Today was a very fun day out with Otousan! It was a national holiday, the Day of the Sea, so in the morning I went again with Otousan to the Okinawan Prefectural Museum, because it had a new exhibit that looked very interesting and I wanted to see. I had seen the pamphlet of the exhibit, and while I did not understand the Japanese I knew it was about various masks, based on the pictures. The masks seemed very interesting in the pamphlet, which is why I wanted to see it. I had initially thought they were all made by one person, but I realized today they are actually vary old artifacts from various country’s national treasuries, brought to the Prefectural Museum for an exhibit.

Anyway, the masks were even more splendid than I expected! They were truly from countries all over the world, including India, Thailand, various prefectures in Japan, Pacific Islands, Congo, Nigeria, America, Canada, Mexico, etc. (It’s funny, now, looking back, there were no masks from Europe — the closest place to Europe was Greenland. And coming to think of it, I have never even heard about cultural masks is Europe; did they even exist?). Anyway, the exhibit was four huge rooms, and must have had way over 100 different masks. I loved noting the various cross-cultural influences in various masks — for example, the Dragon in the Thai masks definitely resembled Japanese -and/or Chinese dragons, but the gold ornamentation on and around it’s face definitely resembled Indian crowns. Such influences and inter-relation (despite castly different times of creation) were visible in all the madks, though I do not know enough about most of the ither cultural arts to determine where specific influences were from.

Also, the range of materials the masks were made out of really surprised me. There was wood and stone, of course, there were also some of metal, and some even of tree bark and/or dried leaves! Also the range of styles of paint, from the shiny glazed paints to much more dull, natural colors.

At the end of the exhibit they had a bunch of various masks drawn my elementary and middle school children, and then they had replicas of some of the masks to try on. I tried them all and took pictures, which you’ll get when I come back. It was very fun.

Anyway, after that we also went to the actual museum (in the prefectural museum building there is a regular museum about Okinawa, an art museum, and then various rooms for temporary exhibits,) because last time we were kid of rushed and did not see everything. I learnt a lot about the biology of Okinawa, as well as more about the history of the Ryukan Kingdom, which was very interesting.

Anyway, after that, since the Museum Cafe had no vegetarian food, Otousan and I headed to Naha Main Place, across the street, where we ate amazing Soba and Tenbura. The Soba had Bhindi, Egg, Spinach, Mushrooms, and Seaweed on various sides (and we poured soy sauce in as the liquid base) and I actually had many different kids of Tenpura I had never had before, such as Tenpura of a certain leaf that I still don’t know the English name of, and Potato Tenpura. Anyway, after that, since there was a Cinema in the mall Otousan suggested we watch a movie and asked which interesting movies were running now, and I, of course, said Spiderman! (BTW, Avengers doesn’t release here till mid August!). So anyway, we went to see Spiderman in English 3 D (English because Otousan can understand English very well, and the English one has Japanese subtitles while the Japanese one didn’t have English Subtitles.). Anyway, it was amazing. I don’t remember much of the first Spiderman but I am pretty sure it is not a remake of the first one in that in that the story was different (like Peter’s life story was the same but I am pretty sure the villain and the conflict and such, the action-plot line, were all different.). Anyway, I really enjoyed it — I felt the old Peter Parkers did a better job than the new one, but the new Gwen did a better job (is it just me or did she act in either the old spiderman’s or the batman’s?). But I am pretty sure they are trying to start a whole new series separate from the old one, especially based on the ending which definitely foreshadows a pending sequel! I did not feel the story was lacking in any way, and the 3D was amazing at certain parts (though, like any 3D movie, most of it is just average, there are maybe one or two scenes where it is really good.)

Anyway, after that Otousan and I walked to the Monorail Station and rode it to Otousan’s bookstore, where he bought a couple of books. The Monorsil was very very cool, and the Bookstore was HUGE! We then walked back home (again, city vs. suburb; in a city you can walk to a bookstore — in Fremont even if there were one it would not be walking distance!)

After returning home, we had a fabulous dinner. I had also gotten a mail from one of Otousan and my old Okaasan’s sibling, which had a CD and was a belated birthday present. She had sent in a fax about my birthday to a radio station, and they wished me happy birthday in front of the whole of Okinawa (or whoever had been listening to the radio at that time) which was VERY, VERY nice! After that I spent about an hour playing Go! Against myself and reading an English book Otousan had got about Go! — it is really a very interesting and mind- requiring game! There are so many possible moves and such and being able to see the consequences of the various possibilities requires a lot of skill! And you also must keep the layout of the whole board in mind, and cannot focus only on one area!

Anyway, that’s all for tonight. It was a very, very fun day. Goodnight!