So, I know its been awhile, but here's what I did July 15th. I went on the Newcomer's Island Excursion tour with the Airmen and Family Readiness Center on base to get an idea of what kind of places there are to visit. We went to 4 locations, plus a roadside stop for lunch, and took about 5 hours.....we didn't get too much time at each stop (except lunch)--only about 30-45 minutes. Just enough to whet the appetite to go back later!
Our first stop was Zakimi-Jo castle ruins. It was one of the castles of the Ryukyu kingdom. This one is actually ruins, and pretty much all you can view is the inner courtyards (there are 2) and the wall that surrounds them. You can take steps up to the top of the wall and look out at the surrounding area, you can see a good portion of the island from there. There is a museum there as well, but we did not get a chance to walk around that as time was short. This castle is a World Heritage site, and there are old springs around the location. These castle ruins were used as a gunnery location during WWII, and after the war when the Americans controlled the island, it was used as a radar outpost station. In 1978, Okinawa control was returned to the Japanese, and in 2000 this area was listed as a World Heritage site.
Our second stop was to the Yachimun No Sato pattery community, which wasn't far from Zkimi-Jo. There wasn't too much going on here as the kiln wasn't active. However, the main kiln has 9 rooms, one for each of the main artisans in the community. This community has several kilns in a few locations, each with a different style of pottery made. We did get to walk through the main kiln and one of the gift shops there. They had some very interesting stuff. We were told that they would be reactivating the kiln sometime this upcoming week (barring damage from the typhoon they are talking about this weekend), and it will include a ceremony with Buddhist prayer, possibly fireworks, and a lot of celebration.
After the pottery community, we went to Onna Glass, where they blow Ryukyu glass. This is a specific type of glass, mostly made from recycled glass bottles. Glass blowing is a relatively new art form on Okinawa, that started after WWII when the locals started picking up all the broken and discarded glass bottles from the soldiers. Since then they have been using the same form of glass to make the blown glass at this studio. At Onna Glass, we can pay a fee and make our own blown glass pieces, or glass fashion accessories. When we got there, we got to see them make an intricate flower-shaped vase before we went through the gift shop. The artist made this seemingly complicated piece with ease and in about 5 minutes. When I saw similar pieces inside at the shop, I was rather excited, until I saw the price--about 100 US dollars....maybe next time!
We also went to Ryukyy Mura, with is kind of like a mock Ryukyu village with many gift shops and, for a fee, you can see traditional houses and parts of the village like a sugar factory, water mill, liquor shop, climbing kiln, and the Habu snake center. We only went through the free stuff, so JJ and I will have to go back to experience the rest of it.
The following day, JJ got off early enough to meet me at Emerald Beach next to the aquarium (about 2 hours away) for the Summer festival. There were over 10,000 fireworks--what a great display!--and a show on a stage, that we really couldn't see because we were so far away. Before the fireworks, we had several hours to walk around the aquarium and see what they had--most of it was outdoors and free!!! There were several tanks with large sea turtles, a manatee house (indoor tanks, but still free!!), and dolphin lagoon where they have free dolphin shows 3 or 4 times a day. We were too late to see a show, but we did get to see the dophins playing and having fun swimming around. While we still had time, we went inside the main aquarium after purchasing very reasonably priced tickets, and walked around. Inside was mostly the deep dark sea displays, the main tank you can see from the top as you come down inside the aquarium. The largest part of the aquarium though houses the shark research lab, where they have jaws, teeth, and other things pertaining to sharks on display, along with a huge shark tank that contains many different sharks and rays. they do have smaller tanks with other sharks, but the big one has at least on tiger shark and several smaller sharks. We saw black-tipped reef sharks, nurse sharks, dogfish (small sharks), the guitar shark (well, the name is similar to that, its jaw is shaped like a guitar fingerboard), and others. I could've sat in that one area for hours!!!
Then last weekend, for Pioneer Day, we went to Taguchi Beach and had an activity with one of the local Okinawan Branches for church. There were missionaries there to help translate, but overall, it was a great experience! That also happens to be the beach where we have baptisms as there is not font in our church building....in fact there is a baptism there in a couple hours.
This place is so beautiful, and after only about 6 weeks, I'm not sure if I will ever want to leave!
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