little okinawa

It was a 3-day weekend recently, and Monday was a holiday (National Foundation Day) which Satoshi had off, unfortunately he worked on Saturday and Sunday.

Anyway, not wanting to waste the day he had off, we went to check out Taisho-ku located in the Southern part of Osaka, also known as Little Okinawa.

Some of my relatives used to live here but have since moved back to Okinawa, too bad we'd never visited them while they were there.

This area is surrounded by the rivers of Osaka, kinda like an "island", though there are many bridges that connect it to Osaka prefecture.

Lunch was at a cute shop called Marutomi Shokudo, this place only has 4 tables, so if you go during lunch be prepared to wait or share your table with others.

I had the Okinawa soba (top photo), this was a shoyu based soup with tender seasoned pork belly, some kamaboko and some slices of hard boiled egg.

Perfect way to warm up on such a chilly day.

Satoshi had their soki soba, a miso based soup with pieces of tender seasoned pork ribs, daikon & cabbage.

There was also a complimentary andagi as well as green tea.

After lunch, we checked out the Thanks Shopping Arcade a.k.a. Hirao Main Shopping Arcade.

There weren't many places open because it was a holiday, but check out this stash of andagi in front of a tiny grocery store.

From there we went to check out one of the 7 ferry landings in this area.

The city runs these ferries and each one is free of charge. The main purpose is for people to commute from Osaka prefecture to Taisho, without having to go all the way around to where a road or bridge connects Osaka to Taisho.

If you want to check out some of these ferries, here is the info in English from the Osaka city page.

I also shot a short video of our ride on the Senbokumatsu ferry route. You'll see that we pass under the freeway. It was also kinda noisy because of the wind. It is a great way for bicyclists to cross over to Taisho.

Lastly, we checked out a man-made hill called Showa-yama. It is 33 meters (108 feet) high and made from the debris and rubble after digging the Osaka subway system.

Not many sights, but you really get an Okinawan vibe.

I'm glad we checked out this area.

Marutomi Shokudo
5-2-13 Hirao
Taisho-ku, Osaka
Phone: 06.6553.0274
Closed Tuesdays, Hours: 10:00-20:00

p.s. it's Friday here, I hope you have a nice weekend.

okinawa (day 3)

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!