Okinawa NaHaNa Hotel & Spa

... it in my previous entry) was the original name of the Okinawan archipelago (it used to be known as the Ryukyu Kingdom which was a tributary state of Imperial China). Although commercial in almost all respects, this village was a very beautiful place to visit. We even saw numerous examples of the local poisonous snake (the "Habu") as well as a mongoose. Unfortunately there was no mongoose/snake fight today! I did get to feed a large number of carp as well as a couple of very ...

... of the Japanese Navy's main command posts during World War 2. What an interesting and spooky place this turned out to be. Two things really struck us. First of all, these tunnels were dug from the rock by hand using pick axes -- there are thousands of metres of tunnels here. Secondly, many military officers committed suicide here after it became apparent that the battle with the U.S. was lost. The scars from exploding hand grenades can still be seen in some of ...

Today we arrived at Naha City in Okinawa. We flew from Tokyo in an ANA 747. It has bee a really long time since I've flown in a 747 and (other than landing which I hate with a passion) it was a pleasure. The service on ANA is impeccable and the 747 (despite Airbus' development of the A380) is still the granddaddy of all airplanes. It was a pleasure to once again be on a 747.

Upon disembarking from the ...

On Sunday, we woke up early again to drive to Shuri Castle, down in Naha. Shuri Castle today is a recreation from memory of the 14th century castle that was destroyed during the battle of Okinawa. Chinese envoys used to come to the castle to crown the Ryukuan king, and there are many portraits and artifacts from these kings inside. You have to take off your shoes to walk around in the museum. We were happy to do so, since it ...

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.

Thursday morning marked my third location change of the trip. My 1:30 PM flight meant that there was not a whole lot we'd be able to do before I had to go, so Natalie and I decided to check out the Harbor City Mall again. After a repeat of breakfast at Starbucks, we headed over to the entrance from yesterday. Or so we thought. Apparently this mall is so huge that we were able to wander for an hour, through a luxury brand ...

... 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 ...

... eyesight, but the route was easy and bright enough to walk along and especially after she got used to the darkness, there was no problem and even she walked much faster than me. By the way, the park had another attraction, Eisa. To tell the truth, we had seen it in Ryukyu Mura, but this time it was better than that with more performers, a spacious stage, a lion dance, and a huge drum placed on the stage. Unfortunately, we were forbidden to ...

... in. I had been suffereing from a cold the last couple days so I could have stayed in and got some rest. Instead though I decided to walk down to Kokusai-dori, which is the main hangout street in Naha, and see what was happening...I asked for some directions from a store clerk and he kept telling me it was far, far away. I couldn`t imagine it was that far so I just started walking in the direction I thought it was. Turns out it was less than a mile away. Things were kind of ...