In Ishigaki

I am now on Ishigaki Island in Okinawa Prefecture, Japan.
I originally planned to arrive here on the 12th, but today is the 14th.
2 days late.
I am on island time. Shima jikan.
Ima chotto tsukarete iru kedo, nagai kan burogu wo shite inai.
It's weird... I know my Japanese is shitty but slipping into using it seems a lot easier now that I am surrounded by native speakers.
My last post was about Yonaguni. That must have been about 4 or 5 days ago.
Yonaguni was awesomr, or as Keizen-san would have me say, "Pisshari."
Keizen is from Kobe originally、but no Japanese person that I have met since leaving Yonaguni has any idea what "Pisshari" means, even people from Kobe.
In these small islands of Okinawa, the Ryukyus, the Yaeyama islands, there are many dialects known as hougen. I do not think that "pisshari" is hougen. Or Kansai-ben. I think it is Keizen-ben.
Anyway, there is a lot to tell about Yonaguni, but too much has happened since I left there to do a recounting now. This blog's accounting of Yonaguni will be like my pictures of the place: selective and not adding up to the whole. I do not even think I grabbed any shots of Yonaguni houses or typical neighborhoods. They were interesting. All tile roofed. All very simple.
As mentioned in an earlier post, I did meet with a woman named Ikema Nae. She runs a kind of museum called the YOnaguni Minzoku Shiryokan, out of her home. It is basically a cultural artifact museum of things she kept while growing up on Yonaguni. She showed me some old pictures of the island and some traditional ceremonies. She also took me outside and taought me to take the spiny Adan plant and make it into a windmill toy.
She wrote the only existing Japanese to Donan dictionary. (Donan is Yonaguni:s native laguage.)
Anyway, I am nodding off here.
I thought I would write about Iriomote about I keep falling asleep in this hotel lobby and I just heard the guy on staff clear his throat rather loudly.
Tomorrow, I am meeting Tom Sawyer Diving Company across the street to dive with manta rays at "Manta Scramble" in Ishigaki.
Tonight I had a great dinner at a place called SUSHITAROU. I and some friends met the host of that place a few nights ago at Toshio-san's place..
OK, I just fell asleep again and heard the guy clear his throat loudly again so I better wrap this up and have energy to dive with the mantas tomorrow.
Mata ne.