The trip began on a cold morning in Yamanashi before the sun awoke (I was up far too many times before the sun this winter break) when the four of us boarded a Tokyo bound train in rush hour to the airport. There awaited us a fabulous surprise!Perhaps it was for Rhee`s brithday we wondered as at the last minute our planes were switched, which delayed us a little but it was worth it, for rolling on the tarmac towards us was none-other-than the famous All Nippon Air Pokemon Jet! It was awesome and I stole the disposable cloth that protects you from lice or whatever which had Pikachu on it! Anyways, aside from the fabulous plane, we also flew over Fuji and the super nice flight attendants let us all go look out the window and take pictures!
So we landed in Naha, Okinawa`s capital city, in the afternoon and spent most of it checking out quaint little shops that sold the famous shisa statues, Okinawa treats like purple potato tarts and these delicious sugar cookies and little round donuts that reminded me of unglazed sour cream timbits (which I miss!), and the most beautiful blown glassware I have ever seen, I bought a little purple flower! In the evening we went to an izakaya serving okinawa dishes but as I wasn`t feeling so well I only sampled bits of garlic rice, squid ink yakisoba, boiled pork and deep fried seaweed while nursing a glass of mango juice and listening to a young woman play the shamisen and sing Okinawa music which is amazing!
The next morning pretended like the weather was going to clear up but by the time we got to Shuri Castle it had clouded over and had even begun to rain a little... still I really liked it there. Okinawa is neat because it`s a fusion of cultures unlike the rest of Japan which is very strongly it`s own country. Okinawa used to be the Ryukyu kingdom until about 140 years ago when Japan made it a prefecture, up until then it was it`s own country and heavily influenced by China, but then during WWII it became a strategical focus for the Japanese and Americans and by the end of the war it was under American occupation, which officially ended in the 70, but still 18 per cent of the main island is still occupied with American military bases and which has a very western feel to it clashing with it Chinese roots and Japanese foreground. All and all it`s an interesting place. But, because of the world many heritage sites were destroyed including Shuri Castle so the current structure is a reconstruction but did not take away from it`s beauty. I do love my castles and this was so exception. While smaller and stouter it was painted beautifully in reds and golds and had a dragon motif that reoccurred throughout the grounds. And of course there were the lovely shisa lion dogs!
It was a very busy day in which we drove the coastline and admired turquoise waters under a stormy sky, crossed a long bridge to another island where mythical mochi used to fall from the sky, and played on a beach just as it began to rain, we saw a rock with a hole in it at a cliff by the sea which apparently looks like an elephant, and yet another pair of wedded rocks, and we went to this fruitland place where I ate fresh papaya before going to a butterfly garden to play with the butterflies! And this was all between the castle and the second main event for the day; the aquarium!
This aquarium boasts the biggest indoor tank in the world and it had to in order to accommodate it`s three whale sharks! What sharks are the biggest fish in the whole world and are super big and awesome and they were so cool and if that wasn`t enough, the dolphin show was spectacular. It would put Canadian dolphins to shame for they are lazy next to the back flips and high jumps and sycronized diving these guys did. Six dolphins jumped at the same time! All going in different directions, I had no idea how they could teach them that! And this one giant dolphin did a back flip and hit a soccer ball hanging almost twenty feet in the hair! It was amazing and cute and funny and the best part next to the whale sharks.
Thoroughly exhausted now from two early mornings we enjoyed our buffet dinner at the hotel and fell asleep in a room that resembled Okinawa for half of it was a western hotel and the other tatami matted with futons. In the morning, it had cleared and the breakfast buffet was up fifteen floors so it overlooked the ocean, it was quite lovely.
We had the perfect itinerary for our last day. A little ryukan village in the morning, with a pretty pond and koifish, beautiful costumes, Okinawa donuts, a little shrine, water buffalo, hibiscus flowers and stunning shisa pottery.
Then in the afternoon, while the rest of the tour went to yet another themepark, we stayed in downtown Naha and soaked up the vibes of Kokusaidori. We browsed the little shops, ate taco rice for lunch, checked out an awesome Chinese garden with a pavilion astride a waterfall that you could walk behind! And a bridge with the zodiac animals and a stone pagoda and fish to feed and oh it was gorgeous but there was something I had to do before I left Okinawa!
Play at the beach. So we continued on the way to the ocean, stopped briefly at a shrine on a cliff and then finally it was there the ocean and the beach and the sun. I took enough time only to hug a palm tree and then I was off to frolic in the waves.
I shall leave it there because the rest is just the slow bits: dried off, headed back for the bud, then the airport and then flew back to Tokyo, said good bye to Rhee who went home to England this week and took the train back to cold Yamanashi.
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