Day 21-22 There’s A Huge Squid On My Bike & I’m a Sugar Maker

Apr 22 • Blog, Okinawa • 1201 Views • 7 Comments

On this day I cycled to Kourijima, it’s a little island connected by a beautiful long bridge nearby from Oshiro Family’s home. I enjoyed cycling in the sun that I hadn’t seen for some days.

On the bridge, I found a fisherman with a bicycle. I asked him what he was fishing for.
“I’m looking for squids. Do you want to look for them with me?”

We were chatting and looking for squids for 15 minutes or so. We saw three squids swimming, but they went away. I told him that I was heading to Kourijima to cycle around the island. He told me that he was going to be there for a couple hours and wanted to give me a squid if he got one. I said I’d see him on my way back.

In Kourijima, I stopped by a place that said “Chaya” which means cafe.

“Hellooooo?”

There was no one in the cafe. Then I saw some steam coming out of the building nextdoor. I walked up and popped my head in.

There they were cooking down sugar cane juice to make kokutou, black sugar. The owner told me that there was a girl around my age from Osaka right outside, working. I went out there and became friends with her. She let me try putting the sugar canes in the juicing machine.

From the pipe, the sugar cane juice went to the big heating pot inside, and it was getting cooked down to be solid kokutou.

They offered me the hot liquid that was in the middle of the process, before becoming completely solid. It was sweet and warm, and had such gentle flavor of sugar cane. I still had sore throat from the day before, but it really eased the remaining pain.

They told me to go and rest on the hammock right outside. There was a really comfy hand-made hammock in their hand made wooden cottage. All the wood was re-purposed from old fishing boats, and so were the ropes. I was on the hammock, swinging gently with the smell of sugar all around me. Time passed by so slowly with the sound of ocean.

After a little rest, I walked across from the house of sugar to have lunch, as I was told that the uni (sea urchin) bowl was good around here.

Oh-My-God. Look at this thing.

Octopus, Uni, Shima-budou (island grapes) on a bed of rice. It’s a festival in my mouth. Shima-budou, these tiny grape-look-alike is a type of seaweed. These little ones pop in your mouth as you eat. The texture feels sooo good.

After lunch, I cycled back to see the fisherman. He said he couldn’t get any fish today, but he wanted to give me the one that was in his freezer! We cycled to his home nearby and he gave me a bag of frozen squid and tied it on the back of my bike. How kind of him!

This was his bike. Doesn’t it look awesome:

The sugar-makers had told me to come back around 4pm, when the liquid gets more solid. After I got the squid, I cycled right back to the island to the house of sugar. Then they gave me the best part of the sugar, which was the part that got stuck on the side of the big pot. It was still warm and moist with such deep flavor, not just sweet.

Then the owner asked me to come inside. They let me make the sugar with them! Here, I’m stirring the liquid to cool down so it gets more solid.

Cutting up the solid black sugar with my new friend, Ayumi-chan:

Don’t they look like chocolate? They gave me a big bag full of these square little gems to take home with me.

So I cycled back to Oshiro Family’s home. I gave the white plastic bag with a huge smile to Mrs Oshiro, telling her that I actually had something that I could give them that day (though it was something that someone else gave me).

Mrs Oshiro opened the bag, and it was a HUGE squid! I thought there’d be a few smaller squids in the bag. No. It was one huge squid. We were both so surprised of the size – it was probably almost 2kg.

This squid turned into delicious ikajiru, squid soup. It has the black squid ink too. The squid was tender and so good!

Having tea and sugar with the stories of my crazy day of making new friends, getting a huge squid and making sugar, I was told that even the locals have never done that. I think it’s the magic of cycling.

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