption comp!

Caption Compo!

Well I have these two amusing pics taken with my phone on friday night and I sometimes wonder if anyone but myself and my mum read my blog so I am having a caption compo. You know the drill? Come up with funn captions for one or both of the two mirthful pictures below.

Picture A:

Picture B:

A couple more pics from the triathlon

The best support team/cheer leader a guy could have, thanks Kelly, your the best!

My knee the night before.

TRIATHLON!!

Izena 88 Triathlon!

The finish, my goal! Not only of the race but basically of this past year. I feel as happy as I look.
Lap ??? of the bike, the wind was killer on the bike, luckily I'd been training in wind a fair bit.

Just coming around for the 2nd lap of the run, time to give my all.

Me (in the red) during the swim, you have to leave to water and run back to the start for the 2nd lap.

Me icing, compressing and eating pineapple the night before.

The triumphant ALT triathletes!

Me and the Izena Zeal triathlon team!

The poster my junoir highschool kids made for me, cute little blighters.

My wreath (this one real) for being Izena #1 and a medal given to me by an elementry schl. student. (picture taken after the party and not a few beers)

Here is my account of one of the best days of my life, sorry it is very long but I couldn't have said it in fewer words.

Well I’ve done it! Sunday (29th of October) was the 19th Izena 88 traithlon! It was one of the best days of my life, let me try and describe it to you. The story starts on Saturday I suppose. After touring the bike course with the other ALTs (Ben, Perry, Josh, Charlette and Isla) who were doing the triathlon and Kelly who was here to cheer I ran the international friendship meeting. This was a one hour ‘class’ I ran for the international athletes and my students. It was a bit chaotic but everyone seemed to have fun afterwards several of the Americans came and thanked me, telling me it was fun, so I guess it went well. Last year I had no input really, this year I did the whole thing, in fact my JTE disappeared shortly after it started and left me to it. After that was done I went for a little swim with Ben and Perry, that’s when IT happened. On coming out of the water I bashed my knee against barnacle encrusted concrete, ouch. When I looked at the cuts I could see white at the bottom, right on my knee cap. Oh dear I thought, not good for tomorrow! It was bleeding quite a lot and I had to apply pressure to stop it bleeding. There was a moment in the shower when I had blood running down my leg and diluting into the water around my feet making my bathroom look like a scene from a horror movie that I got a little worried. Anyway a towel tied tightly around it stopped the bleeding, I put a plaster on later but it started bleeding again and I had to apply pressure again. I ate a pineapple Kelly had brought (I read it has vitamins/enzymes that help one heal) and iced the knee. In the morning it was still sore and a bit stiff (it had swollen a little), I couldn’t really bent it and had to walk with a limp, I iced it some more to reduced the swelling, still a bit worried. However after I took some painkillers Kelly gave me and after the bike ride to the swim start it felt better. Once the swim started though I think adrenaline kicked in and that and the painkillers made sure the knee didn’t bother me during the race, it did hurt afterwards though! It also started getting windy Saturday night and by Sunday there was a pretty strong wind, not good for fast times. I tell myself not to worry and just do my best, even so it was slightly demoralizing.
Ok so the race! First lets go over my goals for the race: timewise my safe goal was under 6 hours and my goal to aim towards was 5 hours 30minutes (which I didn’t think I would do). I also wanted to be the number one on my island, Nakashima sensei who was done the triathlon ten times was my biggest rival. I also wanted to be the number one ALT (sorry guys but what’s a bit of competition between friends!). So the swim started, I took the advice of my training partner Takuma san and hung back until the fast swimming had started then I was off, my first triathlon! What I have been training for almost a year for! It wasn’t as crazy as I expected, sure people were grabbing my legs and I was hitting peoples legs with my hands but I was expecting worse. Once I got a kick to the head but not hard. I was lucky on the second lap and got a lot of clear water. Out of the swim and I felt great (46:03) and I run to the bike. Nakashima sensei was already there but he hadn’t been there for long by the looks of things. I get my bike gear on and I am off. The knee is a little sore but no problem. I pass Nakashima sensei on the 2nd lap, yes! I have trouble with my first banana, I get it all over my hand but no worries. Another izena triathete passes me but his strongest leg is the bike and I don’t even try to keep up with him, got to stick to my own race plan. Nakashima sensei passes me on lap 4 but I pass him back almost straight away. Later on lap four I have a scare. There is a dangerous corner, a 90 degree bend at the bottom of a steep hill. A woman is going really slowly round the corner, I am breaking but not slowing down fast enough. I have to pass her going round the corner! I come around the outside but she doesn’t see me and drifts outwards forcing me to move out wide as well, there is no more space! At the bottom of the hill/corner there is a big blue clash pad, I hit it! But I have turned enough that I kind of skid along it, then my foot and pedal are scraping along the edge of the pavement (sidewalk), I am still breaking and manage to get my foot out and come to a stop without falling. Deep breath and off I go again. I pass that woman carefully and quickly leave her behind (try and get her at a safe distance!). I take it a little easier on the last lap of the bike, rolling down the hills so that my legs are good for the run start. I am still on good time for my goal of 5hrs30 so I don’t want to go crazy. I finish the bike in 2:23:21, about 7 minutes faster than in practice, not bad. I pull on my shoes, they feel a little tight, I think it is because of the socks I am wearing which are a little thicker than the ones I usually use, no time to worry. Off I go! The last leg and by far the hardest leg. Everything in the triathlon is basically leading up to the run. Nothing to exciting, I stop at every aid station, drink and sponge my legs. I get a stitch early on (cramp in your stomach) but I run through it. I finish the first lap in just under one hour which is bang on target. In training I could do the run in about 2 hours after doing the bike, so I am looking at getting my 5hrs30min goal! I run on, I feel pretty good, I start picking up the pace. I see Josh ahead of me so I speed up and pass him. I’m an feeling ok so I keep up the pace. I am breathing heavily through my mouth, I guess I am going anerobic but what the heck less than 10k to go! I keep passing people! Whenever I start approaching an aid station I hear my students shouting ‘Craig is coming!’ I keep passing people, I don’t know what’s happening to everyone else but I am running as fast as I can! At around 3/4k to go my abs start to really hurt. It is not a stitch just muscular pain, pure and simple. It makes it hard to sprint but I push as fast as I can. Suddenly I am at the top of the final downhill, I can see the finish gate and there is Kelly! I can barely acknowledge her I am so tired/focused on running! I come down and approach the turn onto the running track. The finish is 600m around the running track! I pass some of my shogakkusei (elementary school students),Ganbatte! Fighto!! They shout, one of them starts running with me. I feel a wave of emotion hitting me at that point. My pains dissolve and I feel like I might cry but I keep the old stiff upper lip and run on. Onto the running track and a teacher put a wreath of flowers (plastic) on my head. My shogakkusei are lining the entire length of the running track. I Hi-touch each and every one of them as I go past, they are all cheering, my other hand clutching the wreath to my head. It is unbelievable how euphoric I feel, as you can see from the picture I go over the finish line with a silly big grin on my face. Kelly is waiting for me there.
She says to me “you beat John’s time!”
“No I didn’t,” I say, I think at this point I have maybe done it in 5hours 20 minutes.
“Look,” she says and points.
I turn around and it is true. I did the triathlon in 5:00:27. I can’t quite believe it at that point but I have to fight back tears again as I cool of in the icy water paddling pool thing.
Somehow I had done the final 10k in about 45 minutes. My official run time was 1:51:03 but I think that includes the transition, I was timing myself and I think the run alone was 1hr45min-ish. That is pretty crazy as the fastest I had run ten km before (when only doing ten km as fast as I could) was 47 minutes. So I went even faster after the 2kswim, 66kbike and first 10k of the run.
So there we go, I achieved all my goals (number one izenian and ALT) and then some, I did the triathlon in a time beyond what I though I was capable off. Oh yeah and the tight shoes,..that is because I packed Kelly’s running shoes by mistake (they are the same as mine just half a size smaller), that would explain the tightness. I will loose at least my left big toe and it wasn’t until today (Tuesday) that I could bend my injured knee fully. But of course it was all very much worth it. My junior high students made a poster for me, ‘Craig never give up’ which was really nice of them. Unfortunately I didn’t actually see it during the race (too focused?) but I went and took a picture afterwards. All the ALTs finished the race and all but one of the Izena traithletes finished too. One crashed on his bike. The after party was a blast although a little sad. I probably won’t see as much of all my training buddies although I a few of them want to do ishigaki with me. I greatly indebted to a number of them. Nakashima sensei and Chibasensei are single handedly responsible for my swim. In July of this year I could barely swim 200m, no joke. I was swimming with my head out of the water and had to rest after every 25m. If it wasn’t for them teaching me I would have got nowhere. Takuma san was also a great help on the bike and gave lots of good advice on eating, strategy etc. Thanks guys! I am also grateful to Mr. John Branderhorst. Sorry I beat your time, but way back last year you were a large factor in inspiring me to do this thing. John always smiles and looks happy while racing and he made the whole thing look so much fun. I paid head to his advice and smiled, waved and said hello to all the supporters around the track. Many of them (my elementary school kids especially) have been cheering me all year and now was the time to pay them back. Today at school one of the teachers told me I looked very happy/genki during the race, so I guess it worked, when I told her I enjoyed it she shook her head and said “ah, young energy!”
So my official finishing stats are as follows:
Swim – 46:03 (194th out of 401)
Bike – 2:23:21 (126th)
Run – 1:51:03 (83rd)
So my final result was:
Izena 88 Triathlon – 5:00:27 (106th -22nd in my agegroup-)

I am grateful to everyone for their support (the emails helped as well!) and congrats to all the other ALTs who finished too, good job one and all.

What’s next?

My south east asian pictionary set conterfiting sweat shop! I made 6 pictionary sets today (for the international friendship meeting tommorrow). This is a modified pictionary suitable for okinawan junoir highschool students I hasten to add.

We had a halloween party for the whole of my shogakko (elementry school). All the 130 kids in the gym together, what fun! We played some games, plainted hand ghosts and sang a halloween song I had been practicing with them. Halloween is the western festival they go for the most. They had halloween decoration all over the school and even had mountains of halloween candy. After the party in the gym the teachers went to our rooms (I have my own english room), dressed up and awaited the trick or treaters. Here are some of the kids.

More of the little devils.

We had a lodger hidding in one of the plants in the school corridor.

The sun rise on thursday morning.

Practicing getting up early. I got up and had a 1k swim this morning before school, whats wrong with me.

The World Press Freedom Index 2006, published by the Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF), showed that the US had dropped 12 places to 53rd place, below countries such as Ghana, Mali and Bolivia. Yikes, slightly perturbing I am sure you will agree.

http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=19388

I quote from the websight, 'Meanwhile the steady erosion of press freedom in the United States, France and Japan is extremely alarming.'

Once again the northern european, especially Scandinavian, countries come out top! They also come out top on things like gender equality (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4786160.stm), low povery, happiness http://www1.eur.nl/fsw/happiness/hap_nat/findingreports/RankReport2006-1.htm and the like. And it is not as if their economies are doing badly, Switzerland, Finland and Sweden are the three most competitive economies according to The Global Competitiveness Report 2006-2007. In fact Finland topped the freedom of press and competitive economy list. Does anyone know if finnish is a hard language to learn?
Mmmmm just following links now, Finland was the first country to give women the vote and allow them to stand for parliment:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5036602.stm

Anyway, back to work.

Now first off why didn't anyone consult me? Or at least check the spelling with a dictionary? Anywho:

Here are some pics of my kids english preformance and display at the thingy we had. The thingy where students performed for parents.

This was actually something we had done in my english club but we re-used it. Hey recycling is good!

The performance, an english story with pictures. woot.

The ritual or ceremony I took part in (clapped my hands and drank)

Me with two teachers from my school and the island dentist (a veteran triathlete)

You may be able to spot me about half way down the line of dancers

As I havn't posted in a while here is a random blog. I have no new pics but I got some more of the eisa festival from Noto san. These last weeks have of course been dominated by training. I have had several new PBs for 10k and 20k and have done the bike and run together in the time I want. Yesterday I also did the 2k swim (plus 20k run pb). I have done the 2k swim before but going up and down the beach this time I went straight out and back (there is a pole marking about 400m). I have mostly got over my fear of swimming out in the oceon, I swam alone yesterday, although I was swimming in a lagoon so not open oceon at all, but still! What else has happened...right now I am at school for a performance by the students for parents etc. I have been involved and there is an english display and performance. On a side note the other day I got a bunch of grapes from the fiance of a fellow teacher and soon to be triathlete, more Japanese kindness (she is not Okinawan). So well anyway! Look forward to pics of my triathlon soon, hopefully triumphant ones! I don't know wether I am chewing at the bit raring to go or living in mortal dread of this triathlon. I'll decide once it is done.

The ship came, all was well. It was a goood weekend.

Storm clouds gather. Kelly is planning to come to my island this weekend (a long weekend) so we can see each other and I can also train. But all is not as it should be. There is wind and waves. Two stupid little typhoons of north east of Okinawa have somehow been generating wind on my fair isle. The ferry was cancelled today, and maybe cancelled tommorrow. We didn' t get to see each other last weekend because Kelly had a school do and I stayed island bound to train. I hope whichever god or government agencies control the weather know this is completely unacceptable. If the ferries aren't running tommorrow I will make a point of being in a horrendous bad mood for the whole of the rest of the next week. I shall make all and everything suffer my wrath as I lash out vengefully and malichiously. While I am laughing and dancing and singing for the kiddies inside I will be screaming, howling and railing against the cruel injustice of the world. World (which for me is limited to Izena island right now) you have been warned. On the other hand if the ferry is running tommorrow :) I will bring bring joy to the world.

A couple of little Japanese experiences in the last two days. The first: last night I was coming home from the elementry school and I bump into the old catering lady who used to work at the junior High. She once taught me how to make Goya Champuru, anyway, we had a little chat (she works up at the BOE now and I don't see her often). She asks about my cooking, I say I only cook Udon now (it's true, it only takes a minute or two to cook and therefore suits my lifestyle at the moment) so she starts telling me about some vegetable. She tells me it is easy to fry up and eat with rice or fish and adds lots of flavour. I ask if it is in the SUPA (supermarket) and she says yes, I tell her I will buy some. Later that evening when I return from my bike training I have a missed call on my phone, it is Taika san (the catering lady) but she is speaking in broken english and I cannot work out what she means, I hear `my house` and `your house`. Later as I am putting a load of washing in the machine (outside by the back door) I notice a plastic bag hanging from the door handle. It is a meal of rice, chips and previously mentioned vegetable she has cooked for me. I call her and thank her. It is actions like hers that endeer us outsiders to japanese culture and demonstrate it's peoples incredable hospitability towards guests in their country.
The second happened recently today. Today there were only a few students in each class (5 or 6) as most were at an athletics meet on the main island (Okinawa Honto) so with the ninensei (2nd yrs) I played pictionary. One girl who is usually very inatentive in class and mainly draws anime and manga characters (amazingly well I must add) impressed me. Her word was 'nine' and I was confused when she started drawing circles, maybe she will draw 9 circles I thought, but no she only drew 3. Then one girl guesses correctly! I was bamboozled! It turns out Kyuu means ball and nine in Japanese. Neat. Next for 'win' she draws a bowl of food being eaten. Turns out she drew Katsu don (fried breaded pork on a bowl of rice), Katsu also meaning 'win' in Japanese. I don't think we can quite do this with the english language.

Last night saw my villages 88 something festival. To celebrate the wonderful number 88, they are very fond of 88 here, almost as fond of it as 97. Anyway I performed eisa twice, once at the start of the fest and once at the end so I had to stay throughout the whole thing. I was hoping to get home to do some tidying but no. After it was done and all the kids and almost all the women had left the remaining (mostly men) people did some sort of ritual. We all sat in a circle on the stage around two bowls of fruit and two big bottles of awamori and sang this VERY long song/chant and clapped our hands. Then there were speaches and more drinking, I didn't get back until 12 which is pretty good considering. The pic is of me and two teachers from my school, the lady is Risa Sensei my JTE. This was the first time she had done eisa! She is from mainland okinawa where not EVERYBODY does eisa.

It was raining quite alot yesterday and the blue tarps they put up weren't really upto the job. Luckily the rain eased off by the time we started eisa.

Just as a side note my face got so sunburnt training on the weekend that an elementry kid asked me if I had been drinking :(. I hadn't touched a drop, honest!

PS. I have just read today on www.bbc.co.uk that there has been another school shooting in America. Two in a week! What is the deal with that!!! I would be asking some serious questions about my culture/society if it seemed to regularly produce individuals who wanted to harm the most innocent members of their society. And why does it seem to me at least that nothing it being done about it? Are people that complacent? It is not a unique American problem but (I think) predominantly so. For a contrast: after the Dunblane shooting in the UK the Snowdrop petition (started by those affected by the shooting) caused the then government to effect a ban on all handguns except .22 calibre single shot handguns. The succeeding government (Tony and his motley crew) finished the job leaving only muzzle-loading and historical pieces legal. There are cultural reasons handguns won't be banned in America. Sometimes I think we put too much value in something just because it is cultural though, we are quite happy to tell certain countries to (for example) give women the vote when culturally said culture does not consider women eligable. We should be looking critically at our own cultures too. Anyway I am side tracking and don't want to start a long rant. Just expressing my shock and anger at this hideous facet of humanity.

Well I had a fun weekend......kind of. I spent my weekend training training training. Saturday I did a 1.5k swim followed by 66k bike and lastly a 10k run. I was fine until the run, then my world turned rather painful. Not encouraging, the actually race will be a 20k run. So on sunday I ignored my tired limbs and did a 28k bike and then a 20k run. I did it, but 18 minutes off the pace I would ideally want. Hopefully it was just because my legs were knackered from saturdays training. I think I aught to work on the run more though, I am still slow slow slow! During the swim I had a bit of a scare. I was swimming up and down izena beach, the tide wasn't fully in so the water was only about waist deap. I saw a flash of black and white stripes down to my right, sea snake I think!? No no, I tell myself you are just being paranoid, that's when it swim right under me - I could easily have touched it. I managed to hold it together, not keep looking around and swim to the end of that lap. Then I stop and have a serious think about wether to swim back (sea snakes being a little on the venemous side). In the end I do finish my swim but I kept a sharp eye out for underwater critters, which is perhaps why I saw a cuttlefish, the first one I have seen here. Pretty cool looking creatures. On the sat I also had a meeting with a couple from Okinawa honto and the Izena triathlon organisers. The couple had volenteered to take care of the english language side of the triathlon and baby the international triathletes (27 this year). The man was American and his wife Japanese (from tokyo). It was interesting to note he didn't seem to speak a jot of japanese but that their highschool aged daughter was fluent in both Japanese and English. Lucky girl. This year I am fully in charge of the international friendship meeting, unlike last year when I had no input, was not told anything aside from the fact I had to play the keyboard and when I rocked up was told I had to MC as well....great! but I have no idea what's happening! This year will be different! I just weighted myself today, 67.5 kg, I swear I was 70kg last week. Screw faddy diets, just train for a triathlon (I was 78/9 kg when I first came to Okinawa - although alot of what I lost was muscle weight, I am skinny now :-( ). I must point out this is with eating calory mate bars inbetween meals to keep my energy up. Today I am going to see if I can get triple helpings of Kyushoku (school lunch).
Keep the peace.

Update: I managed my three helpings and re-weighed myself, 68kg, 1.5kg of lunch (ie. rice and fish), nice..... well it would be nice if I wasn't still hungry! Time to go home and find some more food.

If you had been paying attention and I do so hope that you were, you would have been aware that my garden suffered the ill attentions of a typhoon. I replanted with cuttings my Kochosensei (head master) gave me and then promptly declined to water them. As a result they ceased to be. However one plucky little plant was rumbustious enough to take it upon itself to spread forth with wild vigour and near cover my entire garden. I think it pretty enough and it has become rather the bon ton with the local Bee cliental.
I noticed these two funny beggars which one can actually see in the previous photograph if one has the time and inclination to do so. I wonder if they are mates, or if this is a mother and child or perhaps their disguise is so good the second diminutive grasshopper has mistaken its larger brethren for the very plant it itself is trying to imitate! HAH!
Another admirable trait of this plant is its habit of neatly rolling up its leaves in the evening and keeping them in such a manner until day break the following day. One presumes this is to keep them snug and warm during the chill of the night?

My toe shortly after the incident.

My toe after doing a swim, the sea of course made it bleed.

My toe after football, you can see some of my insides coming out I think!

My toe a few days later, you can clearly see my outside insides.

The toe as it is currently. It is no longer 'wet' or sore but I had a interesting nail growth.

It has been a while since I posted I admit but while nothing major or exciting has happened things have been busy. Busy for two two reasons: A) triathlon training has been stepped up, 2 to 4 hours a day during the week and now that I will not be taking any more weekend trips into the mainland until after the triathlon I will be spending much more time on the weekends training too B) eisa practice has started again, for the next week and a bit I should be practicing eisa with the other men from my village (sometimes training makes this impossible). It is the same little festival I took part in last year, perhaps this time I will make fewer mistakes? So my ‘exciting’ life goes as such, leave school at 5ish, shop or general errands, start training at 6, go to eisa at 8 or continue training, retire home at 9/10ish, eat, try to be in bed by 11ish when I give myself the pleasure of a half hours reading. I am reading a book of short stories by Summerset Maugham (hope I’ve spelt that right, if not, bully to you!). This weekend just past I spent a fantastic time camping with Miss Kelly and FINALLY visiting the elusive Hiji falls (it was only our fourth attempt) which were rather pleasant. The water was cool and refreshing and immediately washed away the residual grimy feeling from camping. The previous weekend aside from entertaining Andrew Clarke we visited the caves at Okinawa world. I have yet to get my grubby little hands on the pictures of these events so pictures will have to wait. You see in order as to not loose a day of training I have been cycling from Unten Ko (just north of Nago) to Kelly’s home in Kitanakagusuku (northmiddlecastle) on my shiny new (second hand) road bike hense I can't really afford to carry extra things like cameras. It is a trip of 75k (or there about) and quite pleasant aside from a few brushes with death (or injury). On my last ride an obviously senile (or ruthlessly malicious) old man in a little white car almost took me out TWICE! Anyway, I survived. I would like to point out that my I have two great fears right now; one that I will injure myself before the triathlon and two that I will get a puncture during the race. I will cry.
Ah before I sign off I would like to share pictures of something I do have pictures of with you. My toe! In a scooter related incident I managed to squish it so that some of what had previously been my insides became my outsides. Pretty disgusting I think you will agree, I found it quite fascinating and took pictures of its progress throughout the day, as I did a 2k swim and then played football. To be fair I was in goals and didn’t need to kick the ball much. After a week I did go to the doctor at Kelly's urging and after first thinking about pulling the nail out (much to my alarm) he just gave me large plasters, antibacterial cream and oral antibiotic. It is pretty much OK now although I am hesitant to cut of the second toe nail that has grown above the first (getting quite fond of it), I really must have mushed things around in there!

Here is a picture of Teru rocking out, if you read the post bellow you will learn he is sadly leaving Izena (at least for a while) to pursue his dreams as a rock star!

I am adding this post mainly to tell you all about a song and a class. One of those little things which kick starts your day, ya know! My 4 year elementry kids always have music on when I come in the room and then file past my giving me high 5's. Today the song was in Japanese but had a familiar tune. It took me a moment to place it.....it was the YMCA song by the Village people. That definately put me in a good mood for the rest of the day!

My Lovely bike.

Not an awffy lot to post about but I feel a post seems about due. I am nearing the end of my first week of classes and it has been fun! I am writing during a free period at the elementary school just now. The kids are just as genki as when I left them! The yochein especially, it took me about 5 minutes to get out of the classroom after I had already run almost ten minutes over time, I literally had children hanging off my legs are I tried to gather my things and leave (while giving kids hi-5's and saying 'goodbye!'). This week I have been training in any free time I have which is not enough now that classes have started. It takes almost a whole day to do a big workout, I am hoping to squeeze in a bike ride before I go swimming with the izena triathlon team at 6pm. Last night I did a night time run and a firefly landed on my running top, those things are really bright! Nature is awesome. Also this week a happy sad event. Teru leaving the island and moving to Naha so that he can practice with his band as they plan to release a full album next year. Next week they are doing a gig in Tokyo which will coincide with the mainland Japan release of their EP. I wish them the best of luck but I'll miss hanging out with him, of course we shall meet up on the mainland and I expect he will be back for Izena events. Have I mentioned I bought a bike? Well I bought a shiny newish (2nd hand) road bike. It is pretty snazzy with shimano dura-ace and ultegra components if you are into bikes. I also have a wonderful new hydro pack thing courtesy of Kelly so I have refreshing cold Pocari sweat throughout my rides too! I would like to sign off with a tribute to the late Steve Irwin, conservation warrior and general top bloke. He truly was an amazing and inspiration guy and will sorely be missed by countless people around the world. It was a bizarre way to go, if you don't know (shame on you) he was pierced through the heart by a sting ray while filming a nature documentary, only the second ever recorded death by a sting ray. I hope in heaven there will forever echo his eternal cry of 'CRIKEY!"

Giant hornets Vs. Honey Bees
http://www.fugly.com/videos/5990/giant-hornets-vs-bees.html
This is amazing! Mother nature is tough. 30 giant hornets can kill every bee in a hive in 3 hours and then feast on the honey and use the pupae to feed their young for weeks, ruthless.

Well all my guests have finally departed and I am left to my own devices again. Since July 7th I have been playing host to visitors from home, except for a 5 day break in-between. First my sister and her boyfriend came and then my mate from high school, Aaron. It has been enormous fun but I am a little relieved to be on my own again, if only for the sake of my wallet! Seriously though it is about time I got back to serious triathlon training, Japanese study and the many other things I aught to be doing with my free time (not least sitting down with a good book and relaxing). I think having guests and showing them around my island and Okinawa make me appreciate the place again. I hadn’t stopped appreciating it exactly but I was beginning to take it for granted. I will post a few more pics of me and Aaron but I won’t bore you with a lengthy description of what we did. Well perhaps I shall describe a few things (pause to clear my throat), it was on one of our first nights drinking on my island, at my islands newest izekaiya. Aaron was sitting next to a drunken wizened old fisher man who insisted on trying to speak to him almost all night long despite a lack of anything remotely resembling English except for the word ‘OK?’. He was so drunk in fact that none of my friends or the bar staff could understand his Japanese. Eventually the bar man stepped in and told him not to bother Aaron, he was harmless but a tad annoying. However this was not the end, Aaron then used his magical drunk old person attracting skills to gain the amorous attention of a 45 year old lady who even went to far as to follow him into the toilets much to the amusement of everyone in the izekaiya. We finally made our escape and as we did the bar man gave Aaron a rather large and impressive sea shell by way of apology. On another night we were treated to an impromptu performance of the Okinawan fan dance (no idea what it is really called but it is a dance involving fans) but instead of fans disposable foil plates were used(it was a barbeque). On a number of occasions we were called on to perform an Okinawan dance, the easy one which just involves waving arms about, during one memorable occasion we were the only ones dancing but we persevered and were rewarded when several old men joined us banging pots and pans and even a chair above their heads. Good times! We also made it to another uninhabited island, Gushikaya Jima, this one we needed to charter a local fisherman and his boat to get to. The snorkelling there was amazing; I am convinced the reason for the low levels of living coral around Izena itself (apart from construction) is agricultural run off. Fertilisers and pesticides on one hand but I also noticed that after heavy rain a lot of soil had been washed into he sea making it brown, this would certainly silt and kill any coral. Anyway back to Gushikaya, yes the water was lovely and clear, the fish plentiful and the coral brightly coloured but there was death lurking in those waters too! After our big snorkle the tide went out so we couldn’t really snorkel again, in need to cooling down (it was a boiling hot day) we went into a small pool. After swimming around for a big enjoying the water I noticed several large sea anemones (the type which clown fish live in) and while these are not lethal they can cause pain and discomfort. I next noticed a cone shell, not of the edible variety but of the rare but VERY poisonous variety, indeed cone shells claim the most toxic venom in all the animal kingdom, YIKES! There wouldn’t have been much chance for us if we got stabbed by that beast. Next, as if that wasn’t enough, I saw a stone fish! If you are not familiar with these horrid fish let me describe them as best I can. They are lumpen misshapen ugly fish which look very much like a stone encrusted with sea growth. They also carry on their malformed backs a large spur with can deliver a deadly dose of poison if stood upon, we left the pool shortly after. For these reasons (these and seaurchins) please, please wear good protection on your feet while in the sea here in Okinawa. I should also say that when the fisher man returned us to dry land and we had paid him he gave a a present of a bag full of freshly caught squid and invited us for a drink with him and his buddies. It amused me that aaron was wearing a 'shiman chu' (sea person ie. fisherman) towel while drinking with the real thing! Tourist okinawa meets real (or at least origional) okinawa!
Please enjoy the pics!

Kirei na! The view towards Iheya Jima from Gushiyawa.
Aaron enjoying a dip towards the end of the day as we wait for the boat to pick us up.
We discovered this cliff with broken pottery at the bottom, I am told by some archeologists I met that there is a 3000yr old site on this island. There is a chance I might be able to accompany them on their dig next month, fingers crossed!
Enjoying our lunch with makeshift table and chairs.
The view towards Iheya, just look at the colour of the water!
Aaron playing football with my elementry school kids.
The traditional Okinawan tin foil plate dance.
Dancing!
More Dancing!

Aaron and I returned to the uninhabited island in glorious sunshine but shortly after we arrived a huge thunder storm bore down on us. We managed to outrun it in our kayak and it made for some dramatic images.

The approaching storm front.

We found this trench where the water remained several meters deep even at low tide when the rest of the lagoon was only a few feet deep. It contained lots of coral and trapped fish seeking refuge from the shallow water. The concentration of fish made for some very good snorkelling.

A rare breed of Izenian rock Shisa.

Waves crash behind brilliant white surf as the storm clouds gather.