So Friday morning, I'm looking forward to the weekend and going to Naha City's port for the city's annual Dragon Boat races. But Friday's assigned duty NCO for the barracks is not available. Some horse trading goes around to find a replacement, and *bam* I get volunteered.

It's a Friday night after a week of long workdays. Everyone just got paid. It's going to be a long night.

Anyway, much drinking and partying happens. I only have to exert my authority a couple of times, and we had to call PMO (cops) and an ambulance at about 0200, but hey, that's a Friday night in Okinawa for you. It all means that I manage to grab a two-hour nap overnight, and when I am relieved at 0730, I am dead tired. The races start at 0930, but I need sleep.

So sleep I accomplish, and when I get up, it's raining. I check the weather forecast. It's going to keep raining all day. It's not like I should be shocked, it is still the rainy season here. But Wednesday through Friday had been lovely, and I was hopeful.

But hey, may as well get out of the barracks. I grabbed my tripod, loaded my camera bag, signed the liberty logbook, and caught a taxi. There was some confusion as to my desitination, because the driver couldn't figure out "Naha dragon boat races" in English, and I couldn't get him to understand "Naha hari" either. Because, it's not "hari", it's "hârî". Not a Japanese word, but a Ryukuan word. And while I've been learning some Japanese, I don't know anything about proper Ryukuan pronunciation.

Miming paddling didn't do the trick either, but I always keep a pen and a bit of paper on me, so I sketched a dragon boat, and the driver's eyes lit up and he said "Hârî!" and I said "Hai, hai!" and off we went.

I got there and it was still raining. My camera bag has a cool little built-in raincoat that tucks into a pocket at the bottom and is pulled out to cover the whole bag in ripstop nylon water repellency. So I wandered around a bit.

The harborside park was in full carnival mode, with dozens of food stands, vicious competition between Orion and Kirin beer stands, and lots of sideshow games. There was a go-cart track, a bouncy castle, all the stuff you'd see at a county fair back in the states. Two stages had local entertainers showing off their musical chops, and throngs of people, well, thronged the place. Okinawa's kind of like Buffalo, in that no one cares about a little rain.

I bumped into my unit XO, who was trying to gather his scattered children to leave. From him I learned that the Marine boat had raced a good three hours earlier. Whoops. They'd come in second in their heat, and were not going to advance. Whoops again. I'd been wanting to take some photos of my friends competing, but clearly that was not to be.

The rain tapered off, and I managed to find a spot where I could take some decent photos. Three boats run in a heat; they head about 500 meters, turn around a bouy, and race back towards the start. The first race I got a little annoyed... there was this Okinawa dude with a big yellow flag in my way as the boats were coming down the homestretch. Then I realized that the flag was the victory flag, and that I'd lucked into a spot directly on the finish line. Serendipity strikes I suppose.

I photographed two heats, then abandoned my post to get some nutrition. Even when it's raining, Okinawa is hot, and one must stay hydrated. Plus, I'd never eaten breakfast. So I had some Kochakaden (lemon ice tea) and some Okinawa soba with pork. Delicious.

I next enjoyed some of the traditional music being played. There was a young woman in a kimono playing a sanshin and singing. I used my pocket camera to take some video of her. Next to me in the back of the crowd were two local gentlemen, one of about my age and one of a generation older. When they saw me recording, they became very excited and tried to talk to me in rapid-fire Japanese. I was trying to keep my camera steady, and they were talking fast, so all I got was that they seemed excited to see me doing what I was doing. Then the lady finished singing, the MC thanked her, she bowed and left the stage, cased her instrument, and circled the crowd, heading straight for me. I mean, sure, I didn't see anyone else filming, but my personality isn't that magnetic!

She arrived and started talking to the two, and to me, and all became clear. The young man was her boyfriend, the older man was her father, and they were excited that I had thought her performance worthy of recording. They wanted to see the footage. So I played it back, and they were thrilled, although I was kind of embarassed, because I missed the start of the song, and the camera was a little jittery. But I promised to email the boyfriend a copy of the video, and we parted among much bowing.

By this time the preliminary heats were over, and it was getting towards time for the playoffs. I found a beautiful spot near the turnaround bouys right up against the rope railing that kept people out of the water, and was getting all ready. No heads in the foreground for me this time! I felt a bump into my lower leg from behind. I looked down and there was this cute little kid trying to see past my legs. I'm not great at guessing children's ages, but he was probably four. On my other side was his sister, perhaps six. Behind me was their mother, terribly embarassed that her children had disturbed me.

I had a great spot all picked out, I was there first... but if two little kids want to see something exciting, I can deal with some heads in my foregrounds. I backed up a step, shoo'd the kids into my place, bowed to the now even-more embarassed mother, and took photos from behind.

I took some more photos of that first playoff round, but by then it was almost five o'clock. The sun doesn't set until seven, but with the clouds, my light was failing. So I packed my camera and walked out in search of a cab. This being Okinawa, they were in plentiful style; I rode home and called it a day.

Expect my photos to be on flickr "real soon now", as I need to finish marking up my Korean photos first.

Posted by: Boviate at 06:03 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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