Okinawa (土／日）

Saturday was our last day at Yomitan which was sad because we had the best time. In the late morning we took a taxi from the hostel and went to Zakimi Castle, about ten minutes away. There was a museum on the premises which we browsed around and it contained examples of Okinawan and local history.

All that was left of the castle above ground was a wall that wrapped around a complex the size of maybe two football fields. Since we were up on a hill, from the top of the hill we could see most of Yomitan:

And who did we see at the castle!? IT'S GIGGLY LADY! (refer to two posts back, lawl). Unfortunately this was the last time we saw her the whole trip :(

Once back in Yomitan we wrapped up our time there with a meal at a local mexican place. It was MY FIRST MEXICAN FOOD IN JAPAN. Just to summarize, this week I experienced my first of the following things in Japan: root beer, strip mall, mint ice-cream, and mexican food. It was the best. I know Okinawa is super-Americanized in some places but I don't necessarily thing that's a bad thing when it comes to being able to enjoy awesome foods I love~

Mike ate this ^

I ate this ^

On our way back into Naha via city bus we passed the American base and it is huge and pretty ugly. It's amazing how American everything looks inside the fence. People in Japan rarely have backyards, but everybody in the base had a ton of room to do whatever with behind their houses. One family even had a trampoline.

That night we stayed at Sora House and went to A&W for a second time and for more all-you-can-drink root beer.

Sunday we had A&W again at the airport, just for kicks~

Even though it was pretty chilly/ cloudy weather in Okinawa, it was still warmer than Kyoto and when I got back I was surprised at the temperature drop. IT'S FREEZING HERE. This week its supposed to warm up drastically and by Saturday it'll be 20 degrees C. The cherry blossoms should be blooming soon >:D

Okinawa (金）

The next day we got a late start but it was worth it because we started with lunch at an Italian place at a local strip mall. Yomitan or Okinawa or wherever is amazing because its the first place in Japan I've seen that has a strip mall and parking lots.

I had the first mint ice cream I've ever tasted in Japan

Boiz on the way to the beach

We spent the rest of the day chilling out at the local beach which was only about a twenty minute walk away. It was beautiful because there were weird rock formations everywhere but it was impossible to swim because there was a disgusting amount of seaweed and it was freezing.

We spent the afternoon relaxing on the sand and climbing the rocks. All of the grassy places had signs that said 「ハブに注意」or "beware of the habu" (those dangerous snakes). It was cold out so habu probably weren't a big problem but it was scary seeing as the day before we saw what habu poison does to your body: it makes people's skin melt away sort of like acid.

Before going back to the hostel we stopped at the supermarket to buy cakes and decorating supplies. We celebrated a girl at our hostel, Mako's, birthday. Besides cake Tadashi the hostel owner and Mako and her sister Yuki made okonomiyaki and we all shared it.

We finished the night with a lot of Jenga (record: 31 levels before it crashed :O)

Okinawa (木)

Thursday we went to OKINAWA WORLD. Which was incredibly touristy of us but still fantastic. Even though it was the off season the place we pretty busy but we still were able to see all the attractions we wanted to. We purchased tickets for the cave and for the HABU (a kind of poisonous Okinwan snake) museum.

The cave was huge and took forever to walk through. It was kind of sad because they built a path through it and had to cut off some stalactites to make room for people's heads. It was still beautiful, though, and really interesting. Supposedly it's the biggest cave in Japan and it took us about a half hour to walk slowly through it.

Once we came out of the cave, we were on the other side of the park near the tropical fruit orchards. So we snacked.

Best mango of my life.

The path through the park took us around the "pottery and glass" place where there was outdoor glass blowing and a souvenir shop full of pots. Afterwards was the "traditional village" area where they had snake skins hanging up on the old-school houses. Martin made some dumb joke about how the "hebi" (snake) looked "heavy" and this Japanese lady next to us giggled. Next we wandered up to a booth selling mango buns and martin bought one. I said to him that it looked cute and giggly lady was there again, and she giggled.

Later we spotted a place where you can dress up like traditional Okinawans for 500 yen and since dressing up is always a part of our trip to-do list we WENT:

As they were putting the clothes on us Giggly Lady saw us and giggled.

There was a factory where they make sake from Habu snake venom.

At the Habu Museum we saw a snake show and Martin and I took pictures of each other holding a SNAKE

Later that day we moved hostels and took a bus to Yomitan Village which is north of Naha. We stayed at Yomitan Village Backpackers and went to an izakaya for dinner. The people who owned the place were really nice and chatted with us a bit.

Okinawa A&W

I wont complain about American influence in Okinawa if only because they have A&W root beer. Since I have never ever even seen root beer in mainland Japan I made it my goal to drink as much as possible while on the island. That's why on our second night we found an A&W restaurant and camped out there for the next few hours enjoying all-you-can-drink root beer.

Okinawa (火／水)

After some time in Kyoto we arrived in Okinawa on Tuesday night. The weather was cool and windy. We took the single monorail in all of Okinawa to our hostel, Burney's Breakfast, a strange place. We booked a private room for 3 which turned out to be this small box with a loft area above. I slept on the floor and Martin and Mike slept on the loft.

The hostel also had these capsules stacked on top of each other for single travelers. Claire ended up rooming in one of those.

The first night there we hit up the town and especially Kokusai Dori (International Street), which seems to be famous for having an overload of souvenir shops. Some crazy souvenir examples include real dried up frogs turned into purses and sake made from snake venom (complete with a real snake floating in it). Both pretty gross.

One thing Okinawa is known for is its "Beniimo," some kind of purple sweet potato thing I think. We ended up buying beniimo soft cream, but they also had beniimo cookies and candies and slushies.

Our first night there we got "Okinawan Soba," which is supposedly not very tasty. It seemed like any other soba to me: noodles in broth.. Not bad though..

The next day we went to Shuri Castle via the monorail. The area was really beautiful and the castle walls are huge. We walked along the rampart and randomly came across Julia, Kate (x2) and Kenta. FATE.

From the top we could see a lot of the city

The main building

Famous gate near the on the premises

Afterwards we did lunch at a curry place that also had doughnuts. The BEST.

Next we went to the Pottery Village. There were many shops lined up on one street that all sold clay pottery and glass. All of them had Okinawan siisaa, lion-dog statues. The shop owners were really nice and even gave us discounts and chatted with us in Japanese.

Tsuruhashi and the Ferris Wheel

On Sunday Hannah, Martin and I went to Tsuruhashi again to eat Korean food and shop for Korean boy band merchandise. We at lunch there:

チョウおいしい〜韓国料理は世界一だよ

Next we rode the 観覧車 (kanransha)/ Ferris wheel at Umeda. The rumor is that if you ride it with your significant other you'll break up. Despite that I saw a load of couples. The Ferris wheel at Umeda is cool because it's on the 7th floor of a department store and you can plug your Ipod into speakers available in each car. WE ROCKED OUT TO BIG BANG.

Martin showing off his swag from Suruhashi

Hannah took this picture. It's so contemplative.

The view of Osaka from the top

Ninja Cafe and Fushimi Inari

Friday, Friday, Friday Martin's parents treated Hannah C and me to dinner at NINJA CAFE KYOTO for a late birthday gift. The restaurant is set up like a maze/ cave/ ninja lair. When we first got there the ninja-outfitted waitress led us through this twisty path to our table set in this cave-y room:

They gave us NINJA THROWING STAR chips for before dinner >:D

After we ate our small portions (D:) a senior ninja came into our cave room and showed us NINJA MAGIC. Which is doing magic with cards while dressed like a ninja. There was even some FIRE action when the ninja man took out his wallet and FLAMES BURST FROM THE INSIDES.

Saturday Martin and I went for a walk around Fushimi Inari, one of my favorite places in Kyoto. Walking the whole loop took about an hour/ hour and a half since we were going slow and stopped often to look around: