Okinawa Day 3: Up North, American Flavor/沖繩三日目：北部にアメリカも有る

ああ、忙しかった！俺もたまには勉強するから、今回のアップデートが遅れた。

沖縄の紀行の続き、三日目：

三日目は北部の本部町の水族館に行く事にした。最初はバスに乗って行こうと思った。多分一番安いだろうと思ったからね。でも那覇バスターミナルに行ってみれば、だいたい同じ値段でツアーバスに乗って、色々な所に寄りながら水族館に行けると教えて貰った。でも、結局ツアーバスは一日レンタカーより高いから、最終的にこの日もレンタカーにした。一人旅だったら、バスの方が安いかもしれないけど、二人でも集まったら完全に車の方が安い。しかも、マイペースで北進出来るから便利だ。俺はなかなかこの状況が分からない。バスが一番安く成っているはずなのに、なんで実際にそう成っていないのだろうか？

No, I'm not dead.  I've been busy the past couple days.  Yes, I do occasionally study here in Tainan.

On the third day of our trip to Okinawa, we decided to go to the aquarium up in the northern part of the island.  At first, we figured we'd save money and take a bus.  However, when we got to the bus station, the guy there told us that we could ride a tour bus and visit lots of places for only about the same amount of money as using the regular busses.  However, after we looked at the tour bus pamphlet we realized that it was actually even cheaper still to just rent a car again for the day.  I still don't know why this is as it seems all backwards to me that a rental car would be cheaper than taking the bus, but it worked out for us because we were able to go where we wanted to go and at our own pace too.

 那覇市内の運河。那覇市の町並みは綺麗だね。

 この建物が面白いと思って写真撮った。廊下は風通しにも成っている。流石亜熱帯地域にこういうデザインは必要だ。
I thought this building was interesting.  The hallways outside are totally open, allowing wind to pass through the building.  I assume this was done to help combat the heat of the Okinawan summers.

 那覇空港の隣りの基地。こっちは米軍のじゃなくて、自衛隊の。（でも昔は米軍基地だったと思う。）
There's a Japanese self-defense force bas next to the airport (where we went to meet the guy from the rental car place).  It used to be an American military base until after Okinawa reverted to Japanese control.

 鉄棒みたいな物いっぱい積んでいた。俺等は二人ともこれを見て、今住んでいる台湾を思い出して、「台湾だったらそれらを全部バイクに載せて運ぶだろう」と思った。台湾に行った事がない皆さんには想像出来ないかもしれないけど、台湾人は凄まじい程バイクを使って物を運ぶのだ。
We saw this truck and joked that if we were still in Taiwan, all those metal poles would be loaded onto some old guy's motor scooter instead of a truck.  Except we weren't really joking.

 隣りのコンビニで朝ご飯のおにぎりを買ってから、ブルーシールの店に朝ご飯のアイスを買った。
There's a creepy statue of a soldier at the counter in this kitschy Blue Seal restaurant.  We stopped here to get essential breakfast ice cream.

 奥まで！？何の奥まで？しかも遠い！
（奥は地名だ。）

 ジミーズは沖縄のチェーン店だ。本来はベーカリーだけど、このジミーズはスーパーにも成っている。ジミーと言う人にこの会社が造られた。ジミーはアメリカ人じゃなくて、沖縄人だ。ちょうど戦後時代は彼の若い頃だった。基地でパイやケーキなどの作り方を覚えてから、基地を出て自分の店を開店試みた。成功して、今は沖縄中にジミーズがあちらこちらに沢山有る。アメリカ式アップルパイはかなり美味しい。ここの店は本店だ。

 Jimmy's is a bakery chain in Okinawa.  This store is the original one.  This particular store is actually a grocery store as well as a bakery.  This chain was started by an Okinawan who was in his teens or twenties right after the war.  He worked in the kitchen on a US base and got the nickname "Jimmy".  He also learned how to bake cakes and pies.  He later used that knowledge to start up a bakery of his own outside of the base.  He did pretty well since there are Jimmy's stores all over Okinawa now.  And their apple pies are very authentically American style.

 中古家具屋。アメリカの家具を売っている店が沖縄中部に結構有る。
We're in the middle part of Okinawa at this point.  There are lots of used furniture stores that have American furniture in them because of all of the US soldiers living around here.

 沖縄中部を通ったら、ジミーズみたいなアメリカの影響を受けた所も見掛けるけど、基地が本当に密集しているから、普通に「アメリカ」そのままが見える。上記の写真は道路で一時停止していた米兵達だ。
Aside from all of the stores showing American influence around here, there are also just lots of soldiers wandering around.  (Patrolling?  I think soldiers like to patrol or something right?)  These guys were pulled over to the side of the road when we went by.

 エーエンダブユー（俺が作った仮名の振り方。アメリカ人の発音により近いと思う。）このトラックが通っている風景にもアメリカの影響が窺える。
There are also a bunch of A&W restaurants all over Okinawa.  Actually, I'm such a New Yorker I never even saw an A&W restaurant (I didn't even know they existed) until the first time I went to Okinawa.  One of my midwest relatives laughed at me for that.

 これもめっちゃ「アメリカ！」って感じがする。車は左側通行だけど。この道路は沖縄の国道５８だ。アメリカ時代に作られたこの道は当時は「１」だった。米兵が作った沖縄の主な道路だから、米軍の都合によって沢山の基地に接している。上の写真は左も右も基地だ。沖縄が日本に復帰した後、この道路は１から５８に替わって、右側通行から左側通行に替わった。でも基地は未だに残っている。
The road we were driving north on is called "National Road #58".  In the days of American control, it was Road #1.  It was (and is) the main road that goes the long north-south stretch of Okinawa.  (There's an expressway now too, but that costs money, so no one uses that.)  Because it was built by the US military, not surprisingly, it passes right by a lot of their bases.  In the above photo, both the right side of the road and the left side of the road are part of one of the sprawling bases.

 米国旗と日の丸が並んでいる。当時は知らなかったけど、今ネットで調べてみたら、この日はハワイのダニエルイノウエ（井上建）上議員が亡く成った日だと思う。もしかしてその訳で米国旗が半旗の位置に掲げて有る。（でも日本時間がアメリカより半日も早いから、この時はまだアメリカで１７日に成っていなくて、井上議員と関係ないかもしれない。）
I noticed when I was looking at this photo that the US flag is at half mast.  At first I just assumed that because this is Japan, they keep the US flags lower than the Japanese flags as a sign of respect or something.  (I'll admit freely I neither know, nor care, even slightly, about "proper" flag code nonsense.)  But I just looked up Senator Daniel Inoyue, and I think it's possible that the flags were at half mast for him.  This day would have been the 17th of December.  The only thing I'm not sure about is, since Japan time is about half a day ahead of US east coast time, was it the 17th in the US when I took this photo?  It may not have been yet; I'm just not really sure.

 基地の玄関になぜか鳥居。

 水族館に行っている途中、ちょっと座間味城に行ってみた。沖縄の一番綺麗な砦かもしれない、座間味城は護佐丸（ごさまる）と言う人物に建てられた。（「護佐丸と阿麻和利の乱」の所を読んどいてね。面白くて、ドラマの有る話だ。）
ペリーが日本に訪ねる前に、先に琉球に来た。座間味城を観て、沖縄の石垣技術の高さに感動したらしい。
We stopped at one of the most beautiful castles in Okinawa, Zamami Castle, on the way north.  This castle was built by Gosamaru, a famed castle builder with a tragic story of betrayal and intrigue.  This castle's stonework is said to have impressed admiral Perry when he stopped in Ryukyu prior to visiting Japan.

 本当に綺麗なお城だろ！実用的な物だけど、護佐丸には美術のセンスも有ったのだろう。

 This sign was written in English, standard Japanese and Okinawan.  Despite the multi-lingualed effort, it still managed to be entirely unhelpful as it is unclear where exactly we are not supposed to enter.  I'm pretty sure they just don't want us to fall over the edge of the wall, so I don't know why they didn't just write that.

 城の近くに焼き物がいっぱい置いて有った。

 水族館に着いた！向こうの島は伊江島だ。
And we finally reach the aquarium!  The park around it is pretty impressive too.  The island in the distance is called Ie.  (Pronounced: ee-eh)

 かわいいいいい〜

 The little crustacean thing is cute, but the big, blue one was a greedy pig and ate up all of the food that was dumped into the tank.

 後ろのでかいやつはこの後落ちて来た餌をめっちゃ食べた。気持ち悪かった。

 世界一番大きいタンクのガラスで見えたジンベイザメ。

 This pane of glass is the largest of any aquarium in the world.  It's really a very impressive tank.

 こんうだ。

 マナティーかジュゴンか忘れた。
I can't remember now if these are American Manatees or local Jugons.  They're almost the same thing, but they live in different parts of the world.

 カメラの編集機能を使って、最強食堂で撮った写真だ。
This is another photo where I was messing around with my camera's settings.

夜に工事をしているおじさん達を見掛けた。なんで写真撮ったかな？はっきり覚えとらん。
後一日まだ有る。四日目は那覇市内で過ごした。楽しみにしてね！
Next time!  Day four, the last day, all of it spent in Naha!