March 20th '06 - City Bus Ride

Today I learned how to read a bus schedule in a language I absolutely cannot read. From the base community center we had picked up instructions which told us how to take the bus to the local landmarks. As informative as they were, they did not explain the frequency of the different busses that it recommended we take to get to these places. We stood at the bus stop for what seemed like forever, particularly to Robert. There was no name or number on the bus stop and I was beginning to doubt either the integrity of our cab driver or our ability to communicate clearly.
We noticed people stopping by a piece of paper tacked to a pole. One person copied information from the page into his cell phone. Rob pointed out to me that it was the bus schedule and based on his experience in Korea he showed me how to read the numbers. The number 90 bus which we needed to take only came once an hour and we just happened to arrive exactly in the middle of that hour. Fortunately by the time we figured that out we only had 15 minutes left so I relaxed and spent some leisure time taking photos and watching Okinawans as they progressed along their ordinary paths.

We rode the bus for almost an hour. We would pass several stops before our lit-up fare number would change. When you get on the bus you take a ticket. The number on that ticket signifies at which number stop you got on, kind of like the New Jersey Turnpike. We held on to our tickets very carefully because we weren't sure what would happen if you lost it and didn't know which number stop you got on - would you pay full fare just like the turnpike? Anyway, that number matches a number on the box above the driver's head. Every so many miles the light-up board will change just like cab fare. Busses take only coins and since bus fare came to almost $9 for each of us Rob had to carry huge pocketfuls of change.The only way that we knew which bus stop was ours was to watch for the price that our instructions told us it would cost to get to our stops. It was a little scary but people were very nice. They would overhear where we were trying to go and point us in the right direction.
We also learned that just because a bus had the right number didn't mean it was going in the right direction. Sometimes it was necessary to cross the street to catch the bus going the right way. We learned this after putting $2 in a fare box and then as an afterthought Rob asked the driver before we got on if we were headed the right way. It was kind of embarrassing and we felt pretty clueless, but we just shrugged it off and ran across the street to wait for the next bus.

Riding the city bus is a good way to get a new perspective on the city and it's people. Instead of riding around looking through the glass of the private taxi or car in your own little world you become part of everyone else's daily lives as a silent observer but also part of the routine. We rode in the back of the bus and sometimes someone boarding the bus would glance our way noticing the strangers at the back. It would be ridiculous to say that we didn't stand out as strangers since we looked so differently from everyone else - not too many blondes and even fewer redheads - I was a minority of one everywhere we went. Although different personalities emerged there did seem to be a uniformity among the people on the bus, particularly among the young people. Shag hairstyles are in here, but it seems to be popular to make it look as though they cut their hair with a straight razor themselves leaving long ragged tails in an unkempt sort of look. Both boys and girls wear this style making it hard to tell the difference between them if the girls didn't wear skirts as part of their school uniforms.

One brochure we read after arriving said that although the northern beaches of the island are beautiful, the populated areas of Okinawa are ugly. I wouldn't entirely agree with that although the city landscape too seems to have uniformity. Perhaps that is a result of the entire island being turned to rubble during the 60 days of the Battle of Okinawa. Up until those 60 days the city looked exactly as it had for the past 300 years. Okinawa is a very different city now. When the cities were rebuilt there was very little of the traditional Japanese style put into the structures. It's made up of concrete block-style houses, built close together and stacked on top of each other. Although this is a matter of functionality - they are actually built to withstand typhoons - I can't help but to wonder if it's an emotional reaction to the horror of such a war - as though all the beauty was wiped out - gone forever from the soul of the survivors. Perhaps it was just practicality - the cheapness of the building materials used - war brought financial devastation and Okinawa is still the poorest part of Japan - but to me the houses look like battle ships themselves, an image reinforced by the metal smoke-stack looking tubes on the top of each building which are actually individual water towers so necessary to island living. There has been very little attempt to make them beautiful - they are simply functional.

Miniature cars are parked everywhere, underneath and close to buildings on the sidewalks as though stowed-away in the basement. It's like a miniature futuristic city with every inch inhabited and fully utilized. We passed a fire station on our bus ride and it reminded me of a lego set. There was an over-sized replica of a fire-hydrant out in front with what I assume was the name of the station in kanji on it. Even the fire trucks were smaller and rounded like space vehicles. As though to counteract the gray there are colorful banners everywhere. Soda machines every 10 feet that are wide and brightly lit displaying plastic replicas of the 30 or so drinks each one offers. There are no garbage cans on the streets but the streets are clean except next to these vending machines where people neatly stack the cans they emptied while waiting for buses. I was concerned about the stacks and wondering why they at least wouldn't place a recycling bin next to them and Rob said, "don't worry, someone will come by for them. Sure enough, just as our bus approached an old lady walked up with a white plastic trashbag and was intently examining each can, turning it upside down to empty the meager left-over contents before carefully putting it in her bag.

Despite the uniformity and shabbiness of so many of the buildings I can't help but like Okinawa. There are children playing carefree everywhere and smiles are returned on the streets. The island is reported to have the highest number of centenarians in all of Japan. The mild weather, slower pace and healthy diets are said to be the cause. Sounds a bit like Monterey to me.