Hotel Sansuikan Beppu

Since this island is so small, we decided to do it again and this time go on a tour of the north today. This was a much less sobering tour than the one that we did yesterday given that it was more contemporary and less focused on the tragic past of Okinawa. Our stops today included of all things a pineapple farm and the world's second largest aquarium - apparently second in size only to the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta.

The bus ride today was a longer one as we had to ...

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 ...

... this though, I probably would not have noticed this at all -- the signs that this prefecture is a bit behind others are subtle. A shabby building here, some litter in a river there -- things that one tends not to see to such a degree in other parts of the country. Nonetheless, this is quite a nice place and definitely a sub-tropical paradise.

We will definitely see a lot more of rural Okinawa over ...

... a stunningly hot day and the indoor area was air conditioned. After Shuri Castle, we went to Kokusai street in Naha City. This is a palm-lined street with tons of small souvenir shops, with a surfer atmosphere. I picked up quite a few gifts here! My favorite purchase was a red coral necklace for myself. The store's owner was so happy to see me for some reason that she gave me free shisa keychain. Riley was getting restless, so ...

... not just Okinawa but many other Pacific islands such as Micronesia, the Philippines, Tonga, and Yap. There were a lot of really cool things to see there, like the stone money tablets of Yap and recreations of ancient fishing vessels. I was mad that there was no gift shop! After that, it was still hot out and we came across a flat fountain with a water show. Riley went over to investigate and got nailed in the face by a jet of water ...

On Friday, I woke up on the couch at around 6 am when Riley woke up, but was way too tired to get up, so I went back to sleep. My mom tried to rouse me to watch Riley's last swim lesson, and later to go work out, but it was impossible. When I finally did wake up, the sky had turned ominous, but it didn't matter because our only scheduled event was pedicures. Julia had booked us appointments at Cocok's (pronounced Coco's), where we were to get foot massages as well. I was nervous ...

... soaked before realizing that I had packed an umbrella in my purse. Whatever, I still felt like a champ for remembering my way back to the hotel without needing a map.

Luckily our hotel was a stop on the hotel express bus's line, which I must mention was unexpectedly very luxurious, so I was able to hop on the bus with little hassle. Anxiety only developed when the bus got stuck in rainy city traffic, and I got to the ...

... down the street. I got a glimps of a Peace Rally that the locals were having around the base. It was interesting, I just wish I knew what they were saying, or maybe not. Ava and I did a girls day, well just a couple of hours, and got our toes done at the infamous CoCo's. Don't they look nice! We tried to go to a water park, but come to find out they are only open on the weekends. Luckily it is inside of a huge park called ...

... train one stop to Beppudiagaku to try the popular Shonin-ga-hama sand bath by the beach. After dropping my pants on a unsuspecting lady (Offensive Item No 2.) I ducked outside in my yukata http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yukata to lay on a pit of black sand. A lady with a lacrosse scoop then covered me in the warm sand. "I'll be back in 15 minutes," she said. Half an hour later I was still lying there. The sand is heavy on the chest, it was a little ...

... moving as well. With the fish we drank sake, cold sake as it should be apparently, and after the fish with the meat we drank shuchu. We had a selection of chicken cooked in different ways on barbecue skewers, as well as an assortment of small dishes and snacks. After the meal we went to a bar, a different bar than the one on Thursday, but still a bar with hostesses. We had two hostesses looking after us, I can't ...