Beppu-wan Royal Hotel

... presence by the locals was very evident everywhere that we went.

We will miss Okinawa and hope that perhaps someday we can return to visit again. It was well worth it to make the trip down to this place not only for the warm weather and the friendly people but also to learn that, where we come from in Canada, we haven't known (and hopefully will not know anytime soon) the horrors that the ancestors of the people we visited experienced and still feel the pain from today.

Today we decided to do something that I don't normally like to do -- go on a guided tour with a bunch of other people and get caught up on a commercial racket. Given that neither of us have ever been to Okinawa and don't know our way around, we decided to go on a bus tour and are we ever glad that we did.

The tour took us to a number of historical and interesting spots, most notable of which was the old Imperial Navy Underground Headquarters that served as ...

... it became very clear that our stay here on Okinawa will be a hot and humid one. The weather conditions are pleasant though and we are clearly enjoying this a lot more than than the current conditions on the Canadian Prairies.

Naha is a typical large Japanese city but it is evident that Okinawa is one of the poorer prefectures in the country. I had read about this in my travel research. If I had not read ...

... did all of our shopping in fast forward. On our way home, we stopped at the military exchange, the small American-style mall on base. My mom and I went inside to buy silk robes, like the one Julia gave me for Christmas. We also got books for our respective plane rides, and then went to dinner at Macaroni Grill nearby. It was absolutely delicious, and Riley was very funny. While Julia packed at home, my mom and I took Riley ...

On Saturday, I managed to wake up a bit earlier, which is good because we had to be out of the house and on the road to get to the aquarium. Okinawa's aquarium is located near Nago, on the north tip of the island, and is the seconds largest aquarium in the world after the one in Georgia. It also has the largest sheet of plexiglass in the world for its main tank, which holds three whale sharks. We were very excited to see this, even ...

... but we did snag some Anpanman gummies.

When we got home, it was definitely Riley's bedtime, but then Mom, Julia, and I watched UP!, which I got for about 90 cents in Beijing. It worked, but since it is such a new movie, of course it was bootlegged and thus had a laugh track from the movie theater and also some of the writing was in Russian. It was still a good movie though. Afterwards, I fell asleep in about a second, despite this really not very action-packed day.

... was seatmates, as a screaming baby sat directly in front of me and the guy next to me hogged the armrest the entire flight and leaned across me to look out the window. I hated him deeply. Oh and also, we had to be bussed out to our plane for some reason, which necessitated everyone from the flight standing on a cattle car-like bus holding a strap with one hand and their luggage with the other. This was annoying enough for me ...

... next one. I never used to be such a huge Rocky fan. But now I am addicted!!!

I Rode a Bicycle up a Mountain

You may be asking yourself why did I mention Rocky, Well, I would never have made it up the terrible mountain side if I hadn't seen the movie the day before. I tried to go 4 kilometers by bicycle to some big tourist attractions in Beppu called “The Hells”. I didn't realise it would be all up hill the entire way (Beppu is ...

... pictures during the performance, because of a lot of troubles in the past, but they allowed us to take some picture in the end of the show. After the show, we had lunch in the restaurant next to the stage, where I had green caviar for the first time, although it is an Okinawan specialty. It was not especially good, but the bowl with green cavier and some seafood was very good.

Then we headed for Shikinaen Garden which was our last ...

... hello, Beppu aka onsen-town is by gone. We spent four nights there and it was more than enough. We had one onsen in our Kokega-Inn and we went there three times. Its nice and we didnt have to pay for extra for going some other onsen as it was included in the room price. Nothing much to see or experience in Beppu.. We fools went to this Africa Safari which was big disappointement, like we kind of assumed it would be. But we were the victims of marketing ...