Animation (GIF) Unwired in the Hills of Okinawa

Centuries Old Ritual

 

 

Late yesterday afternoon, found me up there, shooting a dance in the mountains.

It's been about four years, since the last time I'd been at this ceremony.

Back then, I ended up, going to the celebrations at the conclusion of the events.

After sipping a few of the local spirits, a bunch of us, piled into taxi cabs.

Off, we went, for a night of drinking and singing.

Once all the sacred things are done, those gals like to unwind a bit.  Me too.

Older But Wiser

 

Knowing, I be shooting a thousand photos or more, I did things differently, this year.

The cameras got packed away and, I sneaked down off the hill.

Then, went to a secret location, to drink, without any of those angels.

Looking back at images taken in 2012, I see several familiar faces from yesterday's shoot.

In the next few weeks, I'll probably be delivering photos to those gals.

If, anybody asks, why I skipped out, last night, I'll have to tell them something.

They're a great group of people, to hangout with and, I don't want to hurt any feelings.

What should I say?

My guardian angel reminded me, I had other stuff to do?

Long Days and Nights Doing Research

Mabuni Cliffs of Itoman

 

 

Friday morning the mission was, to get some photos of the cliffs along the beach in Itoman.

Leaving the office in Kin at 9AM, we arrived here, around noon.

It was sunny and blazing hot so, Doc and I took our time climbing the hills of Mabuni. 

Two cameras, were hauled along with me and, I took a grand total of six photos.

After running some errands, I was back in the office, enjoying some air-conditioning.

The cameras were downloaded, images processed and, I began my research.

It's nice to find a historical link, to help explain, what took place at a site like this.

The link, explaining the cave on yesterday's blog, got thousands of views.

And, it saved me from telling everyone, all the gruesome details of what occurred here.

 That allowed me, to get out of here early last night and get refreshed, for the evening.

It's Called Nominication in Japan

 

Take the Japanese word for drinking (nomi) and, communication.

Put them together, go drinking and communicating. That's nominication.

It's usually done by workers of the same company. Or, it could be family and friends.

Me, I just call it researching and, I'll research with almost anybody.

On the circular route, I take after a day in the hot sun, there's a few bars along the way.

One of them closed at midnight so, I went upstairs to another establishment.

I was sitting at the counter, nominicating with a guy who works at the body shop, downstairs.

All of a sudden, the door flew open and, in came a bunch of  young ladies.

And, one of them was Aki, a favorite performer of mine.

We did some serious nominicating, singing and dancing until the wee hours of the morning.

For example, the photo above was taken at 5:13AM.

 The next all of a sudden thing that happened was, daylight arrived.

This photo was taken at 5:45AM and, I didn't want the wife worrying about me.

So, I ordered one more beer and drank it deliberately. I got home around six.

The good lady, asked me if, I needed any breakfast and, I said, "Nah, I'm not hungry."

It was time for me to get a good 8 hours of sleep, to prepare for Saturday night.

See, I plan on going out to do more research during the cool hours of evening, again !

Honoring Their Grandparents in Okinawa Japan

Motion GIFs from a Preschool Event

 

 

The sky was blue, Saturday morning for my stroll with the dogs.

It started pouring down rain before 8AM. It was typhoon-like weather. Groan.

For sure, I thought the wife would cancel, going to this school assembly.

Having promised, I would be there with a camera, I figured, I'd be going alone.

But, a smart little grandson, called grandma, to tell her, not to miss this event.

These little kids put on a show, you wouldn't believe possible.

They danced and sang and beat drums just like they were professionals.

Once they got offstage, the dancing continued in their classrooms.

Now, I'm not sure if this batch of kids are juniors or, seniors.

Some of them will start kindergarden, next year, I'm told.

The kids played games and, danced with the grandparents.

Brought them gifts, drinks and food and, lots of hugs.

The teachers were involved in the whole event, keeping things organized and its a good thing.

All that love going around can fog-up a cameraman's eyes !

Feeling Blue ? Here's Something You Could Do !

Hit the Road and Get Out of Town

 

 

Okinawa is a pretty small island.  Eventually, all roads lead to the ocean.

March weather can drive a body crazy.

It's officially Spring but, Mother Nature must not have gotten the word, yet.

On one of those cold mornings in March, I hit the beach before the sun did.

And, got to humming this tune.

But, I'm an optimist.  Things ain't really that bad.

We all know, the warm, springtime days are coming our way, soon enough.

So, it's time to start making some travel plans.

It's good to hear to someone else singing the blues in a song.

Before you know it, on a sunny day, a ship will come in.  And, you know who will jump on it.

Try it sometime or at least, take a bus and, get out of town.

Travel Photo: Nightlife in Koza City Okinawa

After spending the day checking out beaches, caves and other islands, it's time for a break.

It's been a few months since we went to Koza for a night of entertainment.

Tonight, a crowd of us will meet at a Live House.

We may end up sipping the local spirits, singing and dancing.

So, I decided to leave the cameras behind.

Maybe, I'll just take notes.

Just in case you don't hear from me in a few days, call the Koza Information Center.

Tell the authorities you're looking for the bearded American guy.

The one wearing yellow flip-flops.

They'll know where to find me.



Party Girls Test Drive the Canon G12 Camera: Photo Essay

Here are the birthday girls who were celebrating in my bar/studio Sunday night in Okinawa, Japan.

Names and ages won't be revealed in case anyone innocent doesn't want attention drawn to them.

There couldn't be a better way to run a camera through its paces than this.  Set everything to AUTO MODE, Pattern Metering, Flash on Auto Red-eye Reduction and turn a bunch of party gals loose with it.  

The G12 decided f/3.2  1/15sec and ISO 400 was the way to go for these, first two photos taken at a focal length of 9mm and 8mm respectively.

Here's why I'm glad I was drinking beer and not the cameraman.  Those freakin peace signs in front of a camera are some kinda reflex action in Japan and drive me absolutely crazy.

This was another f/3.2  1/15  ISO 400 shot taken at 8mm.

Don't ask what's going on in this photo, I have no idea.  It looks like a birthday pie, or something on fire and the gals are practicing some kinda aerial maneuvers like, maybe they saw that Top Gun movie. 

The G12 decided on higher ISOs for this shot.  It went to ISO 640  f/2.8  1/15  6mm.

That's my silhouette, over at the bar, drinking beer and talking to a guy I think I'll start calling RyukyuRu.  All the party gals think he looks like some movie star from Top Gun.  Hah !

It's a little past midnight in this photo and the gals are just doing whatever they do while waiting for someone else to show up.  Drink, gab, and eat.  f/2.8  1/15  ISO 400  lens at 6mm.

After birthday presents are um, presented we get to see some feet.  f/4.5  1/15  ISO 400 at 30mm.

Then, a fanny.  Not sure if it was the shoes, leggings, skirt, or what, that had to do with sticking the fanny out. 

I'm glad all I had to do was drink beer and let someone else do the photos.  f/3.2  1/60  ISO 800  8mm.
                 

This turned out to be one of my favorite photos.

f/2.8  1/15  ISO 400 at a focal length of 7mm.

Another favorite shot was this one.  LOOK NO PEACE SIGNS !   f/2.8  1/15  ISO 400 at 6mm.

Closer to 1:30AM they start posing with bags of munchies, or something.  f/2.8  1/15   ISO 400  at 6mm.

At 3:52AM the party gals are still drinking and singing.  It looks like the flock thinned out a bit. Maybe some went to the powder room or are passed out behind a sofa.  f/2.8  1/60  ISO 400 at 6mm.

There was a typhoon in the area so, with rain and wind expected, everyone decided staying indoors all night long would be a good idea.  Closer to 4AM  f/2.8  1/15  ISO 400  6mm.

At 4:17AM the drinking and singing were still going strong.  f/3.2  1/15  ISO 400  focal length 8mm.

It isn't everyday you'll see me let a bunch of Party Girls test drive one of my cameras but, I had them give it a try so I could do a thorough review on this new machine of mine.  I shoot all my cameras in Manual Mode, exclusively.  That's not for everyone, I know.  I wanted to see how this little Canon performed on its own.  I'm impressed.  These photos are exactly what came out of the camera with some cropping and slight contrast adjustments by me in editing.  Not too shabby.

Canon G12 in the hands of the Party Girls gets a Five Star Rating !

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Japanese Karaoke: An Insider's History of Evolution

Photo from the original article Matador Abroad Singing Karaoke in Japan Published: May 2009

Here’s a brief history of the evolution of Karaoke and Ryukyu Mike in Japan. This article was first published at Matador Abroad in May 2009. Karaoke has evolved from cassettes to laser disks and on into digital media; it is piped through telephone lines, directly into the amplifiers and updated continuously. I’ve evolved, too, only not quite as rapidly, living in Japan. Here’s the latest version.

The Jack Daniels is up there on the shelf (cropped out of the photo) and quit staring at my Niece!

Way back before Karaoke hit the Western world, where it somehow turned into Carry-O-Key, there weren’t 5 or 6 monitors mounted on the walls of the bars. There were no videos accompanying the music and no words streaming across the bottom of the screen. There was no TV in the bar; they were in peoples houses. Bars were for drinking and singing. TV’s were for watching the news, cartoons, soap operas and cooking classes.

On a 17 year stint of bachelorhood, between wives number two and three I found myself doing a lot of bar-hopping. At some point during the night, wherever I was, I’d be asked to sing karaoke by whichever charming hostess I was buying drinks for at the time. “Nah, I don’t sing” was my standard answer and if they kept bugging me, I’d leave, find another bar and fall in love with a different hostess; one who could drink Jack on the Rocks, with me and not be a pain in the neck.

Karaoke, back in those days, consisted of a cassette player, microphone and a book (about the size of a bible); you know that thick book hotels leave on coffee tables.  Oh, yeah, and the really big karaoke bars had a scoreboard, a big, black board with bright LED numbers. An applause meter would give each singer a score based on how much noise the crowd made when the song was over.

Just about every karaoke-joint had the same three songs in English, My Way, Sixteen Tons and You Are My Sunshine. Even if I knew how to sing, none of them would have been on my top-ten list. Hell, I got kicked out of Boy’s Choir for skipping practice; what was I supposed to know about singing?

Well, one night I hit this bar with dozens of pretty hostesses and just the right amount of Jack Daniels in me to give it a try. I’d heard enough Japanese businessmen screw-up My Way, I figured, I couldn’t do any worse. Probably no one in the place knew enough English to understand me, anyway, so, what the heck, when a gal asked me if I could sing, I’d give it my best shot.

Sure enough, before I could finish my first drink, a hostess asked me to sing.

“OK, let me try My Way, I told her”.

I stumbled and fumbled through the song, squinting at the book and trying to make noises along with the music. Frank Sinatra probably rolled over in his grave (or hospital bed, not sure where he was at the time) a few times.

Even, half-plastered, I was self conscious; sweat was dripping off my forehead. The song seemed like it was around two hours long. I belted down the last “my way” nice and loud, set the mike down on the counter, slammed the rest of my drink and looked for the door, in case I had to make a quick exit.

The crowd went wild, the applause meter hit “98”and the owner of the bar brought over a bottle of whiskey half as tall as the girl sitting next to me; my prize for the highest score that night. I shared the bottle with everyone and soon we were all singing Sixteen Tons and You Are My Sunshine.

Now, I’m a karaokeholic and even own a Karaoke Bar.

Jack, I don’t do that anymore. It’s good cold medicine but, Theraflu is probably better for you.

Theraflu doesn’t make you climb trees, buy strange girls drinks or sing karaoke in Japan!

The way things look today. This is what the back of my office/photo-studio/karaoke bar looks like.