Nago, Okinawa 16/1/11

Er....I don't recommend this place at all. After  a couple of hours walking around we hopped in a taxi and went to 'Pineapple Land' which is what the kids call 'incredibly cheesy'. We rode in a special pineapple car which runs automatically although you can pretend to steer. After the ride in the cart, you get to taste pineapple wine, biscuits, fruit drinks and cake. The food is the best bit, the rest is good for a laugh only.

Pineapple car

Pineapple soft toys

Then we went to Fruits Land. The butterfly house was semi-okay.

The Chrysallis looks like it is made of gold.

At this stage the kids and I are wondering whether we should have stayed in Naha but if the weather improves and the shops open (it is Sunday today) things may improve :-).

Okinawa

Hi from Okinawa. I see that all the previous posts have got themselves in a mess with dates but we are in Okinawa now and it is the 15th of January.

Fuji from the plane (14/1/11)

All I can say about Okinawa weather in January is that it seems a bit like Wellingtons weather. We were promised warm weather but it is nasty, the wind is blowing and the rain is going sideways.

Today I have been to see the underground bunkers where the Japanese Navy officers committed suicide as the Americans invaded during WW2. I went there because I have some Japanese friends whose father was one of the officers who died. His poor wife was left with 8 children to bring up alone.

I got horriby lost getting there and had to hail a taxi and pay heaps to get back to civilsation - so much for following the brochure instructions to catch bus 33.

Then I went to Shuri Castle which was the centre of the Ryukyu Kingdom, who were the rulers of the Okinawa Islands before the japanese. from there I walked down the hill to see a Bingata fabric workshop and couldn't find the other two I was hoping to see. I then walked all round the market and in and out of every fabric shop. I didn't buy any fabric because it is all in big rolls, or is small pieces of incredibly bright 'fake Bingata' which is so bright it looks like Hawaiian fabric. The real Bingata is so much more subtle!

Bingata display at Shuri Ryusen studio

Bingata at Shuri Ryusen Bingata studio

Geta sandals in the market

Bingata in the market (on the left)

Kimono fabric rolls and geta sandals

Window stacked with kimono fabric

The fake bingata is luridly coloured machine-printed cotton (see the yellow item in the photo below)

Then I went to the Naha City Museum of Traditional Arts and Crafts, followed by the Okinawa Prefectural Art Gallery and Museum. There are good examples of hand stencilled Bingata kimono in both museums and a good video showing in the Craft Museum on how the fabric is decorated. First a stencil is cut, then rice paste is squeegeed through the stencil and allowed to dry on the fabric. Coloured dyes are pasted onto the fabric where there is no paste resist, then after all the fabric is coloured in, the dye is fixed then the paste is washed out. The colours are often beautifully shaded from light to dark within the coloured areas.

My feet are dead and I feel like I need tomorrow to recover. We are off to Nago which is further North as my husband is going to a conference there.

Okinawa 14/1/11

We are now in Okinawa for the next 7 days. This place is really different from the parts of japan I have seen before. The temperature is about 18C as compared with minus figures in Kyoto and snow on the ground in some places. The colours are brighter, fabrics look more like Hawaiian fabrics and people seem louder. The prices also seem much cheaper. We have quite good sized rooms in a business hotel for the same price as the one room in the scummy hostel which 3 of us squeezed into last night. The room was so small that two of us had to get onto our beds to allow the other person to walk into the room. My husband stayed at a rather better place than us as he had to fly to Okinawa from a different airport. I don't have any photos but wil post some tomorrow.

from Nago, Okinawa
Clare