Naha (Or, A Week on Okinawa, Part 1)

 We landed in Okinawa and was greeted at the airport by 100+ orchids, definitely knew we were in the subtropics.   

We then caught the monorail to our hotel on Kokusai street, also known as the shopping street.  It is a great area to explore with many shops and markets selling everything from souvenirs to high end clothes to fresh vegetables, fish and meat.  

We had a great seafood lunch that we cooked over the burner!



We wandered the area extensively, found a lot of nice things, some weird things and a lot of restaurants. Apparently tacos are big here but we found the closest taco emporium closed. It a busy place, especially since they close the street on Sunday afternoons to create a walking mall. There are musicians about and some restaurants advertise music in the evenings.






The castle is calling. Time to view the 14th century castle that housed the early independent kingdom of Ryukyu. Okinawa became officially a part of Japan in 1879. It is an extensive work and currently under renovation. It has burned down several times and WW2 caused it a lot of damage. Impressive though.



From Naha we are headed to the north, Nakijin Castle and the Cherry Blossom Festival! No sense recounting the bus ride. It was an express and still took a couple hours. It did drop us at the base of the road up to the castle, about 1.1 kms. Our lodging is the other way in a quaint, quiet corner of nowhere. We have a beautiful view and beach access. There is a supermarket not far so we can fend for ourselves as there are not many restaurants open at this time. 

Oh, did I mention that it has a tub on the deck, need a bathing suit though.

The cherry blossoms are almost all at the castle. We walked it twice, once in the day.


And the in the evening. Very impressive to see, though we are not sure if we are early or late. Some of the trees are in full bloom and some are not even close. The other strange thing is that there are blossoms but no leaves on the trees.


After this we decided to take a bit of a vacation. We have been moving around and feel like a respite. Going closer to Naha to relax as it is beautiful here, 20 degrees and sunny. Time for the beach!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Image
 There is a lot to see at the southern most tip of North America. Christmas is big here, lots of decorations using pine bow garland but I haven’t seen any pine trees so it must just be tradition. Lots of churches too, quite a few have been repurposed though, like the one above. We did make a little faux pas at the Southernmost Point. We walked up, waited till the people there took their picture then we took our sand left. It was only then that we noticed the line up down the street waiting to take pictures. OOPS! Happened to watch a funeral as well. All the streets blocked off to the church and police everywhere. It was the wife of some newly elected politician so lots of pomp and security. It was reminiscent of a New Orleans funeral only fewer bands.  Last day in the Keys then onto the boat tomorrow!
Read more

A Bit About Irish Golf Courses

Image
 We have all heard about how wonderful the golf courses are in Ireland and Scotland. At this time I can only comment on Ireland but hope to be able to add Scotland soon. The first premise of this golf trip was to play smaller more local courses that cost €50 or less per person. Since our experience and research shows that rental clubs per round, if the have them and they are usable, tend to be as costly as the round itself. We have rented clubs long term in Portugal and found a service in Ireland that met our needs. We rented our clubs for the entire time in Ireland from a company called Clubstohire. The website is www.clubstohire.com   The clubs were delivered to us at the car rental station at Dublin airport by Billy, amiable young man with good information. The clubs were high quality and suited us well. I should have ordered a club between fairway 3 wood and 5 hybrid but that was my failure not theirs and I managed.  The first course was Roundwood Golf Club in county ...
Read more

Beaches and Bars

Image
 We did another road trip on the 23rd. ( We are a little behind on our posts, busy few days). We decided to try to go to Punta Chame. We were told that the road was terrible but thought we could try it and turn around if it was too bad. It was slow, the road did have some large potholes(but what road here doesn’t) and some construction but otherwise a pretty easy drive. I could say ‘I could have driven a school bus through there’. Pretty little town, fairly isolated, lots of fishing boats. What else would you do here. A number of resorts with one very large one, Playa Caricol Residences and Beach Club. Really big and very new. Us, being plebeians hung at the Surf Shack for a bit. It’s right beside the resort and much more regular. Cold beer is cold beer! If you look hard you can see some kite surfers in the second pic. Instead of just heading home I decided to see where the road went. Not too long a track but it ended right at the tip of the point. It was completely deserted. You c...
Read more