We flew today from Tokyo Haneda Airport to Okinawa (the Hawaii of Japan). Our plane changed gates and we rounded the corner and saw our plane. Yes, we were flying on the Pokemon plane! Dave was somewhat relieved because he said you never hear about a Pokemon plane going down. The plane was huge (3 rows of 3), but was half empty, so Dave had a row to himself and so did I. The weather wasn't great, so it was a bit bumpy, but fine. The free drink that you get is water, tea, coffee, apple juice or their specialty, beef broth. Dave decided to try the beef broth, because hey, why not? It was actually really good. I got a shot of water in a Pokemon cup. They never fill water cups up (in fact, they normally only go half way) so the whole time has been frustrating getting enough water. My dad would be in trouble since he drinks more than me!
We picked up our rental car and were on our way. Dave had to learn quickly how to drive on the left side of the road! Since we were close to the Underground Japanese Naval Headquarters, we headed there first. It was a very small exhibit, but we went down into the tunnels and walked around. I guess the civilians dug it pretty much by hand. By the way, it was sweltering hot, so to imagine that they did it in such heat is crazy. It was interesting seeing history from the Japanese side of things.
Next we went to Okinawa World. They have a huge cave there that is almost a kilometer long. The rest of the place also has Okinawan crafts and a village set up, but we only cared about the caves. By this time we were starving. We missed the turn for "the world's greatest burgers" and another place we tried seemed closed, so we figured we'd eat at Okinawa World. Their main restaurant was closed, but we went to the "tea house" where we grabbed a few things, including "mango mountain", which was fresh mango on top of milk shaved ice. It was so good, and also nice since it was so hot.
Then we went into the cave. It was awesome - they lit it up very nicely and had signs with different parts of the formations. They stalactites and stalagmites grow 1 mm every 3 years, so some of the formations are several thousands of years old (might even be some stuff 50K+ years old!). There was also an underground waterfall and bones of a deer that is long extinct. Overall pretty cool. You exit the cave and go through the rest of the village and about 10 different gift shops. Two were notable. One was the fish pool where they eat the dead skin off your feet and the other was a snake wine brewery or something like that. It was so creepy we got out asap. My brother tried snake wine in Vietnam but we weren't going anywhere near it.
Next we started the drive toward our hotel, which was about an hour away. We arrived just as it was getting dark and checked in. The place is beautiful! Very much like a Hawaii or Mexico resort. Our room is overlooking the ocean (think it's the East China Sea) and the room is huge. We got there too late for free cocktails, but did make it in time to hit the thalassotherapy pool. It's this huge therapy pool area where there are salt-water pools of various temps (all warm) and different jets that hit you at each one. My feet have been killing me (we are up to 150,000 steps!!!) so this was a nice treat. Then we headed for dinner in the resort. We tried out the Chinese restaurant and had some dim sum, as well ad Sesame Chicken and stir-fried beef. They were both really good, although I guess they eat chicken with the skin on it, so we had to peel it off. Guess they don't like to waste anything. They won't take away any plate from your table that has any food on it. Another one of those strange customs I guess.
After dinner, we headed back and plotted out the next day, which would involve the aquarium and pineapple park.
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