Okinawa City and America Town

I have been searching for information on other things to do from Nago and found this blog for a tour guide, which gave all sorts of useful information about Okinawa which I wish I had known before...http://blog.livedoor.jp/marshcnet/

We spent most of the day on buses and it cost a fortune ( 3 people X NZ$60 return trip by bus). We went from Nago  to Okinawa City first and it took 1hr 15mins, all I can say is 'don't bother'. After over an hour of passing American army bases we got to Okinawa City which seems to have been badly hit by the recession, or maybe it just closes up for the winter. No-one in the tourism ofice spoke any English but we managed to get a timetable for the free bus which does a circuit of Okinawa City. Didn't see any reason to get off the bus but the zoo might have been Ok if the kids had been younger. The zoo is at the stop labelled (on the English timetable) 'Children's Playground'.

I did find some nice pieces of kasuri fabric in the shopping street near Goya bus stop (also opposite tourist information).

From there we went to Mihama/America Village on the other side of the island. Pretty deserted, very American. Complete contrast to Okinawa City. Didn't stay long. No-one in the tourist office spoke English - they had to call Okinawa 2 Go, Tourist information 098-916-6180 who translated the bus information to us which was great except that we were specifically told that our bus (number 120) would not go past the Ryukyu Mura park that we wanted to visit. We were sitting on the bus when we heard it anounced by the onboard bus info system so we hopped off the bus and found it was a lovely place worth visiting. The bus trip up the West coast to Nago was much nicer than the trip down the East Coast past the army bases. That coast is all prettified and covered in resort hotels, nice beaches and cute eateries.

My recommendation for Okinawa? Stay in Naha! If there is more than one of you, hire a car.

Some interesting things

Pucho flavours in Okinawa - from top - mandarin, Pineapple, mystery flavour, a different version of pineapple

 My kids are mad on these chewy sweets called 'Pucho'. They are chewy fruit flavoured sweets with small jelly lumps in them. Everywhere we go we have to go and check out the flavour available in the local convenience stores, because there are different Pucho flavours in different parts of the country.

Appropriately, Okinawa is the only place we have found pineapple flavour and  Shikuwasha flavour (a tpe of orange grown in Okinawa).  We also try to find the local flavour for the chocolate bar -  Kitkat. In Kyoto the flavour is green tea, in Okinawa it is purple yam. The Kitkats here are purple coloured but to me they taste like white chocolate. In Takayama which is north of Kyoto, Kitkats were white bean paste flavour. You can also get red bean flavour and Oolong Tea flavour.

Cigarette warning signs

How does the Guide Dog know where the toilet is?

A big cushy Kokeshi doll

Thigh length furry boots

A very low beam in Matsumoto Castle. Even I had to duck and James could see over the top.

Chiraumi Aquarium, Okinawa

I took the kids to the Aquarium today. It is variously listed as the largest or second largest in the world. My son remembers that the Genova Aquarium in Italy we visited a few years ago listed itself as the second largest in the world as well.

This aquarium is amazing because of the huge Whale Sharks they are breeding. Here is one swimming overhead. It is like a small cruise ship.

There were lots of amazing real fish and then in the grounds some weird flower sculptures including this one.

There were amazing dark clouds, not much rain fell but it is still quite cold and windy.

For those fabricaholics out there, Nago is a fabric wasteland. The only shops of any interest are bakeries and second hand musical instrument shops and both shop types are really only interesting to my kids...

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.

Kyoto (9/1/11) and daytrip to Takayama

We have been in Kyoto for the last 2 days. Tomorrow is the day when the 20 year olds dress up and go to the shrine. We saw some of the girls today (maybe they can't get time off work tomorrow) wearing the brightest kimono (garish really) with their hair in an 'up-do', tons of makeup and with white fake fur draped around their shoulders. I didn't like to take a photo. Maybe tomorrow when there are more of them.

This is a bit out of sequence but I forgot that one of my sons and I did a day trip up to Takayama from Kyoto to see snow. I have been to Takayama before in Spring but it looks very different at this time of year. No cherry blossom, no hordes of people and man of the shops are closed but it is still lovely, but bitterly cold after dark - I thought my nose might freeze.

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