Long Service Leave: Okinawa, Japan (Jan. 16-21, 2012)

Monday, Jan. 16, 2012
We transfer at Tokyo/Narita Airport and as we flew over the international dateline when we finally arrive in Okinawa its 10:45 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 16. We pick up our luggage at 11:15 p.m. and as my Father loves to take public transportation we make a mad dash to catch the last monorail train which departs at 11:30 p.m.

Papa’s running far ahead, I’m pushing the luggage cart and before we reach the platform there’s a stalled escalator which we mistaken for having already been shut down and alongside it an incredibly long staircase.

Upon seeing this, I say “Mom, you’d better get started” and Mom starts climbing the stairs in earnest. Little did we know that the escalator was automatic and turned on when you stepped on it (those clever Japanese) and we quickly manage to get all our luggage to the top. Mom’s made a valiant climb of the stairs and we’re all exhausted when we finally reach the train which has been held for us!



When we arrive Kencho-mae station we take a taxi to Hotel Nikko in Naha, the capital of Okinawa. It’s midnight by the time we reach our rooms, so we’re exhausted!

Tues. Jan. 17
We decided to come to the Southern-most island of Japan – Okinawa – because my Chicago-land area parents crave warm weather during Winter. Also, while my Father was born and raised in Japan, he’s never been to any of the other islands. I on the other hand have been to Kyushu and someday hope to go skiing and the Winter Festival in Hokkaido.

We enjoy a wa-shoku breakfast at the hotel and with the 50,000 yen that Papa received from Uncle Fujio which he’d sent for some future date when I’d marry at the same time he sent a similar amount for Tomu and Ellen’s wedding gift we managed for to see a number of sights and meals for the first few days.

First we took a cab from the hotel to Kencho-mae monorail train station and headed to the Shuri Joo Monorail (last stop). We walked along and at a Family Mart purchased musubi and continued to walk to a bridge leading to a small house called the Bezaitendo Shrine and Enganchi Pond where Papa played his shakuhachi and attracted 5 geese (really!) who enjoyed his playing.

At this point, I can’t help remembering when my brother Tomu was practicing his clarinet in elementary school and it sounded like a herd of geese. Nostalgia ☺

We walk on to the Sonohyan-utaki which is where people pray for a safe return before beginning a long journey, the mon/gate to Shuri Joo and then to the omiyage store after enjoying our musubi.

Shurijo Castle served a the proud centre of the Ryukyu Kingdom (before it was known as Okinawa and a province of Japan, it was know as the Ryukyu Islands). The castle has influences from both Japan and China. It was originally constructed in the 14th century and was the place of rule for 500 years until Kinh Sho Tai who then abdicated to the Meiji Government of Japan. As the gate to China, Southeast Asia and Japan the influences are seen from all three in the castle from the red lacquer to the ceramics and dragon paintings.

The Shurijo Temple (a famous TV drama series in Japanese/Chinese is filmed here called The Tempest) tour begins in the courtyard and we learn that the Okinawan’s admired the Chinese so took the dragon for it’s talisman but modified it so it only had 4 toes (China’s Emperor also admired dragons and in paintings you’ll see it has 5 toes).

Eerily Shurijo Temple reminded me of Machu Picchu as it too had been built entirely from stones/rocks (yet it was not on top of a mountain), the walls were higher and there certainly weren’t terraces but there was some interesting water drainage systems, writing on the stones, red pillars and painted designes but what we saw that day had been rebuilt as the original Shurijo Temple had been destroyed during the Battle of Okinawa in 1945.

Throughout the temple there were Japanese hanko stamps that we stamped in our brochures. We also enjoyed tea and traditional cookies in this restored Japanese tea room at Shurijo Temple.

After walking the grounds a bit more we had Okinawan soba in a beautiful Japanese rock garden.

As we left the soba-ya Papa started to complain about his right finger which had a few weeks ago hurt and he used his red “tin tin” medicine but he worried that it had gotten infected as he was swimming and relaxing in the Jacuzzi in Hoffman Estates. And now it was warm and painful to the touch.

So we went to the local doctor. I went in with Papa to see the doctor and when asked questions like his weight (he couldn’t remember in kilograms), his height (again, couldn’t remember in cm).



The procedure itself involved Papa laying down on the doctor’s table, he cleaned the finger area, made a cut and squeezed out the infected pus, cleaned it and put some ointment on it as well as a bandage. Papa’s right foot twitched as the cut was made but otherwise Papa didn’t cry out. After paying for the procedure (8,000yen) and medicine (antibiotics which meant Papa could not drink alcohol for 7 days) we walked back to the monorail trainstation.

Along the way we found a famous manju place and in addition to buying our favorite red bean manju we were also encouraged to buy the local favorite which is beni-imo manju.

We took the monorail to Koku-sai Dori where we walked along the main shopping district and Papa and I both purchased these handcrafted An-Shin Lion (these clay lions come in pairs where “An” is an open roaring lion to symbolize life and “Shin” which is a lion with a closed mouth to symbolize death and the full cycle of life. These “An Shin” lion were everywhere around Okinawa on the gates and entryways of stores, homes and train stations.

It was incredibly hard to find a bank ATM machine in Naha that would accept any of our bank and credit cards to get Yen so finally we ended up going to the Japanese post office – who would have guessed?

Wed. Jan. 18
As Okinawa is well known for its yaki mono (pottery), we went along this famous street known for its pottery and I purchase two tea cups and treat plates as well as omiyage for my friend Venecia.



We stopped for coffee and treats and then caught a local bus to the Renaissance Hotel 1.5 hours north. As it was a local bus, it stopped many, many times and passed many large US military bases. I knew that the US had bases in Okinawa, what I didn’t realize is that they’re ALL over the island, many of them and they’re all quite large and along the main highways in the best areas of the city. And as you’ll see from these photos, they looked rather deserted with graveyards of old tanks and jeeps. It made me wonder why, if we weren’t using the bases we didn’t give it back to the Okinawans.



We had a dessert and coffee and then while Mom and Papa rested in the hotel I had a manicure and pedicure at the hotel and was quite impressed with some of the very sophisticated styles that can be selected!

The weather was rather overcast so we largely checked out the hotel which is much better in the Summer and really much more geared to families with a “swim with dolphins” program and a pool with a waterslide (and only one small lane for adult swimming). We had dinner there as well.

Thurs. Jan. 19
The main reason we’d headed north to the Renaissance Resort was so that I could go scuba diving and the original plan was for Mom and Papa to take a tour/bus even further North to check out an aquarium and a Pineapple farm.

The two dives I did with Natural Blue which was the only dive shop with an English Dive Master were fantastic! I’d researched the various dive site and it looked that The Blue Hole and the Dive with Whale Sharks were the most popular.

The Blue Hole was spectacular! It was a gorgeous sunny day so the sun shone through two spots in the cave and reflected of the white shelled bottom to make this absolutely incredible aqua blue color that was amazingly clear (the best visibility) and great photos! There were many white and yellow bat fish that I’ve seen in Australia, some black batfish that are indigenouse to Okinawa. And Japanese tea cup soft coral on rocks and leaves. I saw parrot fish, needle fish, lion fish, red devil fish and very big anemone! There were also silver fish in the cave that are indigenous to Okinawa.

Dive # 146: Natural Blue Dive Shop and Dive site: Blue Cave. Max depth was 7.4 meters (25 feet) and 29 minutes with a temperature of 22 degrees Celcius. The visibility was more than 30 meters. My Dive Master Yas had dived in Florida and the Bahamas before returning to his homeland.

Blue Cave Part 1



Blue Cave Part 2



Upon heading out to the whale shark dive, I remarked “I hope I’m lucky enough to see a whale shark”. I was very surprised when Yas responded that I was guaranteed to see whale shark as they were in these 100mx100m nets in the middle of the ocean and I was going to watch them fed and get a chance to swim with them.

I had no idea! They were captured whale shark swimming in these nets in the middle of the ocean. The experience was thrilling, to be so close and see what absolutely beautiful sea mammals they are. They are huge and very gentle. When I was watching them get fed, I could see they had gummy teeth and I could look halfway down into their stomach – a small child could fit in there and still have plenty of room to kick around – I didn’t think it’s be so cavernous.

Dive #147: Natural Blue Dive Shop and Dive Site: Whale Sharks, Max depth was 18.3 meters for 35 minutes.



When I got back to the hotel I learned that Mom and Papa had decided to enjoy the hotel. We walked to a local food market called Onnamachi where we had grapes of the sea, sashimi and other Okinawan delicacies.

It rained but finally we made it back to Hotel Nikko for a late dinner.

Friday, Jan. 20
We went to the fruit and vegetable market then onto the Naha Fish Market where we saw tons of fresh fish that we could pick from and have cooked to taste upstairs at one of half a dozen restaurants. Before we selected the fish, we walked around and saw huge shell fish, puffer fish with the spines off and gigantic shrimp. There was also a “meat” aisle where I was tricked to eat pig face!!! I was following Mom down one of the aisles and she was standing next to a vendor lady who had what looked like bacon on a toothpick. Stupidly I put it in my mouth before asking what it was – while I expected it to taste like a salami it was crunchier in a grittier kind of way than I expected so was shocked when upon asking what it was she pointed this package of what looked like a rubber pig face mask! Ugh!

The fish we selected to have sliced, steamed, fried and such was wonderful. And I topped it off with Japanese version of Munchkin donut holes that had sesame seeds and coconut and chocolate.



Then off we were again taking another local bus this time south of Naha on what would become our historical education day of the visit to Okinawa.

Our first stop was to the Himeuri Memorial which was built in honor of school girls who during the Battle of Okinawa in 1945 first started out as nurses turned into victims and many lost their lives. What seemed to show that Okinawans were yet to be a considered a part of Japan was the fact that the Emperor of Japan was willing to sacrifice any and all people young and old living in Okinawa as a means of stalling the inevitable invasion of the Americans to mainland Japan. Thus many of the exhibits showed how students were starting to be trained to be nurses and combatants in the war and when the military was told to pull out the students were left to fend for themselves. And sadly, many died. The museum featured photographs that portrayed the lives of the girls and had models reconstructing these winding caves and the deplorable conditions they lived in during the war.



Then we headed to the Okinawan Peace Memorial which was a museum of the history of Okinawa and outside along the ocean there were walls much like the Vietnam War Memorial with the names of over 200,000 names of military and civilian lose of life in the Battle of Okinawa. It’s incredible to believe that in 95 days, more civilians lost their lives than the military death toll in what’s called the “Typhoon of Steel” in late March 1945.

Mom and I wanted to goto see the Former Navy Underground Headquarters, which consists of several hundred meters of underground corridors and rooms that served as the Japanese navy's headquarters during the war but we simply didn’t have enough time.

Instead we took a bus and checkout another local market where we had dinner and a look around the shops before heading to Kokusai dori for a final bit of omiyage shopping (this is where we got Kenichi and Hiroshi’s zori personalized) and I had my second favorite Japanese dessert – Okinawa Zenzai! If I’d found this on my first day, I would have had it every night!



After nearly a week in Okinawa, I was very impressed with what a modern, big city Naha is. I always thought of Okinawa as an island largely made up of very small fishing villages. The city’s quite wide spread, modern with tall office buildings, an extensive train and bus systems which made getting around very easy and as in the rest of Japan a very clean and safe place.