golden week i went with 6 friends to the little known island paradise: ogasawara. believe it or not it's considered a part of tokyo despite its being a 26-hour ferry ride from tokyo. interesting. another interesting tidbit is that there is no airport thus the 26-hour ferry ride is the ONLY way to get there. so we did that. and we slept like sardines.
and played scrabble. we also played cards and for some reason during a game i wanted to say "you guys are playing with the big guns now" but instead i said "you guys are playing with the big lady now"(again, my english is bad as a result of being in japan). thus, for the remainder of the vacation i was affectionately referred to as "Big Lady".
we arrived on the island to find the entire town of chichijima (about 2,000 residents) to greet us (about 1,000 tourists). and this is what the rest of our time consisted of: snorkeling, hiking, swimming, eating, sleeping, relaxing, laughing. it was perfect. i don't even know how to describe how good it was, but i will try...
the first day we rented scooters and headed to the south beaches. this is the nicest beach i've ever been to AND it was virtually empty.
and below is me, not to be mistaken with a mermaid which is what i was going for...disappointed?
i guess not many people enjoy 26-hour boat rides. we snorkeled pretty much all day. we saw: many tropical fish, a stingray, an eel, and sharks. we were lucky enough to have an underwater photographer with us (scott) to capture our experiences under the sea.
we also hiked (that was the only way to get to the beach) through the jungle to John Beach (yet another gorgeous beach). we were the last to leave. i headed out a little earlier than the boys to have some alone time hiking. at which point i took this photo, which i like very much.
ah, and then, the highlight of our time on ogasawara....swimming with dolphins. yep, i have achieved that ridiculous 'life goal'. i put it as one of my 30 life goals in 9th grade along with "learn fluent Spanish" and "keep my hair natural blonde" (to which my teacher replied "honey, no one's gonna take your blonde hair from you.") here is how swimming with dolphins works: you get in a boat and cruise the ocean, you spot some fins surfacing, you jump in the water with them. it's a simple concept really. i'm not going to lie, it was amazing. seeing them play with each other and being able to look them in the eye and swim close-by was thrilling. we were advised not to touch them so of course we didn't. upon getting out of the water brigg joked with our guide about forgetting his dolphin saddle. ha. we got to swim with two different groups and we even got to swim in dolphin poo. yeah, the dolphins pooped right in our faces, but we couldn't have been happier. the poo failed to abate our enthusiasm for the dolphins. our thoughts: "i'm swimming in dolphin poop. this is amazing."
in order to save money we cooked ourselves. we ended up buying the biggest jug of pace picante salsa on the island(about 2 liters) one morning to make mexican omlettes and about 43 hours later used the last of it to complete our second night of taco salad. we ate taco salad three consecutive nights.
it was basically me and these four gentlemen hanging out all week. i took to calling them "my guys". and they of course called me their "big lady". stupid slip of the tongue. i eventually ended up calling myself "big lady" in the third person..."big lady" got a sunburn; "big lady" is hungry; "big lady" likes turtle, etc.
from left to right: john, josh, scott, brigg (aka bunker) and me
we got up early one morning to see the sunrise over the ocean. we headed out via scooters up to one of the mountains overlooking the ocean. sugoi kirei deshita.
our last days were spent snorkeling, hanging out with some locals (our guide for the dolphin swimming, Hiroshi, the ALT, Allen, and a surfer dude named Tsu), trying some local cuisine including raw turtle (i know, i know, it's not exactly kosher...but it was surprisingly tasty), and for me getting up early and drawing/reading on the beach. it was such a great vacation.
we said goodbye to our newly made friends at the dock. the whole community, once again, came to see the boat off. they followed in boats and threw flowers yelling "arigato gozaimasu" and "return soon". some people even jumped in and continued waving from the water. we all thought "what if we just jump in too and stay?" to add insult to injury on the way out to the ocean we saw whales. two of them. i'm not sure what kind because they weren't close enough. there were also flying fish riding the waves next to the boat. we once again asked ourselves "why again are we leaving?" ah.
ok, well, i guess you can't stay in paradise forever, but at least i can say i did it right when i was there.
