Okinawa World and Fukushuen Garden, 12-27-2012

breakfast, another yummy tofu dish

Okinawa world

Habu

'Dr. Fish' they eat the dead skin off your feet and evidently tickle.

 

 Shisa (シーサー) (Okinawan: siisaa) (shishi or shisaa) is a traditional Ryukyuan decoration, often in pairs, resembling a cross between a lion and a dog, from Okinawan mythology. People place pairs of shisa on their rooftops or flanking the gates to their houses. Shisa are wards, believed to protect from some evils. When in pairs, the left shisa traditionally has a closed mouth, the right one an open mouth.^[1] The open mouth wards off evil spirits, and the closed mouth keeps good spirits in.

animals made from fronds

Shikuwasa sherbert - the BEST!!!

Fukushuen friendship garden

all the animal zodiac signs were on this bridge.

Sam's

 

Jake's favorite - vending machines that sell beer and cocktails!

 

We spent most of the day at Okinawa World.  I love caves and there is a very long one here.  Yoshie had never been in a cave and I think she enjoyed it.  Outside of the cave there is a cultural village.  Areas for doing crafts like dying fabric, paper making, etc.  We watched the Eisa dance which is very energetic.  They also have a habu snake museum but Yoshie doesn't like snakes so we skipped that.  Habu liquor is quite famous in Okinawa.  Didn't try it - it's very expensive so they don't give samples of that.  But I did have the most delicious shikuwasa sherbert.  Shikuwasa is a fruit very much like the Tokushima sudachi which is somewhat like a small lime.  But they all have different tastes.  The shikuwasa turned out to be my favorite 'food' in Okinawa and we were lucky enough to have it served as juice every morning in the hotel.  Speaking of the hotel, it was the Toyoko Inn, a business hotel chain and it was so convenient.  About 5 minutes walk from the monorail, 7 from the bus station and 10 from the main tourist street.  And they had great breakfasts included.  Every day there was a different Okinawan specialty, or dish with Okinawan ingredients, as well as salad, scrambled eggs or sausages, rice, miso soup, bread, yogurt, tea, coffee and Shikuwasa juice.  Good way to start the day.

After Okinawa World we took the bus back and then walked to Fukushuen, a Chinese style 'friendship' garden in the middle of Naha.  It's free, but I think it would be better if they charged a little something and used the money for upkeep.  Although you can't really tell from the pictures, it's fairly run down.  Probably just needs to be painted, I think it was a little more drab because of the season, nothing was blooming.  A fact that surprised me throughout the trip.  It doesn't get colder than the low to mid 60s in Okinawa so I don't know why they don't have more blooming at this time.  Even in Tokushima were the temps go to 30, people have flowers out.

Yoshie was in the mood for steak for dinner so after checking out all the restuarants that served steak we finally decided on Sams - like a Benihana.    It's strange, the Japanese consider those restaurants 'American' and we consider them 'Japanese'.  It was good, but typical although they did serve a delicious pineapple butter with the pineapple and the wineberry (don't know what that is) bread.