Okinawa for Golden Week - 2nd - 6th May

For the second long weekend of Golden Week, Todd and I decided to spend it together on the beautiful island of Okinawa! Since booking the plane tickets months ago, we had been getting more and more excited until finally May 2nd saw us getting up early to start the long journey to Okinawa.

Getting there was no problem, the flight taking just over 2 hours, but straight away we encountered a little set-back. Before coming, we had decided to book a hire car for the four days we were there. We had it all booked ready for when we arrived at Naha airport. However, once we finally found the guy in charge of getting us on a bus to the care hire place, we stumbled into a problem. Our names were not on the list! The guy made a call to the shop and luckily we were told that it was ok and we got on the bus and arrive at the shop in less than 10 minutes. Here we started to get a bit indignant. Todd had received a confirmation email just two days before, why was our booking not on their system?! We soon felt foolish though as we were told our mistake - we had booked to pick up the car from a different shop in Naha, not the airport one! Whoops! Feeling very embarrassed we were relieved to find out that they had a car available for us to use at exactly the same price. When we saw our car for the weekend we started to slightly thank our stupidity as, when we booked online, we had chosen the smallest car possible but the one we were given was definitely not in that category! It definitely turned better than we expected and although we still felt stupid, we also had huge grins on our faces as we drove away from the place! What was even better about this car was its built-in navigation system which had an option to find directions via a phone number. Thanks to my anal planning skills I had made a list of every place we were going to (in the order we were going) with their phone numbers, so navigation was not going to be a problem this weekend! Thinking it over afterwards we've realised that actually what we did was a very easy mistake to make. We found the car hire website via Naha airport's website, and when we booked the car it asked us for our flight information. To us, all that screamed that we were getting a car from the car hire's airport shop, so we stopped feeling so bad about ourselves after that.

Yay car!

View from the hotel room

So we had planned to spend the first part of the trip in the North Island, basing ourselves in the city of Nago. We took the expressway to our hotel which spanned the entirety of the island (the expressway, not our hotel!) and couldn't believe it when our toll was only 900yen (that’s really cheap). This trip was getting better and better. We checked into our hotel easily and were pleasantly surprised to see that we had a sea view.

Because of the car hire mix up we didn't have too long to relax before we were back out ready for dinner. This trip happened to coincide with our 1 year anniversary (yay) so we decided to do something special for it. This meant Okinawan buffet dinner and a show which happened to be in a restaurant in a beautiful hotel. So that was really nice to go a bit classier than we would be for the rest of the holiday and it felt like a real treat entering a place like that. Dinner started at 6 with the show starting at 7 so we had a good hour to sample the local delicacies on offer. Obviously I ate too much but it was a great way to get acquainted with the Okinawan food and everything was really delicious. The show was also great - very colourful with lots of drums, and we had a great view with no one in front of us blocking the way. The show centred on traditional Okinawan dancing and music and it was extremely vibrant and enjoyable to watch. After the show we headed back to the hotel for a celebratory glass of wine before sleep.

Plenty to choose from

Round one!

 

Trying to pretend that we were actually staying here!

Looking at our route

Friday saw us up early heading north to Hiji waterfall. This was a really beautiful trek through a forest that ended in a large waterfall. We got there early (before it opened) and made sure we were the first to go in so we were the first people to make it to the waterfall, having it all to ourselves for a good 5 minutes before other people came along to ruin our shots. It was a really nice walk there and back taking just under 40 minutes each way, and it was nice seeing all the nature around us, but I had a few horrible moments as well when I realised I'm not really a nature girl at heart. The first was when I was walking in front and I accidentally walked into a snake on the path which freaked both of us out. To be fair it was a pretty pathetically small snake, but I am not a huge fan so having one on my shoe was definitely not a comfortable experience (the thought of it now still makes me feel a little ill) and after that I made Todd go first. Soon after this encounter, whilst I was still recovering we then spotted two very large mukade off the side of the path. Mukade are large Japanese centipedes that are poisonous and if you get bitten you should probably go to the hospital pretty quickly. Luckily these two mukade seemed to be minding their own business and didn't seem too bothered when Todd put his hand (bravely/stupidly) next to one so we could show a size comparison. Creepy! We made it to the waterfall and back without any injuries though and by this time were ready for lunch.

I was excited by how big the leaves were!

All the water in Okinawa was so clear!

Horrible!

This is what we came to see!

Ordering our lunch

Before we came on this trip, I had found a webpage that listed cafes, bars, restaurants and general places to eat in Okinawa. I stumbled upon a place that sounded awesome so we decided to set out to that. It was a bit of a mission to find it - our satnav took us down a tiny footpath before leaving us to our own devices when it spat us out in a field! But we made it in the end. It turned out that we were the only people there and the place gave off a kind of horror film feel with how isolated it was, but we were greeted with a smile and chose a salad and pizza from the menu. We were then given another menu, but this didn't have food on it - it was a menu of places we could eat in the vicinity. Already spotting the tree house (and reading about it on the internet) it was an easy decision for us on where we wanted to eat and we soon found ourselves up in the tree house looking over the valley below and out towards the ocean in the distance. We were just getting over the novelty of the place when we were boosted in novelty fun by the use of the pulley system where our food was placed on a tray at the bottom and hoisted up to us on our platform! It was amazing. If that wasn't enough there was also a fireman's pole that allowed us to quickly drop down from our platform. The pizza was delicious and it was a bit of a shame to leave, but we had plans that needed to be followed. There was time for a quick swing (yup, they even had a swing set up!) before we were away to our next destination - Pineapple Park!

Our choice of table!

Great view!

Gives a new meaning to having lunch sent up!

 I was actually really excited about this place, mainly to try to pineapple chocolate and wine in the gift shop, but we had a little informative tour before we could get our hands on these things. So the tour was only very little but great fun! We were driven around in our own golf buggy type of car that was decorated with pineapple fittings! We were driven around on a path between fields and different types of pineapples (did you know that there are 200 different types of edible pinapples?!) whilst an audio guide gave us some information. It was very fun and pretty informative and we couldn't stop laughing at what we were doing and the whole concept of it. Then we were spat out at the gift shop where I got to sample many different wines, both pineapple and others before choosing my personal favourites to buy. These were the sweet pineapple white wine, and the red wine which was a mixture of pineapples and grapes. The white wine only made it back to the hotel, but I still have 2 bottles of the red wine to consume at my pleasure in the coming months. I bought some tasty chocolates (chocolate coated pineapple pieces) and some pineapple cookies for my school. Then it was sadly time to leave and make our way to Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium.

This is what we were taken around in!

Not actually driving... don't worry!

 Tiny cute pineapples!

Couldn't help ourselves!

 Now I'm not really a fan of aquariums but Todd really wanted to see it, and it is the largest aquarium in Japan (maybe), or something like that. And it is currently one of the only aquariums to hold whale sharks, so I felt that I should probably go. When we got there we had a bit of time to kill as I wanted to go in at 4pm when the ticket price was reduced. Luckily there were things to do before you entered the aquarium, my favourite being the manatee house. Actually it was a bit depressing because there wasn't anything interesting in the manatees' tank but seeing as manatees are my 3rd favourite animal, I was incredibly happy just watching them swimming round and round and up and down. It was interesting to watch how they used their flippers to propel themselves along the floor. For being quite large creatures and for having the horrible nickname of seacow, they really are quite elegant in the water.

 

 After the manatees we stopped in to see the sea turtles and caught the end of a dolphin show. This was nice apart from the scariest dolphin monster thing I have ever seen! This thing was hideous and horrifying and I would not want to be in the water with it! It was huge too! They had normal looking dolphins too so we watched them for a bit before heading towards the area called Emerald Beach. Here was clear as anything water and bright white sand. There were three beaches in the area - the beach for swimming, the beach for playing, and the beach for viewing, and it was very pleasant to meander along each of the beaches seeing what they had to offer.

Terrifying!

Then it was back up the aquarium to check out the whale sharks. Like I said before, I'm not a huge fan of aquariums so I didn't spend long looking at each tank to watch its inhabitants. This was another matter when we got to the main attraction of the aquarium - the huge Kuroshio (Black Current) tank filled with manta rays, bonito, yellow-fin tuna and three giant whale sharks! It was pretty fascinating watching these giant creatures swim around and around and it made me feel very small watching them. However, it soon became apparent that there are only so many photos you can take of these things before they become the same so we headed out into the sunlight and back to the hotel.

The aquarium

Really thick glass!

Having an early start and lots of walking in the day, we decided we wanted to do something really casual for the evening. This turned out to be dinner at A&W (an American burger/fast food restaurant) in which I was incredibly excited to find they served curly fries! Yum! It's the simple things but the fact I haven't seen a curly fry since leaving England made me extremely happy to get some now. We didn't feel bad about going to this place as I never had it before and we don't have it in Tokushima so it was a rare treat. This was followed by Okinawan Blue Seal ice cream and then we headed back to the hotel for pineapple wine before crashing once again into bed.

The next day we were heading back south to spend our last two nights in Naha. Before getting to our new hotel, we decided to check out a few of the sights on the way. First up was Nakagusuku castle which is now not really a castle but castle ruins. The castle was built in the early 15th century to defend against attacks from the east. The six courtyards of the fortress with stacked stone walls make it a prime example of a gusuku (the type of castles at the time). This was great to wander around and the weather was perfect for it. It was hard to imagine what it looked like in its prime, which was a little annoying for me, but it was still interesting to walk through.

 

Next up was Shuri castle - the palace of the Ryukyu Kingdom. In 1945, during the Battle of Okinawa, it was almost completely destroyed but in 1992 reconstruction began on the original site, based of photos, records and memory. This was a little more crowded as it is more of a tourist destination but again it was great to walk through the various gates and buildings. The colour and decoration was in itself incredibly interesting to see. We also got there at the right time to see a performance of the traditional Okinawan dance, but as we had already seen this on Thursday night we didn't watch all of it, instead choosing to move on to see the castle itself. *As a quick additional note, traditional Okinawan dancing is incredibly slow and therefore pretty boring to watch after a time which is another reason we didn't hang around too long, though we did get to see a guy dance for the first time.

After this we strolled down the road to check out Tamaundun Mausoleum - a mausoleum built for Ryukyuan royalty in 1501. Eighteen kings are entombed at Tamaudun, along with their queens and royal children.

Because we finished these things a lot more quickly than expected we had more time on our hands so decided to fit in one last activity for the day. This turned out to be a trip to Okinawa World, a cute little 'themed' park where you can witness (and try) various Okinawan crafts as well as explore it's Gyokusendo cave - a 5000 meter long cave that was formed approximately 300,000 years ago, of which the public can walk through 890m. Our main down moments of the holiday came in Okinawa world. Although we enjoyed it when we were there, it took us an hour to park, and queue to get tickets into the park as it was packed with children for the holiday. We got in though and it was fun to look around the little shops and buy a few souvenirs, we then made our way back to the start of the park where the entrance to the cave was. This was where we made a slight cock-up. Not really paying too much attention to the little brochure we were given upon entering the park, we didn't check where the exit of the caves was. Anyway, we went through these spectacular caves checking out the amazing stalactites and stalagmites that filled vast caverns and swamped the cave ceilings. It was really impressive and the walk, although tiring, was constantly filled with new things to see (walking on walkways over crystal clear water, sometimes spotting a fish or two) however towards the end my feet started to drag and I was looking forward to getting back out into the sunlight and on towards our hotel. We neared the exit (taking a long escalator up) and we both began speculating where we would come out of. I don't think it is exaggerating to say that our hearts sank as we realised quickly that we had been spat out at the very end of the place - a good 15 minutes walk back to the entrance of the park (one that we had done before heading into the cave in the first place!). Yes, because of our lack of proper planning, instead of doing one circuit of the entire place we had chosen to walk it up and down twice!! To say we were a little frustrated is toning it down somewhat, and it was a very quiet and quick walk back through the place to the car. Spirits soon rose as we got back into the car and typed in the directions for our hotel - only a 30 minute drive away.

Thousands of stalactites hanging from the ceiling.

The drive wasn't too bad and I think we were both pleasantly surprised by how little traffic there was seeing as we were driving through the middle of Naha City, but we made it through with only a little delay and were soon relaxing in our next nice hotel. We had splashed out a bit and had booked a room with a sea view (the hotel was called Beach Side and that pretty much describes it) we were a little disappointed at first as in front of our beach view was slightly obstructed by a large road, but after checking it out for a little bit we decided that the road wasn't busy enough to be a problem, and later found out that it was actually a great opportunity for people watching (and who doesn't like that?!) Anyway, we were really happy with the room and especially happy that we had this nice view with a balcony we could use to really enjoy the Okinawan weather and our last few days on the island.

So after a quick relax it was time to head out once again (our poor feet!) to one of the most popular/famous shopping streets in Okinawa - Kokusai Dori. Kokusai Dori, translated as ‘International Road’, is Naha's main street, stretching for roughly two kilometers through downtown Naha, and is lined by restaurants, cafes, bars, hotels, souvenir shops, boutiques and department stores. We really wanted to check this street out as it sounded really entertaining, and according to the reviews on the hotel's website, it was only a 20 minute walk away so we were quite happy to make our way there on foot. Well it might have been a 20 minute walk for someone who had done nothing leading up to it, but for us who had done nothing but walking for the last two days it definitely took us a bit longer and by the time we got to the street, the thought of walking up and down it made me want to cry a little! However, not letting that stop us, we gritted our teeth and began to walk down the street. Ignoring the pain, it really was a good evening of walking around and seeing what the street had to offer. All of the many souvenir shops were brightly lit and inviting and usually interestingly decorated.

We were absolutely spoilt for choice by the amount of eating establishments down the road, but still we hadn't found anything that really grabbed our attention, even after a good 20 minutes of walking! Eventually we decided on a point in the distance where we would stop going forward and would turn around and look for somewhere to eat. Happily at the exact place we chose happened to be the place we decided to eat! Although we were keeping an eye out for some more traditional food, we couldn't help ourselves when we stumbled onto a kind of American burger joint. We got in and immediately knew we had made the right decision. We both ordered awamori based cocktails (the local liquor in Okinawa) and also a shot of Habu sake each.


Habushu (habu sake) is an awamori-based liquer that is first mixed with various herbs and honey giving the clear liquid a yellow hue, and then has a pit viper (Habu) inserted into the liquid and stored until consumed. Some brands of habushu come with the snake still inside the bottle. So obviously we had to try some of this (and yes the snake was still in the bottle!).

So after taking a few photos and me being more than a little disturbed, we both took our shots and felt a weird sense of accomplishment. The taste wasn't too bad but for me it is definitely a one-time thing and not a shot I need to have again. After the drinks were ordered the food quickly arrived and we tucked into a blue cheese burger with chili cheese fries and a stack of onion and goya rings on the side (goya being Okinawan bitter melon) It was very delicious and we were happy we managed to walk so far so that we could discover this place. Then we started heading back down the street looking for another place to get a quick drink. We stumbled upon a supposedly reggae bar, but when we turned up the place gave off more of a jungle vibe. It was still great fun and we both had a cocktail each whilst enjoying the atmosphere. By the time we had finished our drinks we were both completely wiped so we decided to postpone our pub crawl (indefinitely) and head back to the hotel. We quickly grabbed an ice cream and hailed a taxi, not wanting to walk another step. We got back to the hotel quickly and I didn't take long in getting into my courtesy pajamas and crawling into bed. Bliss!

Anyone remember this awesome game?!

Which leads us into our last full day on the island. Wanting to keep the next morning free we decided to fit everything left to do on our agenda on this day. We got up early and made our way to the south of Okinawa to see the Okinawa Peace Memorial Park. By getting there before anything had really opened, we were rewarded by there not being many people around so we got to explore the park at our own pace and fairly privately. First we went to the Peace Hill that was looking over a field of coi carp streamers. These streamers are put up between the beginning of April to mid-way through May to represent the children in Japan who are celebrated on Children's day on May 5th. It is a day set aside to respect children's personalities and to celebrate their happiness. It was a great sight and my camera couldn't capture the scale of it but it was at this point that both Todd and I were glad we could see these sights adorned with these streamers. We then headed down to see the Cornerstone of Peace and the Peace Flame which, as always, was incredibly humbling. The Cornerstone of Peace holds 118 monument walls with over 240,000 names of people who died in the war engraved on them – whatever their nationality. Finally we walked along the graveyard set out to commemorate many different groups of people from over the years.

Peace Hill

The flags on the poles are the official carp flags used throughout Japan

Peace Flame (which was unfortunately not lit!)

Only 1 of 118 stones has names of UK and Irish soldiers

It was only a brief visit to the park as we decided not to go into the museum there. Instead we made our way to the most sacred site in Okinawa - the shinto shrine of Sefa Utaki. Sefa Utaki has been recognised as a sacred place since the earliest period of Okinawan history. The shrine area itself comprises a number of caves and overhanging ledges, and although all buildings have been destroyed, the outer and inner areas can still be traced. It was really interesting to walk around and very relaxing being surrounded by these huge rock formations and trees/vegetation. We could see why it was seen as such a sacred place. Walking to the sites main points didn't take long and we were done within 30 minutes. We were pleased to see that we seemed to be traveling just ahead of the crowds as when we arrived at the place we drove straight in to park, however when we left cars we queuing a fair way down the road waiting for a parking spot to open up. We were glad we didn't have to wait as long to get in as it would have taken us to look around.

These two stalactites are said to drip sacred water, so two bowls are placed underneath to catch the drops.

 After this we headed back into Naha city for our final stop of the trip - Shikinaen Garden. Shikinaen was constructed in the end of the 18th century as the second residence of the Ryukyu kings. It was a beautiful garden and a very relaxing time walking around. It was a great way to finish off our sightseeing.

Looking out over the food colesseum

We then headed to lunch investigating another place recommended on the eating website I found. This was the Food Colosseum. This place was basically a food court but with a twist. As you entered you were given a card with a bar code on it. You then went to whichever station you fancied (Italian, American, Asian, Noodles, Desserts etc) and ordered your food. The people there would scan your order onto your barcode and that would be it. You could keep going back for more food and just keep scanning your barcode. Only at the end did you hand in your ticket and pay for everything! It was fantastic and you can see how easy it would be too spend a lot of money if you weren't careful. I ordered myself a green curry and Todd got some Taco rice (a dish invented in Okinawa), both meals coming with a salad bar, so we were both suitably stuffed by the end of it. It was a nice experience and I wish there were more places like that around Tokushima/Japan where I could go! After this we drove back to our hotel and chilled out for a little bit before heading out one last time. We wanted to go back to Kokusai dori and experience it in the day time (a surprisingly different feel to when we went at night) despite being tired we decided to make the walk again and were rewarded when we crossed a bridge over the sea to witness a huge school of fish and a bigger fish on the outside ready to make its move. It was fascinating to watch the smaller fish move as one and the bigger fish trying to spot an entrance. Todd couldn't resist and dropped a coin into the centre of the school (making them split as one) and whether this had anything to do with it, or whether it was pure coincidence, but at the moment the coin dropped in the water, the bigger fish made his move (unsuccessfully) anyway it was just a small moment but it was really great to see - not only because of the fact that we could see the whole thing because of how amazingly clear the water was!

So when we got to Kokusai dori, we had 3 things on our agenda. One was to get souvenirs. In Okinawa, everywhere you go you see statues of dogs over doorways, at gates, or at the entrances of buildings. These Shisa dogs are traditional in Okinawa and usually come in pairs and adorn the entryways of homes and buildings. One dog has their mouth open, and the other has their mouth closed. This is meant to represent keeping in of good spirits and luck with the closed mouth dog, and expelling evil spirits with the open one. Todd and I both wanted a pair of these dogs to take home with us and so walking up and down the street we were looking out for the perfect pair (which we eventually found and mine are now happily keeping guard just inside my front door!). The second thing was to check out the market arcades leading off Kokusai dori. Japanese arcades are great to explore and give you more variety and slightly different offerings than perhaps the regular tourist shops give. We didn't find anything we particularly wanted in these arcades (though Todd was sorely tempted by some Hawaiian shirts) but it was still a nice change from just walking down Kokusai dori. The last thing we wanted to do was visit the Calbee Plus shop! Calbee is a snack company in Japan that produces things like potato chips and crackers. There are only four Calbee Plus shops in Japan and one happens to be on Kokusai dori in Okinawa. I know this because my eikaiwa student was telling me about her visit to Tokyo a few weeks ago and how she had gone because she wanted to go to the shop. She also told me about the famous snack that they only produce at these shops - poteriko. Like French fries these hot potato strips are very popular snacks you can only get at these stores, so obviously Todd and I needed to try them for ourselves. Being a sweet potato lover, I couldn't help but get a pot of sweet potato poteriko whilst Todd went for the cheese flavoured ones. They were indeed incredibly delicious (though mine became too sweet!) and I was glad of the recommendation from my student and looked forward to letting her know I had tried her recommended snack! Once we were done with poteriko and after we had grabbed our souvenirs (I also picked myself up a rather lovely pair of socks!) we hailed yet another taxi and headed back to the hotel to really relax and enjoy our last evening together.

One of the shopping arcades

Obviously taken the night before but....

yummy!

My Shisa dogs!

And that is exactly what we did. We spent the time reading our books and left the hotel once to go and get a quick burger dinner and some drinks to see out the evening. Once we got back to our room we changed into our pajamas and took our drinks out onto the balcony to enjoy. Because of it being a festival weekend, there was a place we could see on the sea front that had a festival look to it, including a stage set up. So we could sit and listen to this live music for free and enjoy the view. We had a great time just talking and reminiscing about what a great week we had just had. This was also the point we realised that having the road in front of us wasn't too bad of a thing as we started seeing cars pull up onto the side and people getting out to look over the barriers. We didn't know what they were looking at but it was fun when the road control police came up and shooed them on, for them only to be replaced very quickly after that. Having finished our drinks and the sun being well and truly down we were just about to head back into the room when we discovered why people wanted to stop on the road when the fireworks started! What an absolutely brilliant end to our evening and entire holiday. We couldn't believe our luck that from the comfort of our balcony we could enjoy a free firework display - something that others were breaking the rules to see. Perfect. These eventually ended and we headed back inside, and once again it wasn't long before I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer and fell asleep.

Festival to the left, the fireworks were to the right!

We had left our final morning free as we wanted to enjoy the complimentary Okinawan breakfast buffet the hotel had to offer and then enjoy the last little time relaxing in our room looking out over the sea. We had a long day of traveling ahead of us so we made sure we weren't rushed or busy beforehand. We got up and made our way downstairs for a rather delicious breakfast. The only thing I have against buffets is that I always eat way too much, and seeing that neither me nor Todd are the breakfast type, I was suitably stuffed by the time I headed back to the room. We had a good hour then to relax before we had to check out and I decided to use this time to have a nap (well, I didn't really decide on it, my body decided for me!). Then we checked out and drove the car back to the shop. Finally we made it back to the airport and began the long journey home.

I had an absolutely fantastic time in Okinawa and really hope that I can go back again. As I think I've seen most of the sightseeing spots that I wanted to see, next time I go I would really like to explore the surrounding islands, and have more of a beach/sea type holiday. Fingers crossed!