falling words: February 2018

Came back from Okinawa last week's Wednesday. This was an amazing trip, one week, first four nights in Motobu and then three in Naha. I was at first wondering if a week was a bit too long, but nope, it was perfect for this. Though I was quite happy to return when I did, it was a pretty tiring trip, too...

A few practical notes, in the case you're considering a trip to Okinawa:

1) I flew there with Peach. a Japanese LCC. It was the cheapest option, though Jetstar came close. Peach was fine. The flight to Naha was 50 min late, but these things happen with all airlines, and the one from there was perfectly on schedule. In Naha, Peach arrives (and leaves from) to the cargo part of the airport, so you need to take shuttle bus to the main terminal. In that sense Jetstar would have a been a bit handier as it uses the main domestic terminal. Peach's terminal does have a small souvenir shop and a little cafe where you can get food too (and not too expensive), so it was ok too.

2) When I was talking about going to Okinawa, people kept on telling me to rent a car. Apparently Japanese people always do when they go there - and I can understand why. I didn't, as although I've got driver's license I drive really seldom, and didn't want to be practicing driving on my own on strange roads in left-hand traffic...

So I took a bus from the airport to Motobu, and in Motobu I either walked or used buses.... but the thing is, the buses don't run too often, there might be one bus every one or two hours. The result is that I ended up walking an awful lot... rough estimate is that I walked 10km every day in Motobu just going from one place to another (and add to that the walking I did when I reached my destination.) It honestly didn't feel like that much, though, and I enjoyed walking there. You can see much more when you walk. The best part was when I took taxi up to Mt Yae and then walked down to Motobu. I'd actually recommend doing it that way and not going there with your own car. Best walk ever, and not too bad, going downhill. (Uphill would have been a different story.... xD)

I stayed in Motobu in Guesthouse Pole Pole and in Naha at an airbnb that goes by ゆめの家. Both were great, but especially the latter one. Really nice place with great location.

The main reason I went to Okinawa now was that I wanted to see sakura. I'm leaving home on March 10, and sakura will bloom in Kyoto in late March/April. In Okinawa the full bloom's in the recent years been on the second week of February, and so it was now too. The mot common cherry variety on Okinawa is called kanhizakura. Its flowers are deeper pink, and a bit bell-like.

I had one goal in Motobu: to get a good photo of メジロ, the Japanese white eye. I think this remains as the best shot I managed to take:

But just because, a couple of more. The first one's an accident. I was photographing the spider, after nearly walking into its web.

But, yes. Obviously I saw some sakura. 😄 They were amazing.

And next follows... well, what else? An overdose of photos. (I took way too many. How did I take so many photos. It's amazing in itself. Nearly a thousand.......)

Setting off!

On the first day in Motobu I went to Nakijin castle ruins, a Ryukyuan gusuku (castle), the construction of which was began in the 13th century. It was destroyed in 1609 when the Japanese domain of Satsuma invaded the Ryukyu Kingdom.

Little birds, big butterflies. It's the same butterfly in both pics, the first one's just a bit dark photo. I'm still not quite sure what it is. Found some photos online that claimed its Papilio bianor okinawensis, the Okinawa peacock, but I don't think it's that. The peacock one should have blue/green tinge in the wings and black body. This looks more like Pachliopta aristolochiae, the common rose, but doesn't have those white spots in the wings. (Common rose? Why is a black butterfly called common rose?)

After returning to Motobu, I went to Bise no Fukugi tree road, rented a bike there cause I'd walked enough for that day. It is a just a nice trail to walk/bike among fukugi trees, leading to the Cape Bizezaki. That's a nice place to watch the sun setting behind Iejima island, though on the day I was there it was a bit cloudy, and I didn't wait for the sunset at the cape as I was there early.

You can see I've refound the panorama function in my phone.... ^_^

Nice sceneries, but one problem.... :/

But this fellow's still happy.

I ate at Bise and headed then to the bus stop, only to see that the next bus would come over an hour later. Started walking home. No problem otherwise, but they don't really believe in streetlights in Motobu.(Of course it wasn't as dark as it looks like in the photo, but still.)

Next day it was time to get up on Yaedake. I left in the morning to check out Motobu town - well, not too much to be seen, really. But I found a really good cafe/lunch place, ｒａ・ｓｈｉ・ｓａ, where I had brunch. Very nice place, good food, and nice owners. I asked them if there really is no bus toward Mt. Yae, as I hadn't been able to find one, and then we concluded it's best to go there by taxi, which they kindly called for me. And as I said before, that was quite perfect. Of course taxi is hardly a cheap way to go places, but even so.

I simply loved Yaedake. Great sceneries, beautiful sakura, and other interesting things on the way.

Zooming from the highest point where the taxi took me: there is the town of Motobu, and Iejima island, where I went next day.

For a while I was quite confused on this mountain: it was full of what seemed to me like seashells. Turned out they were the shells of land snails. Kind of awesome.

Note also the ice cream add in this picture. They were advertising ice cream everywhere, but I had to walk a couple of hours before I found a place that sold them. (There was one stand that claimed to be open, but there was no one anywhere near....)

After walking a while I came to a sign that pointed toward the ruins of Yaedake Field Hospital, and headed that way. However, the area was closed, and based on the condition of this info sign, it probably hasn't been open for a while.

But! There was this extremely tempting little path, and I simply cannot resist paths. Paths are made to be followed, right? This one wasn't (luckily, maybe) a long one. It led to a couple of holes in the ground, some kind of war time dugouts, maybe?

Look at that path! How can you not follow?

And how can you not go to check these lil caves....

(I'm so happy there's a torch on the cell phone, though.)

There was also this tree that had two (now) broken bottles (just the bottoms left, really) placed by it... difficult to see, but one's in the right bottom corer, the other on the left side in the middle.

And on I went! As I approached Sakura no mori, the forest of sakura (wouldn't really call it a sakura forest) which is the family park part of the place, I finally got my ice cream.

Sakura no mori has two pathways built in the hillside. They are supposedly for nice family strolls, based on this pic:

Well, the first one was quite nice. I was totally out of breath after it, though, but hey, I'm me, and not that fit. It was a lovely path, in case:

See the building in the pic below? It's an observatory. A bit below it, on the left, you can see bit of the road. I started my way downward from there.

After a short break I headed for the other walk. And that one was hard! Not to mention a bit scary at times. Wouldn't really rec it for children. The stairway was really steep at times, and there were a couple of places where really had to take care how to proceed.

A few photos from the walk to/in Motobu, after leaving the mountain behind:

And, on we go! God, this will be a huge post. Next, off to Iejima. Took the first ferry in the morning. The ferries don't go too often either, with 2-3 hours interval, and the last ferry from Iejima leaves at 4 pm, so better go there early.

I rented a bike there. By far the handiest way to move around that island, in my mind. It was a really hot day. I hadn't thought it'd be that sunny, so I hadn't prepared... burned my skin a bit biking there.

The first stop (that I first drove by because it was too nice day for biking) was at the Nyatya cave. During the battle of Okinawa, this cave was used as an air-raid shelter. It is also called Sennin, thousand people, for it's said it sheltered that many people.

Wajee viewpoint! The sea was so beautiful.

There were many other places I could have went to, but I wasn't going to spend too much time there, so I just drove around a little, and headed then to Mt. Gusuku.

I'd been planning to go to see the ocean expo park in the afternoon, but didn't feel like it. Ended up walking some more, to Sesoko island, chasing after some delicacies.

And I'm happy I went there! The beach at the other end of the Sesoko bridge was amazing.

Having found the stuff I'd been looking for I returned to the beach, thinking I'd eat there, but 1) the water was wonderful, the beach not so (trash, trash everywhere), 2) the clouds seemed a bit worrisome. Figured I might not be wanting to cross that bridge in rain and wind. So I just gave my toes a quick dip and went on.

Just FYI, here's the bus timetable of Sesoko island. xD

The last ferry from Iejima returning to Motobu.

Couldn't resist pausing to eat on the other side, though. So good! Filled with whipped cream and strawberries and pineapple. (Btw.... at this point Iejima had mystically disappeared. You should be able to see it in the background of that photo below......)

And then it started raining, hard, and it was windy too, and of course I didn't have my rain coat with, just the umbrella. Luckily it didn't break. xD

Last day in Motobu. I was heading back to Naha in the afternoon, but there was still time to go to check that ocean expo park I'd skipped. The place has an aquarium, but I didn't go in there. Just saw manatees and sea turtles that weren't in the main aquarium (and didn't require any pay.) Then I walked through the native Okinawan village, and basically ran through the Oceanic Culture Museum and didn't have time at all for the Planetarium.... regretted a bit not waking up earlier and going there right when the place opened.