Buses, Taiko, and More Buses

 We spent about 6 hours on buses today so we could take a 1 hour Okinawan (Eisa) taiko lesson. Sounds fair to me.

We left the Chunaumi area at 6:30 this morning and got to the airport around 9:15. Why the airport? Well, we needed to take a local bus for about 90 minutes to the Koza area where there is an Eisa museum and we couldn't drag our luggage with us and needed to transfer buses anyway, so we grabbed some coin lockers and got back on another bus, finally getting to Koza at about 11:15.

Very long story short, Koza is where American troops were staged before deploying to Vietnam in the 60's and 70's and the whole area looks like it. The entire main road north of the museum building is various "gentlemens" clubs and other clubs that would look normal in L.A. but not Japan. Also quite possibly the first pizza restaurant I would consider eating at. It is still near a US Navy base and likely where a lot of them hang out. It was an interesting cultural juxtaposition, but all in all, looked kind of trashy.

The Koza Music Center, on the other hand, is a three story building with the Eisa museum, a radio station, a karaoke club, a recording studio and one of the premier concert venues in Okinawa, a modern 1100 seat theater.

Eisa is kind of all over the place here

Manhole covers

Buses

Statues

Umm...

Eisa is an Okinawan form of drumming and dancing tied closely to the O-Bon odori and stems from a different Buddhist branch than what is seen on the Japanese mainland. It is largely dancing while hitting the drum, with unique techniques and an extensive history and cultural significance to the Okinawan people. They have been holding Eisa competitions annually since 1946 and it has grown into an art form in its own right.

So, we spent an hour stumbling around, trying to hit the drum and move our feet at the same time. And it was a blast!

Ha-i-wa!

It really was fun. We learned just enough to know we don't know anything, but have more of an appreciation of the art form and how they play. Our instructor was excellent. He spoke only Japanese, which wasn't a problem for us, but he was able to speak slowly and clearly so we could understand right away while still conveying his lesson. He made it fun, and because we were the only two taking the class this afternoon, we got to go over the introductory song a number of times and actually start to learn it.

After the lesson, we hopped back on ANOTHER bus and, with a brief monorail transfer, got back to the airport, got our stuff, got BACK on the monorail a few stops to our hotel. We checked in, dropped our stuff off, walked about a quarter mile,

AND THEN!!!!!

Shiawase da

hontou ni shiawase da ne

After over a week with only two actual meal, this was like heaven. Real vegetables! Cooked food! We thoroughly enjoyed our first CoCo Curry experience of 2026. It's been pretty ridiculous with how few food options we have had this past week. But after a plate of curry, all is right with the world. Well, at least in the Y's Inn Naha Oroku Ekimae. Tomorrow, we bid adieu to Okinawa and take a flight back to Tokyo, where we'll bum around for several days and very likely, most probably, will have slightly better food choices.

Kinen Koen

 The whole reason we spent half a day getting to the northern part of the island was to visit Kinen Koen (Ocean Expo Park). It's an indoor/outdoor set of exhibits that spans a few miles and includes the Churaumi Aquarium, a botanical garden, a traditional Okinawan village, and the like. It is also directly next door to our hotel (good planning, Sumi! We'll forget all about the "no food" thing!)

Speaking of no food, our hotel "almost" had breakfast. For ¥500 (about $3.50) they did offer a "breakfast bento" which was basically a very stripped down buffet of mostly carbohydrates. Small waffles, small croissants, small muffins, small...you get the idea. They also had the automatic pancake maker.

90 seconds and you, too, can have a silver dollar pancake

It was not the most underwhelming breakfast I have ever had.

If I let her, there would be about 300 of Sumi's fish pictures from this visit, but I must say the Churaumi Aquarium is one of the best I have ever seen. There are cutting edge researchers there that travel the world with some of their custom made equipment, learning more about a variety of marine animals. They appear to be the only place in the world that has bred a manta ray in captivity, using a special handheld underwater scanner to monitor gestation (they published several papers on this) and so on. They have done this with several species and are currently working on Moray Eels and researching whale shark gestation.

Speaking of whale sharks

Close to 10m long and weighing about 6 tons, he was amazing. It's really hard to get a sense of how big he was without seeing him swim by you, just a few feet away. The giant manta rays in the very large tank with him are 6m across and looked small next to him.

Very quiet and slow to move. We were fortunate enough to get to see him eat. When they do, sometimes they will go vertical, staying in one place and feeding. It was really cool to see. We have a picture from lunch where you can see him in the background.

The exhibits were excellent, both the large fish like the whale shark and manta rays, and the smaller exhibits. The facilities were top notch and other than far too many children whining and crying far too much, it was a really pleasant few hours. Here's a SMALL sample of Sumi's photo collection

They had a "restaurant" in the basement of the aquarium that had tables set up at small viewing stations of the big tank, so you could (for a small ¥1000 fee) reserve a table right next to the tank and watch the fish while you ate.

Yes, we totally did, You can see the whale shark "standing up" in the background

The "restaurant" food.

OK, so mine was a "margarita pizza" that looked like a calzone and tasted like high school hot lunch. Sumi has some explaining to do to the creatures we'd been watching all morning, as she ordered fish and chips. Whose cousin were you eating, hmmm?

After lunch we walked up the Ocean Park and took a look at some of the other exhibits. There was a lot of interesting topiary along the 7.5km route

The old Okinawan village had a lot of recreations of what buildings were like before Okinawa was subsumed into the Japanese empire during the Showa era.

Those are vintage Okinawan cinder blocks...

Lots of nice walkways and flowers all over the place

    

And shuttle buses to take people to the different exhibits.

Cute as they were, we just walked. The final stop was for ice cream. I mean, you SAW the lunch, right?

Pineapple on the left, some odd Acerola and Shikuwasa mix on the right

Back at the hotel, the school still had control of the restaurant, but the lobby was nice...

Tomorrow we are up early to catch a slow bus back down to Naha and then go visit the Eisa Museum and take some Okinawan Taiko lessons!

But before I go, I think more restaurants should advertise with a giant fish head

Traveling up to Motobu

 Today was largely taken up by sitting on boats and buses. We stopped at the tourist center before catching the morning Queen Zamami back to Tomari port. When we arrived, we found this well-mannered gentleman there.

He didn't go in. He just looked in longingly.

Sumi of course couldn't resist petting him. This was his response.

The "feral" cats of Zamami

From there, we boarded a highway bus to take us the 50 miles up to Motobu to the Royal View Chunaumi Resort. It's a fancy name for the hotel we're staying at. In Okinawa, there is no such thing as fast transit. The 50 mile trip was a 2.5 hour bus ride, mostly through urban sprawl. Not the most scenic trip, but it was much better than renting a car. It would have taken even longer unless we also paid for all the tolls along the way, at which point you are just paying 5 times the money for more stress and no real time savings.

So we get to the hotel, and it's quite nice

Open lounge with free soft drinks and popcorn. We spent the better part of an hour looking for where to go eat dinner. It turns out in the off season on a Sunday night up in this mostly tourist area, that's not really an option. I think they must expect you to eat at your hotel. So we tried that. But it turns out that some school had rented out the entire dining hall and many of the common spaces for some school trip. So what we could do was sit in the lounge and smell the food and hear them having a good time.

So for what feels like the 75th time this trip, we found ourselves at a convenience store (a Lawson, this time) searching for something not terribly unhealthy. We ended up with our usual selections of yogurt, bread, ham, cheese, etc. I was sorely tempted when I saw a VERY rare sight in Japan

That, my friends, is peanut butter.

The only thing that stopped me from getting it was the fact that I'm going to be on the road for two weeks as soon as we get back, and will likely be living on PB&J (by choice! Not by necessity), so I passed, but that was the first time I have ever seen it on display.

We ended our day by playing some table tennis in the rec room until the school kids took over for some organized presentation with microphones and slides or something. Either that or the world's most boring karaoke, I couldn't really tell.

Hiking around Zamami Island and Furuzamami Beach

 The rain continued on and off over the night and the wind picked up, making today not a great snorkeling day. But as the rain let up, it looked like a good day to hike up the small mountains and see more of the larger island. We slathered ourselves in sunscreen as the rays come through even on cloudy days like today, and started our hike up Mt. Takatsuki.

The small mountain waas only about 120m tall, so it was mostly one steep climb and a lot of uphill walking. The road reminded us of our bike trips: steep, wet, and us walking up them. It gave us the opportunity to see some other wildlife, including a wide variety of butterflies that never stayed still long enough for a picture, but I have some stock pictures to show what we were seeing.

A typical Japanese mountain road

Impressive

These guys were around a lot.

About halfway up the first peak, we unexpectedly came across the "Tower of Peace", a monument to the lives lost when the Allied forces first landed in Okinawa. Zamami was the first landing zone, right behind Aka.

There were several observation areas on top of Mt. Takatsuki, with nice vistas, even with the clouds and rain.

Not used to such short trips, we decided to walk across the island to Mt. Inazaki and check out that view.

Walking down the mountain on the west side of the island, we came across a goat farm, an evacuation path, some trees with huge fruits, and a small resort that sold local ice cream.

Pandanus fruit from the Screwpine tree (I am not making that name up)

Ama beach. Very quiet today

Blue Seal is like the Ben & Jerry's of Okinawa. They have full scale Blue Seal restaurants.

On the way back to the pension house to shower after hiking in 80 degrees and 100% humidity for three hours, we found Marilyn, Shiro's friend!

With still half a day left and Sumi not being able to stand not snorkeling if there wasn't a typhoon or other major catastrophe, we walked to Furuzamami Beach. This is one of those tourist beaches that is crawling with people during vacation season. White sand, clear water, small coral reef. Fortunately? for us, it was off season and actively raining. Sumi dove in while I walked the beach.

Influencers posing and taking photos. For the entire two plus hours we were there.

The beach was gorgeous, the sand a mixture of old ground up coral (i.e. fish poop) and the remains of tiny aquatic creatures, which is what nearly all white sand beaches in the tropics are made of. It was deep sand and difficult to wade through. Large bluffs were found on either side, and it was sheltered from the wind and currents pretty well.

A rare wild Sumi spotted in her natural habitat

It was a relaxing way to end the day. Sumi got yet more fish pictures, I got to walk on the beach and enjoy some silence (our pension house is many things, but quiet is not one of them).

Cuttlefish. One of the oddest creatures in the sea.

Thus ends our self-exile in the Kerama islands, where the water is clear and the food is scarce. We tried to go to two different restaurants tonight. Both of them closed this evening. That part of me cannot wait to get back to the main island. Tomorrow will be a long travel day to northern Okinawa island.

Snorkeling and Burgers

 Well the rain came in. Nothing serious, but a steady fall most of the morning. We checked with the excursion place and they said the rain/wind/thunder/Godzilla wouldn't be bad in the afternoon, so snorkeling was still a go. So we bummed around the pension house, me doing work, Sumi doing planning for later in the trip, but basically being a little lazy. 

We did a little inadvertent souvenir shopping by stopping by both stores in town looking for towels for the beach. On Aka, the prison cell hotel was basically a place for divers, so they had everything there. The pension house is larger and less prison-like, but has grilled fish for every meal (that is not an exaggeration. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner). The supermarket had many things, but big towels they did not. The other market, which was basically a souvenir shop attached to the ferry port, did have towels, but they were artistic and special. Fifty dollars worth of special. So we ended up buy about $100 worth of shirts instead...I don't get the math either, but they are very nice outdoor shirts.

He really is everywhere. Kumamon is from Kyuushuu but has become a bit of a national mascot

At 1PM we headed to the visitor center to meet up with Mika-san, who took us out to a few new spots. As we were boarding the boat, a very unafraid sea turtle stopped by for quite a while to watch us. Apparently, one of the fishermen that moors in the same place will often toss some scraps to him, so he was hopeful, but ultimately disappointed.

I can haz cheezburger?

The reefs were once again amazing. The coral is so alive here, and so many new types of fish! And a bunch of turtles. We saw like seven or eight of them floating about, along with a bunch of very poisonous (and thankfully very chill) sea snakes. Seeing a snake just swimming along underwater with the fish is a little unnerving the firs time you see it, but they are not remotely aggressive, so it's fun to watch them from up above.

Two drowned rats

After snorkeling, the rain was coming down harder. We sloshed the few blocks back to the pension house and showered, then set out to find our second meal of the trip. We were at the wrong time (4PM). All the lunch placed had closed and the dinner places didn't open until 6, and we weren't waiting that long after 2 hours of snorkeling. So we took a chance on the aptly names Zamami Burger and Pizza. It's actually a full on diving hostel with a bar/restaurant as its lobby.

The atmosphere was ultra-toned down Margaritaville. The music was like they found a midwest classic rock station from 1985, which was kind of fun and much better than some of the bad Japanese crooning covers we had to listen to earlier (Sumi could swear a guy was singing "Killing Me Softly" with a smooth jazz background). I heard "Stairway To Heaven" for the first time in at least 10 years, maybe 15. Oh, yeah, the food

With "Zamami sauce". Still don't know what it was.

The burgers were good. Like enjoyable good. This is not a guarantee in Japan. I keep saying this, but you almost have to be here to understand just how fatty they like their meat. I'm not a huge meat eater to begin with, and when I do eat it, I prefer it lean and well done. If the Japanese could get away with cooking it but still have the texture of bleeding, raw meat, they would. Soggy defines 80% of Japanese cuisine. But these were good, and heavier than we're used to.

We weren't going to get a dessert but Chocolate Brownie with Okinawa Honey isn't something I have the willpower to pass up. And, yeah, it was worth it, Okinawa Honey, based on what we had, isn't as thick or sweet as other types of honey, but it's very tasty and complimented the chocolate well. They apparently also will put it on all of their pizzas...(sigh)