{"id":714,"date":"2008-02-04T22:59:57","date_gmt":"2008-02-04T13:59:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2008-02-04\/714"},"modified":"2008-02-04T22:59:57","modified_gmt":"2008-02-04T13:59:57","slug":"old-coral-walls-of-amami","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2008-02-04\/714","title":{"rendered":"Old Coral Walls of Amami"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
<\/a>\nNikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f\/2.8 @ 24mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>80 sec, f\/4, ISO 250 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span><\/span>\nOld Wall Of Coral<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

The roads of southern Japan's Amami Islands used to be lined with walls\nbuilt from dead coral, but now only a few<\/span> such remnants of the past remain.\nDuring our trip\nto Amami<\/a>, we visited the most western village on Kakeroma-jima (the\nisland outlined in purple on this map<\/a>) and found\nsome of the old walls. Some were quite tall, perhaps two meters.<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f\/2.8 @ 40mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>125 sec, f\/5.6, ISO 250 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span><\/span>\nOld Walls of Coral<\/span>\nand lots of sticks\n<\/div>\n\n

The five sticks seen leaning against the walls in the image above are an\nexample of what one often saw while driving around Kakeroma-jima: long\nsticks placed at frequent intervals along the road. It turns<\/span> out that these\nare for pedestrians to fend off habu<\/i><\/a>, poisonous\nsnakes that are active during all but the coldest months. It was sufficiently<\/span> cold while we where there that habu were not a worry,<\/span> but they\nare a real<\/span> concern during most of the year, as their bite is excruciating\nat best, fatal at worst.<\/p>\n\n

When Fumie's grandmother was a little girl, the grandmother's mother\nlost the use of a leg<\/span> to a habu<\/i> bite. One can imagine<\/span> it was\ntraumatic enough for the one losing the leg, but during those hard times (in\nthe 20s? 30s?), it caused great hardship for the entire family.<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f\/2.8 @ 31mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>640 sec, f\/4, ISO 320 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span><\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

I'm not sure how old the coral walls are, but I'd guess at least as old\nas the trees in the picture above. The picture<\/span> below, taken further along\nthe road, also gives some indication of the age.<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f\/2.8 @ 17mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>90 sec, f\/5.6, ISO 320 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span><\/span>\nOld Friends<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The roads of southern Japan's Amami Islands used to be lined with walls built from dead coral, but now only a few such remnants of the past remain. During our trip to Amami, we visited the most western village on Kakeroma-jima (the island outlined in purple on this map) and found some of the old walls. Some were quite tall, perhaps two meters.<\/p>

The five sticks seen leaning against the walls in the image above are an example of what one often saw while driving around Kakeroma-jima: long sticks placed at frequent intervals along the road. It turns out that [...]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}