Day 16-18 Cycle, Climb, Food Galore, Emergency Hospital

Apr 16 • Blog, Okinawa • 879 Views • 2 Comments

What do we usually do on a single day? How many people do we communicate with between home and work, and about what? During my cycling trip, I meet so many people, and talk and do all kinds of unusual things almost everyday, even in the country I grew up in.

I took my bike to a bike shop in Nago, and left it there for two days for a bit of work. The owner of the bike shop let me use his own road bike, which happened to be also pink. I spent the waiting days cycling around town, and finding a traditional Okinawan house like above. I stayed in the same guest house as the week before, and there I met a group of nine travelers from Tokyo area during the BBQ dinner.

As we were eating, drinking and singing, I found out that they were a group of rock climbers. They asked me if I wanted to go and climb the next morning. I said, why not.

I cycled to get to the meeting point, where we started hiking to get to the climbing location. I wasn’t really expecting that I’d be going into a jungle to be hung on a rope against a super high (well, super high for me) 90 degree wall.

As I went up higher, I tried not to think about how far away from the ground I was, and just to trust the guy who was holding the rope I was on. After a couple of times, my fingers felt very tight from holding all of my weight.

It looks so much easier from the ground, but when you’re on the wall, finding a place to grab or place your foot gets more difficult. The longer you hang in the same location, the more tired your muscles get. You have to think and move quite quickly, but accurately. As physically demanding as this is, I learned that this was also a thinking game.

The most experienced climber happened to be a professional alpine climbing guide. I told him that one of my dreams was to climb Mt. Fuji, the world-famous highest Japanese mountain, some day. He said he could be the guide when I’m there. How cool! Traveling and making new friends from different backgrounds expand your world so much.

You’d think that was the end of this day. Oh, no no. This was just the beginning of my day 18. After I said goodbye and thanks to the climbers, I hiked back to my bike, where a friend of mine from Tokyo had flown in and driven with his friend to meet up with me. We put my bike in the car and drove to a local’s restaurant across from a port to have lunch.

My university friend Masa flew to Okinawa with his friend, Mr. Matsuda, who is an owner of Okinawan restaurants in Tokyo. Matsuda-san is from Nakijin, Okinawa, and he knows people and all the good local places to eat. He took us to one of those called, Minato Shokudo, which means, Port Restaurant.

I told you this before, but Okinawa’s food portion is big. Even though all of us had known this, Matsuda-san went ahead and ordered all his childhood favorites, which he said he couldn’t help doing every time he went there. He knows the family who cooks there, and gets yelled at (with love) every time he cannot finish his food.

Miso soup in Okinawa can be a main dish…

Okinawan yakisoba’s noodles are much fatter than what I’m used to. I love it!

Gigantic omurice. It’s a popular Japanese dish, which combines omelet and rice. I’ve never seen it this big though.

Delicious nitsuke. Slow cooked meat and veggies.

We should have two more people sitting with us at this table.

Even though there was so much food…, I had to ask for more of this papaya salad, made with vinegar and sugar dressing. This was so soothing and tasty.

After this lunch, Matsuda-san had some work to do, which was to buy Okinawan vegetables for his restaurants. As he drove around to buy huge portions of fresh produce, he also showed us around places of interest for me to cycle on a later day. He also bought us purple sweet potato ice cream, which was so yummy.

Like that wasn’t enough, I ate some pineapple and fruit tomato that the locals gave us.

The day went by like a typhoon. I was taken to so many places and I was constantly full. But the day wasn’t quite over yet. Towards the end of the day, I was bitten by a dog (not too seriously) after coming out from a pottery place. As it was Sunday, we went to an emergency hospital in Nago, just to be sure I wouldn’t get sick from the dog bite.

Once that was all done, Masa and Matsuda-san drove off to Naha airport to fly back to Tokyo. They came just for the day, and I cycled off from the hospital to Matsuda-san’s sister’s house in Nakijin, where I was to stay for the next couple of nights.

I could not believe the amount of activities I’d done that day. I made it to the house just before sunset, and there I was welcomed by the kind Oshiro family with BBQ dinner. I surprised them with my big appetite, but I blame that on my last cycling and running away from the biting dog.

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