Travel Photo: Important Cultural Property of Izena Village

This photo was taken on a trip to Izena Island.

It is a building, off to the left of what is known as the Mekaruke Old House.

The buildings on this site have been designated, important cultural properties.

Meikari-ka and Mekarauke, are the terms found in researching this site.

They may simply be different translations of the local dialect.

It is a large estate, for housing, on such a small island.

The property was not destroyed during the Battle of Okinawa and, is well preserved.

One source reveals, that is was the residence of a senior samurai.

King Sho En's uncle Makoto Saburo, resided here.

This Tree Must Be Photogenic

It Came as a Surprise

Goofing around a little past noon on the Island of Izena, I shot this dead tree along the beach.

The photo stayed in my pending files, along with few hundred more, waiting processing.

While developing on one computer, I catch up on social media stuff, on another.

Well, I heard the Facebook thing, go BEEP.

And, when, I checked to see what the Zuckerberganator wanted, I found this tree.

A gal, Heidi shot an image at the same location and posted it while I was developing mine.

So, I let her know, we somehow, missed each other on the island.

  I told her, I would try to get my tree on the blog, that night. But, it didn't happen.

It took awhile for the Awesomenator to process the images, I shot the following night.

Now, I'm wondering. How many other people took photos of this dead tree ?

Flower Photo: Red Tower Ginger (Costus comosus)

Blooming at the Hydrangea Festival

 

Here's another plant the camera captured in the hills of Izena yesterday.

They were blossoming right at the entrance to a shed where you can get refreshments.

After grabbing a quick cup of coffee, I turned my back on all the hydrangea flowers and shot this.

Also known as Spiral Ginger, they are natives of Central and South America.

Still recovering from a wicked cold, I'll just give some links to more information on these beauties.

For medicinal purposes, if you know anyone suffering from gonorrhea, send them here:

National Tropical Botanical Garden

In the USA plenty of people grow them as ornamental plants and talk about them at:

Dave's Garden

Down in Australia there's a guy who knows all about these gingers.  He says they are even edible:

ABC Network Gardening Australia

Friends, who say "See Catherine of Alexandria for the man named Costus often held to be her father":

At Wikipedia, might like you to visit them, too.

It's always fun discovering plants and flowers found on Okinawa and getting them identified for you.

With the Red Tower Ginger, out of my way, I only have a few thousand more left to do !

Thursday Travel Photo: A Fisherman in Nakijin Okinawa, Japan

Meet Shokitan Motoo, a fisherman, spotted today on a beach in Nakijin.

Way off on the horizon is Izena-Jima, the next stop in our island-hopping campaign.

A typhoon is coming to visit us this weekend so, the boat trip is cancelled.

Just being out on a sunny afternoon, watching Shokitan cast his net was good enough for me.

It wasn't a good day for fishing.  The net came back empty.

Shokitan came up on the coral rocks where I was composing photos.

We joked and laughed.

He's going home with no fish and I'm not getting to go to another island.

In Okinawa, people don't worry about petty things.

Everything will come together, someday.  So, don't worry.  No need to get angry.

We joked around and laughed some more. Shokitan has a free photo coming to him. 

It turned out to be a great day.



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