03/17 Naha Okinawa

Today was our first full day in japan. We arrived in Naha at around9pm and to our hostel at about 10. The flight over was pretty good.Air Canada has a new in flight entertainment system so I watched beemovie, no country for old men, dan's life and some tv. The food wasalso pretty good with chicken risotto and beef stirfry noodles . Uponentry into Osaka we had to go through customs which involved afingerprint scan and photo ID. It was pretty painless but took quite along time. After picking up our luggage we checked in to the flight tonaha and were off. We were pretty lucky to not encounter any delays orlost luggage. After getting to the hostel we talked to the staff for acouple hours and hit the sack.

The first thing we did the following day was visit the main street,kokusai street. This street had many shops and restuarants. Wewandered into a cookie/candy shop first. The neat thing about japan isthere are lots of free samples so we bought some snacks which I thinkare made from ume/ube. Also on the main street was the local marketwhere we could try the various local produce. Some of the interestingstuff was this seaweed which looked and tasted like caviar. We boughtlunch here from a vender who made bento boxes. Mine was rice, ameatball, saba, veggies and a soup. I also got thing thing theresembled a rice hamburger with seaweed, egg,rice and SPAM. Aftereating we took the bus to Shurijo Castle which was a large complex inNaha. I don't know much about it since the info was in Japanese, everything I learned about it was done after by reading a guidebookthe tourist info center gave us. After this, we walked to ShikineanImperial Garden. Along the way we came across a cemetery park whichwas quite interesting. The gardens were nice but the sky was overcastso the photos were not as nice. There are vending machines andconvienient stores everywhere so grabbing snacks are easy. We got thiscustard fruitcup for a buck which was very nice. We walked into arandom restuarent for dinner and had Goya chanpuru , rafute and nabe.The first is a bitter melon, loved by the people of Okinawa, friedwith egg and tofu. Rafute is stewed pork belly and nabe is a hotpotconsisting of veggies, noodles, and fatty pork. We returned to thehostel early since we needed to arrange a car rental, which proveddifficult as they would not insure gaijins. After visitng severalplaces and calling some more we were told to try again in the morning.Our room consists of a bunk bed, floor matress, tv, fridge and privatewashroom. It was small but ok for us.