the visitors
April 26, 2005
Argh, keep meaning to write but time seems to have been slipping through my fingers lately — I’ve been having a busy month, and have been off-island most weekends. At the end of March, Graeme came from Tottori prefecture, on Honshu (the largest of Japan’s main islands), and we had an excellent, though sleep-deprived time wandering around Naha and the island. Just as he left, Alex came over from Sapporo with his friend Mark, and while they were here we went to an uninhabited island and a concert by my friend Teru’s metal band, which was ripping. So long since I’ve seen a live band, let alone a face-melting rock band!
This picture was taken the day Alex and Mark arrived – the day before Graeme left. The four of us sat at an outside table in front of a little bus that is actually a bar, and drank cold drinks in the warm evening. That morning Alex and Mark had been in the sub-zero temperatures of Hokkaido. The couple who run the bus/bar have a two-year-old daughter who already seems to know almost all the dance moves. She danced in front of the bus the whole time we were there, waving drumsticks around and obviously revelling in the attention, and posing for our photographs. Too cute. She’s the little spinning blur in the middle.
And soon: more visitors! On Thursday I’m going to Tokyo to meet Andrew, who is coming from far away on another part of the Earth’s surface.
Pingback by light vessel automatic » Blog Archive » gone — August 31, 2005 at 3:57 am
[…] I’m now in my new flat in Naha, the prefectural capital, on the Okinawan mainland. I am also, for the most part, now a man of leisure: I will be based here until October, during which time I will be studying Japanese, planning my travels in China (which is where I will be going in October), and hopefully doing some more diving before I leave for lands with colder, dirtier seas. I will also be doing a bit more travelling in Japan. In fact, as I write this, I really should be packing, because I have a one-way ticket to Osaka, leaving tomorrow morning. Probably for a week or so, but I’m going to play it by ear. I’ll be meeting k in Osaka, then Graeme in Kyoto. In the last few days I’ve managed to discharge almost all remaining responsibilities, and I’m excited to finally have a bit of time to make it up as I go along. […]