Day 3 started off really early. We left our hotel at 8 am...our first stop was Himeyuri no to. This is a memorial in the Itoman area where 200 school girls committed suicide rather than be captured by the Americans during the war. Here we said a prayer.We then went to Okinawa World. This is a park with a very l-o-n-g cave called gyokusendo. Inside the cave are stalactite and stalagmite over 300,000 years old.
And then we were off to Kokusai-dori for lunch. I had So-ki soba (this is Okinawa's soba (like udon (wheat noodles) with spareribs with soup). Satoshi had Okinawa soba (slices of su-chika-(pork shoulder cooked in salt and stock until soft) on Okinawa's soba with soup).
Some interesting sites: Ishiganto, these are good luck rocks placed in front of homes.
Akagawara (red tile roofing), found on most traditional homes in Okinawa.
Face of a shisa (lion) at the Churaumi Aquarium.One place to visit is the farmer's market, just off Kokusai-dori. A lively area with lots of vegetables, fruits, pork and fish. A lot of vendors weren't open on Sunday, but I was able to get a photo of a pork vendor. Okinawan don't eat much beef except for Ishigaki beef, they mainly eat pork, chicken and fish.
A basket of Okinawan vegetables near the buffet at Mahaina: from the top clockwise, pumpkin, ginger root, green papaya, beni-imo (purple sweet potato), beni-jagaimo (red potato), onions.
Dessert with dinner at the Okinawa Miyako hotel. Beni-imo kintoki (mashed and sweetened purple sweet potato) and kuri-kinton with black bean (mashed and sweetened chestnuts with black bean in the middle)We made it safely back to Osaka and Satoshi's parents had a nice time. We're back to the cold weather, in fact, we had some flurries this morning! (isn't it March??)
Hope you enjoyed this journey as much as we did!
