During Easter Holiday, I was in Okinawa, Japan. The weather & foods were very good.

I will update my post soon for Okinawa trip!

We chosed a very good hotel in Okinawa.  Zanpa Resort Hotel (JA)

The breakfast was buffet so we could choose without limit, hahaha. So it was so hard for us to control the amount of the foods. Yeah, we ate so much breakfast everyday. The foods were so good, and we were missing the Japanese foods. There were also several Okinawa healthy foods as well. It is known that the Okinawa foods are very healthy because it is the area in which people live the longest. Anyway,the veggies had good taste, and the fruits were not fake fruit. I found that some of the fruits in Finland are tastless so I was forgetting the real fruits.

  Oishi, buffet is perfect style for us

The fourth day, we visited to the historical places in northern Okinawa main island. .

-Underground Headquarters
-Himeyuri
-Gyokusen dou , thema park <Okinawa World>
-Syuri castle 

We took a bus tour again, so in early morning we had to be in the meeting place.  There were only 3 couples. One elder couples, 40’s couple, and us.

First stop was Formaer Navy Underground Headquarters. There was 300 meter cave tunnel where you can visit, but it has some more area still closed to the public.

momument

 entrance

  map and picture

The second stop was Himeyuri memorial museum. There was a small cave in front of that museum. Our guide said that people were hiding in that small cave…

 small cave

After we had a lunch, we went to Okinawa World. There was a long cave. I don’t know how to say it in English. That cave has been there for 300,000 years! And the length is 890m. In side of the cave, the humidity was almost 100 percent. We got a bit tired, hihihi. I was wondering if the elder people with us were okay or not. But I saw them in the exist so I was a bit relieved.  Inside of the thema park, we found the unique beer so we took a rest, hehehe.

 @ entrance

       It was just amazing and beautiful

 Beer, beer , beer “Kanpai”

After we finished the bus tour, we visited to the Syuri castle! You could see that the Ryukyu culture got a lot of influence from outside! It looks like Chinese or Korean style. It was interesting!

  gate

  so many steps…

shuri castle

now, let’s go to inside of the castle

 mini mini castle

After we finished whole trip, we went to main street to have some foods and drinks.

 purple yam tempura (my favorite)

 taco rice again

 pork legs

On May 24th, we took a bus tour to go to North part in main land of Okinawa.

There is a huge Aquarium, it is called Churaumi Aquarium. I haven’t been to an Aquarium for a long time, so we decided to take a bus trip. The bus trip included 4 places.

• Butterfly Park
• Churaumi Aquarium
• Pineapple park
• Crystal factory

  
At the butterfly park

   

I really enjoyed being at the Aquarium. So many fishes in the big tank We spent almost 3 hours  Andreas also was excited about seeing many fish. We saw almost all of the things at the Aquarium, hahaha. We were like a kid

  You can touch the starfish ^^

    

   

 shark mouth is really big

Outside of the Aquarium was pretty park.

   

   We Love coconuts juice!

At the Pineapple park, I found a mini pineapple. Of course, I bought one to bring it back to Finland. Well, unfortunately it couldn’t survive in the cold weather…He became weaker and weaker, then got brownish…so I had to say good bye to him, sorry to bring you to the cold country

  minimini pineapple
my favorite pic, hahaha

Then the Crystal factory was interesting, but it was a normal factory. But the crystal they made was very very pretty Everything is made by hand so even it is the same glass, it looked a bit different, hahaha. So it was so hard to choose one for me 

 
left one is for Andreas, right one is mine

And and and…we had done with many things this day. There was a bar with live music in the hotel. We visited to listen to the Okinawa Traditional Live music It was very relaxed and interesting. They use an Okinawa dialect, so I didn’t understand what they were singing, hehehe. So I had to look at the lyrics The music really impressed us 

Oh I forgot to tell you about Okinawa Beer. The taste is a bit bitter, so Andreas’ rate is 3 stars

 pig’s ear is called Mimiga. People in Okinawa eat a lot of pork.

 Okinawa beer “Orion”

Here is Video (live music)

On the second day, unfortunately it was raining So we decided to go shopping because we didn’t want to be outside.

First, we visited to the shopping street, it is called “Kokusai Dori” The atomosphere is diffirent. The place is in Japan, but there are many foreigners, especially Americans. Yeah, there is a US militaty base. The culture is very influenced by the Americans. For example, the popular food is called “Taco Rice” We tried to eat this, it is taco, but without tortillas. Interesting, ya?

  entrance

  

There are many toys and survenior shops at the street.

 ashitano no Jo

   Japanese love this character
Pine apple kewpie

 peko chan

  Taco Rice!

Since it was rainning so much, we went back to Hotel and took a rest that day. We were not active yet, hehehe.

 we bought many stuff

We took a looong flight from Helsinki to Okinawa. This time our root was Helsinki - Nagoya - Naha ( around 15 hours). As usual, I did not like the service of Finnair. The foods suck and zero customer service Our leaving day was almost Easter Holiday, so there were so many people at the airport

 From the plane. Japanese Alps.

   
Nagoya airport and… 

Again, we took a different flight, so I was alone on the plane… I arrived later, so I had to find Andreas in the Naha airport.  He was waiting for me in the wrond exit, so it took me to find him for a while. The weather was warm and no more dry air. I was feeling better, because I was sick of the cold weather in Finland!

Then, we took a public bus to go to our hotel. We were having jetlag, so we took a nap in the bus, hehehe.

 iguana an-chan

The hotel was resort Hotel, and it was nice! It is time to start our Holidays in Okinawa~~