Jun 26, 2008

Hurry!! The tide is coming!

This time I am going to tell you about a day trip I had with my class. Obviously all the explanations were in Japanese, so I didn’t understand everything, but I will do my best.

The trip took place in Awase's tide land. What is tide land you must ask yourself… well; this is the land that reveals itself when the tide is low. Apparently it can be a huge mass of land, not just a few meters. In Awase, it was a hundred and something Hectares (I think). Sadly, I have no idea how big a Hectare is, so it doesn't really help me. But I can tell you this – there was a lot of land there.

So what is so special about this Awase Tide Land? One – it has lots of species that are unique for this place – crabs, shellfish, seaweed, etc. Also, they are filling it up with land, so it will be suitable for construction. You can see the conflict – environmentalists on one hand and constructors on the other. One of the stupid things with this conflict is that they have no actual plan of what to do with this land once it is filled up…

Anyway, we went there to see what the fuss is all about. It was real nice (although a bit exhausting). We saw starfish, crabs, shellfish and all kinds of other stuff.

At one point the instructor told us to look for shellfish and collect them. I wondered why we are doing this, and asked one of the guys.

Guess what the answer was?

To eat them!!!!

When we came back to the assembly point, the instructor showed us how to open the shellfish, cut them open, clean the blood… and eat them, as they are.

Then he offered each one a bite. When I was offered I was in a big dilemma. In the end I decided that I am here to experience new things and ate it. Obviously, everybody was laughing because of the face I made.

The taste was OK, but the texture was slimy, and the concept of eating something just like this was quite hard for me…

Now, for what really interests you – the pictures…

This is a leg. (I am sure I had a reason to take that picture...)


This is a cool crab. It was kinda aggressive...

And this is a starfish.


Looks small, doesn't it? Well it is quite big actually:

3 comments:

Unknown said...

זה נשמע ממש מגניב!!
במסגרת איזה קורס טיילתם ככה?
וד"א
Hactares = A unit of area equal to 10,000 square meters

Eli said...

נשמע טעים , אבל יש דברים שבאמת עדיף לעיתים לבשל :) , שאלה שאולי טיפשית , האם לאי בו אתה נמצא ואולי ליפן בכלל היה תרבות ים ענפה ? ואם כן האם היה משהוא שדומה לציים או פירטים וכו ? ואם לא היה - אז איך זה ?

האם היה קשה לשחות משום כל המים הרדודים? , נשמע כאילו אפשר לראות ממש אלמוגים וכו,

אלי

Y. Raphael said...

אה, שכחתי לציין - זה הקורס של המנחה שלי (אם אני לא טועה, זו הרגל שלו)

לגבי השחייה - אי אפשר לשחות שם ממש, אלה מים רדודים עד הברך לרוב, שאכן מלאים בשוניות.

והציים - היו ציי סוחר, והיו פיראטים, אבל בעיקר עד סוף המאה ה16, אח"כ הוטלו איסורים חמורים על הכניסה והיציאה מיפן, אז זה לא היו ציים של ממש.
כאן באוקינאווה, שלא הייתה חלק מיפן (למרות שהייתה בשליטתה מהמאה ה-17) היה סחר, אבל לא נראה לי שציי ענק או משהו כזה - פשוט ספינות סוחר ששטו לסין ויפן.