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

Second destination is Bratislava in Slovakia.

It took us to get there from Wien around for one hour. It was very cheap so it was a waste of money to use interrail pass!

The Main activities here were…

• Bratislava castle (it was closed due to renovation, when we were there)
• Old town
• Old City Hall (museum)
• Took Tourist train Prešporá?ik in the Old Town
• encounter the funny statue
• Try to eat Slovak foods and beer

People were friendly When we arrived in the station, we asked to a young lady and she explained where to get off the bus and which bus we should take. In the bus, she explained where to go to Bratislava castle! Nice right? The reception guy at hostel and at restaurant was also nice!

The old town was very pretty and small. It is enough to see only one day to see all of the sights. In old town, many statue were waiting for us. (ie, Paparazzi, napoleon …etc). Old City Hall is now museum of history. I learned about the Slovak history. Very old city since 5000BC,wow! At that building, there was a down stairs and it was jail before. I felt very an atmosphere of menace at that place, hihihi. Also, I saw many equipments of torture…

After we finished sightseeing, it was lunch time, yay yay. Many restaurant were around the Old town, so it was easy to find. The foods were good and prices were okay, i think. I tried to drink “Kofola” which is Slovak soft drink. It is supposed to be a similar taste to Coca Cola! It was funny taste, actually. It looked like Coca cola, but it is not exactly same.

Our hostel were good location, but we stayed with very strange guys… I was so scared, so I was sticked to Andreas during my sleeping, hehehe. We didn’t have individual lamps. When we turned on the light, one guy was making annoying face…Then suddenly, that guy went in and out from the room many times. We had no clue what he wanted to do it. It was good that we only stayed there for one night.

Bratislava castle

This castle has a yellow color of wall which Maria Theresa’s style. Yeah, Schönbrunn has the same color as well. 

nice view with Donau River

Cute statues which one is your favorite??

From Old City Hall. Isn’t it pretty town?? I love this view from top of Tower.

mini city of Bratislava

Let’s move on to see about Slovak foods

Coca cola??!! I was so ashamed to speak after I had this Garlic soup, hihihi. The menu was a bit confusing. It seemed like a set, but if you want to have extra potato, it was additional price. After all, we paid more than what we thought.

You know, city is so small…So tour was also short, hehehe. And, they skipped to go to castle =( Here is some pics I took from the tour bus.

*Happening*

Somehow, the insects love his T-shirt. There were tons of them…

Andreas was very angry that time.

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~~

We went to three bars. I got already dizzy at the first bar, but everyone was drinking so much I liked the atomosphere at the bar in Estonia.  Also, the ladies are very pretty and I can see that they care about their looking and fashion. I think that is good way! When I came to Estonia the first time, it was 2003 in winter. At that time, I was still feeling scared with walking on the steet, but this time I did not feel scared at all. People are smiling and look happier nowadays. Well, this was just my thought

  
my caramel tea and snack

  
Enjoying the time, Antan and myself

friends pics
  
sanae-chan          Gizmo                      Susanna-san & Kimmo-san

 He is gonna donze on the video

We went to Tallinn  (日本語）during the weekend.  On March, they still don’t have fast ferry, so it took us to get there for 3.5 hours. Many friends came, so it was not boring on the ferry

   
On the ferry    Me and Sanae-chan   Baris and Marion

After we arrived in Tallinn, we did a bit sightseeing in the old town. The town is very pretty, so i don’t get bored even I have been in Tallinn several times  Also, the food and beers are better than the Finnish ones  The weather during that day was very windy and cold, so we finished sightseeing quickly and started having lunch at our favorite German restaurant! Well, Andreas and I always order the honeybeer hihihi.

     Be careful~

　　 
看板がかわいい　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　大聖堂

   
we always take a picture at this place. Winter vs. Summer in 2005

   messy hair with view of old town

  Kanpai
Tallinn medieval Town hall

Everyone got tired, because we walked in the cold. So we decided to take a nap a bit, hehehe. Chotto lazy dane^_^All of us stayed at the same hostel. After a couple of hours, other friends arrived to the hostel. So, it was time to start drinking and having a good time