First, a little bit about my family name, Ogasawara. It's a pretty kick-ass name. Whenever I introduce myself in Japan, people are immediately impressed. I get the impression that it's a prestigious name, a classy name. "Cool". A Japanese girl I met in Uganda, upon hearing my name, exclaimed, "Wow! What a posh name!". The only Ogasawaras I know of can both be seen on TV as either a professional soccer player (Mitsuo Ogasawara), or a professional baseball player (Michihiro Ogasawara). Needless to say, both are all-stars. Also, there is another Ken Ogasawara somewhere who is a big player in the gaming software engineering world.
The point is, Ogasawaras are few and far between and those that do exist are awesome. If you think I'm being exaggerating or just being revoltingly boastful, I ask you: how many do YOU know? And if you want further evidence, look no further than my own family: Morio, Mariko, Hana. They are all awesome. Case closed.
Anyways, I finally met another Ogasawara. And here's the kicker: she's CANADIAN!
Introducing Nancy Ogasawara. She's a second generation Japanese-Canadian 4th-year JET from Vancouver area. I was the only Ogasawara she'd ever met, too! We met at Rehab, a bar owned by (obviously) a Canadian guy named Paul. With her was another Japanese-Canadian with the very Japanese name of Oki Toshio. The three of us hung out for a day and they showed me around the old-skool downtown/market area of Naha. It was awesome.
Chunky sugar for Nancy's coffee. And beautifully crafted saucers and cups in the old pottery district Nancy showed me around.
Toshio!
Entering Makishi market. Tons of food, most of which I did not recognize.
Goya. A vegetable that is popular in Okinawa and probably nowhere else in Japan since it is incredibly bitter.
Okinawans eat a lot of pork and are known for using every bit of the pig, as is evidenced by the fact that the head and feet of this poor creature are actually for sale at the market. All the pigs had sunglasses on; perhaps it's the Okinawan version of laying the coins on the eyes of the dead.
Great little neighbourhood in the old pottery district of Tsuboya.
Shiisa. This mythical lion-like creature is usually seen in pairs: male and female. The male shiisa has his mouth open in a roar to scare away evil, bad luck, etc. The female has her mouth closed to keep in all the good stuff: peace, prosperity, harmony, etc. See one adaptation of the legend at: http://www.kantetsuryukarate.com/pages/shisahistory.html
[Above and below]: A perfect little art display space that Toshio knew (Toshio knows of a lot of neat little places like this in Naha). The artist's name is Miyazaki Kenichi. I told myself I would post pictures of his art only if I also plugged his website. http://tokotontokotoko.com/
Great Taiwanese tea shop that Toshio recommended. It was about $8 for a tea so my expectations were high, but the place delivered. It was just shy of performing actual tea ceremony (which takes approximately 4 hours to complete)... this one involved 4 different cups of different sizes and seven steps from pour to drink. It was delicious, though.
No comments:
Post a Comment