Whalesharks to Sea Snakes

Love the white plastic tarp look.

As I mentioned in the previous post, we relaxed so hard over the Christmas holiday that we earned ourselves a nice vacation in a warmer clime. We packed up our things, rallied the Goose and caught a flight to Naha in Okinawa. For those unfamiliar with the geography of Japan, it is a long, skinny country (group of islands really) that is oriented north to south. Hokkaido is the most northern part, and Okinawa is the most southern part, so our plan was to follow up our snowy wintery vacation with some serious beach time. The weather had other plans, but we still managed to have a great trip.

Arrows show Hokkaido and Okinawa.

We arrived, checked into our hotel then walked to the tourist strip to find some food. We ended up in a place that serves great local food and we all enjoyed Okinawan soba which is much different than soba from other parts of Japan. We strolled around and explored more of Kokusai Dori and worked up an appetite for that we quenched at a steak house! Yeah, steak!! Before coming to Okinawa I hadn’t realized that the American’s hadn’t relinquished their control over the islands of Okinawa until some time in the 1970’s meaning that most of the rebuilding effort (after they decimated it in the Battle of Okinawa near the end of WWII) was done with heavy American influence – hence the frequency of steak houses in Okinawa. The steak houses are now a big tourism draw with mainland Japanese families who vacation to Okinawa to see a bit of “American culture”.



The next day we explored a bit more of Naha. We walked through Tsuboya pottery district and saw the Shinkakuji temple. My sis was joining us in the fun and was scheduled to arrive later that day. I got a call from her in the afternoon, United Airlines, through a series of bumbling screw ups, had managed to have her miss a flight, then miss another connection and thus left her stranded in California and one day late arriving in Naha. We ended the day, without Ooots at a Mexican pub for dinner (again the American influence) where I had tacos!!! Yeah again!

We changed hotels the next day because the hotel we were in initially was part of a package with our flights. We moved to the Rasso Kokusai, a cheaper business hotel that was well situated and suited us perfectly. We rented a car in the morning and drove to Cape Hedo at the northern end of Okinawa Island.

Cape Hedo.

While there we stopped at a national park and took a couple hour walk through the unique karst (limestone) mountain overlooking the cape. The rocks were strange and big - but mostly just big... They had a couple beautiful Banyan trees in the park and loads of cycads.




After our little walk we returned to Naha to pick up the Ooostky. She arrived in one piece and exceptionally well rested after her complimentary night in a swank hotel during her unexpected layover.

The next day we woke up early and drove to the Rose Garden Diner for breakfast. A friend had recommended this place to me for some authentic American-style breakfast and we weren’t disappointed! The servings were enormous, the waitresses brought endless refills of coffee and the place even smelled like my grandmother’s house.


After a solid breakfast we drove to the aquarium where we spent 4 hours watching all the shows and exhibits. It is a great aquarium, a highly recommended stop while in Okinawa – after breakfast at Rose Garden of course! The biggest draw at the aquarium is the whale shark tank where they house 3 whale sharks (and other shark friends) in a massive tank with one whole side that is a 5 floor high viewing window. Amazing! One side of the tank overlooks the café so you can have lunch while the whale sharks glide past.

The sharks, and the viewing window are massive!
Lunch with the sharks.
Giant clam and cuttlefish - yeah for invertebrate content!

We wanted to get to Iheya Jima, a small island to the west of Okinawa Jima, but when we arrived at the ferry terminal we were told that the ocean was too rough and the ferries weren’t running (I told you the weather was bad!). Instead we went to Nago Pineapple Park and Winery. We took a tour of the small pineapple farm and living museum in an automatic pineapple cart, saw the shell museum and followed it up with pineapple wine tasting. All of this and they only charge 500 Yen to get in! What a steal! We bought a couple bottles of their wine, although we learned that there is a reason that pineapple wine hasn’t taken off in other parts of the world.



That night was stayed at On the Beach Lue, since we couldn’t make it to Iheya Jima. It is a great little place, not too far from the aquarium with beachfront rooms or condominium rooms. The food was fantastic, we ate both dinner and breakfast the next morning there. Breakfast was out on the patio overlooking the breaking waves on the beach. Had the weather been warmer, we would have been tempted to stay longer.
Breaky on the beach!

The weather had cleared a little so the ferries were running on schedule again so we took a trip to Iheya Jima for the night. We stayed at a nice simple hotel there and rented a car to drive the island. There was a cave at the northern end of the island we wanted to see so we climbed down into it and found a small shrine at the deepest part of the cave where three women were praying and singing. We didn’t want to disturb them too much so we didn’t explore the cave much, but we did sit quietly and listen to their voices echo through the cave. Along the other side of the island, goats roamed freely among the many farms on the island. The weather remained cold and windy so we did most of our exploring by car.



Dinner that night was at the only restaurant on the island (as far as we could tell anyway). It served up delicious Okinawan food for incredibly cheap. We stuffed ourselves then returned to our hotel for baths and a nightcap.

We were leaving Iheya the next day, so while waiting for the ferry we checked out one more interesting sight. In a small obscurely located park is an ancient pine (the lonely planet dates it at 300 years old, but the sign I read – in Japanese…….- said it was 500 years old, either way really old) that had been trained to grow in an umbrella shape. Pretty spectacular.


On our way back to Naha we stopped at A&W for a late lunch. Okinawa jima is littered with A&W’s, I couldn’t resist. This particular one still had the outdoor drive in style where they bring the food to the window of your car and you sit in the parking lot to eat it. I almost expected them to come out to the cars on rollerskates (they didn’t). Back in Naha we checked back into the Rasso, then had beers and snacks at the Helios pub on Kokusai Dori.

The weather was still pretty much crap and we were all still wearing the one and only cold weather outfit we brought so we decided to hang out in Naha for a day or two longer rather than try to make it over to Zamai Jima. We shopped, ate amazing food, watched sumo on TV in our hotel rooms, did a do-it-yourself pottery class in Tsuboya district and visited the Okinawa war museum to see the tunnels built by the Japanese army during the war of Okinawa.



With the forecast finally predicting better weather, we hopped on the ferry bound for Zamami Jima. Zamami has only a handful fewer residents than Iheya but closer proximity to Naha meant there were more places to stay, eat and things to do. We stayed in a nice little hotel in Zamami and on our second day there we rented snorkel gear (including wetsuits – it is south of Hokkaido, but not that far south) from the rental shop near the entrance to the hotel. We walked 1.5 kms over a small hill to an adjacent bay (Furozamami) and snokeled in the morning. We watched piles of striped black and white sea snakes swimming around the reef and even saw a lion fish there too. The visibility was incredible in this protected little beach and amazingly, we had it practically to ourselves. The sun was finally out and the beach was warm so we all took a short nap after our snorkel to rest up before an afternoon walk where we visited the whale observation towers and saw whales (they were a loooong way away, but definitely were whales). Zamami jima was a nice place and I recommend a visit to anyone in Naha who wants a quiet escape.

Our private snorkel beach.
Whale watching... no more like whale searching.

The restaurant across the road from the ferry dock was the best food in town and provided us with nearly all our meals. They make the best Okinawa soba in Okinawa (this was from a Quebequois/Japanese visitor, not from our meagre review). We enjoyed a glorious meal on our second night there, all of us pathetic pale Canadian sporting a pretty pink sunburn.
Huh?

We departed Zamami and returned to Naha on the last possible ferry. We had one last night in Naha that we spent dining at the One-Pound-Steak-House. We all had the one-pounder, except my sister who is much more sensible than I (I didn’t finish mine, but did doggy bag it so I could enjoy it for breakky).

Okinawa in general for us was windy and cold (except the last two days which we spent baking on the beach) with amazing food and warm and welcoming people. I really enjoyed Okinawa and look forward to another chance to explore more of the islands.