Okinawa
In December of 2004 Nadu and I went to Okinawa. She got a rental car so we were able to drive all over the place, and she got to show me her home island.
1. Naha Airport . This is where my ordeal began. It is a pretty small airport, of course, that is compared to the previous 3 airports I had just been through - Vancouver and the 2 in Tokyo.
2. Naha City . This is Nadu's home. We stayed with her parents for the few weeks we were there. All kinds of great stuff to do there, and there is a restuarant that serves really awesome tongatsu.
3. Tamagusuku . Nadu and I went to Gyokusendo cave which is a world UNESCO heritage site. It was a pretty amazing place, so much different than the cave by Jasper that I've been to.
4. Shuri . We took the monorail (yay!) to Shuri, which was the imperial palace of the Ryukyu dynasty. It was pretty amazing to see the tombs of the kings (where they were kept before WWII when they were mostly destroyed) since in Canada we have nothing like that. Shuri was definitely one of the highlights of my stay.
5. Nakagusuku . We went to the Nakagusuku castle ruins with Nadu's parents one day. These ruins are a couple hundered years old, and are also a UNESCO world heritage site.
6. Chatan . Chatan is just a city, nothing too special about it. But I think we went through it at least 3 times in the 2 weeks I was there. There is a pasta place (pasta in Okinawa? I know, strange. I was just there for the fish!) that we ate at twice, and there is a Habu Box store that Nadu really likes.
7. Kadena . This is the largest American army base in Okinawa. Why do I mention it? Because I didn't travel half way across the freaking world just to see some Yankee army guys who think they can drive however the hell they want to (they drive like there is nobody else on the road, even though its like rush hour traffic). My one and only complaint about Okinawa. Boot the bases out, and it would be perfect (Nadu's lovin me right now :)
8. Cyura Umi Aquarium . This is one of the (maybe THE) largest aquariums in the world. I had never been to a real aquarium before, so it was really cool. Actually, I think the big tank there is the biggest in the world. Really neat.
9. Sesoko jima . This is a nice little island that we went to after we were at the aquarium. It was just cool to go to a small island, since we don't have very many here in Alberta (sandbars in the middle of rivers don't count).
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