Okinawa

OKINAWA was great. It's small island off the coast of Japan, and it's been influenced by the Chinese. Okinawa is a blend of both Japanese and Chinese architecture and traditions.

Any trip to Okinawa is very expensive. The one we took for 5 days, including air fare, car rental, hotel and breakfast was US$1100/person. The hotel was very nice with a bunch of swimming pools and a great view of the ocean.

The flight was pretty quick and uneventful. It takes 1 1/2 hours to fly there. The train ride to the airport was as long as the flight!

When we got there we went to the car rental company and I got a small (actually the smallest car they have) Vitz, a nice little car, very small and with what seems like a 60-70 Hp engine. Of course this wasn't really a problem since the top speed anywhere in Japan is 80 km/h. The road I took however was quite a bit slower, maxing out at a breakneck 60 km/h... I think that when Japanese people come to other countries it must make them very nervous to be driving at 100 km/h, they're not used to it! I was pretty nervous at first because I was driving on the other side of the road, but I got used to it pretty quickly.



Getting to the hotel took 3 hours because we thought we'd take the "scenic" route. It was a mistake, we didn't see much "scenic" anything except for other cars and buildings.

The hotel was very nice and had very good staff. The view from the room was great. And the room itself was pretty amazing. Some pretty fancy furniture and decorations there.

Okinawa has it's own kind of citrus, it's small and green, very sour and makes an excellent juice. It was our drink of preference while we were there.

We went and spent some time in the ocean just swimming and relaxing, reading books.


We also went and visited the Okinawa Churaumi aquarium, it's the world's second largest and has whale sharks, manta rays and many, many more things to see in their aquariums. There was a big tank with thousands of fish, small big, huge and also sharks and eels. We also saw turtles and a dolphin exhibition. It was amazing to see even the large dolphins jump up into the air 6-8 meters(20 feet)!

A little south of the hotel is a place famous for it's cliffs and beautiful views. We went and explored this of course. :)

On the way back to the airport we took the expressway ($10) and this time we trotted along at 80 km/h. The trip back took only 1 hour.

Since our flight was at 8:30pm we spent the day in the city. We first visited Shuri Castle. Shuri Castle is a gusuku (Ryūkyūan castle) in Shuri, Okinawa. It was the main palace of the Ryūkyū Dynasty. In 1945, during World War 2 in the Battle of Okinawa, it was almost completely destroyed, with only a few walls standing. In 1992, it was reconstructed on the original site based on photographs, historical records new and ancient, and the memories of people.

Then we went down into the shopping area and walked around for a few hours. There are many items from North America, in fact more than in stores specializing in such in Japan, due to the large USA army/navy base which is a big part of the economy there. But there were also some rather odd souvenirs which I would have (had the price not been ridiculously high) sent to friends.

Our flight back landed at 10pm and we got back home by midnight. Thankfully it was saturday night and we got a chance to relax and rest from our vacation. :)