Izakaya

The last full day! :-( It's hard to believe that more than 7 weeks have already passed since I touched down in Sapporo. Oh well better make this day count then.
First up was Seifa Utaki. The Ryukyu islands had their own religion and Sefa Utaki was one of the most important sites for rituals and ceremonies. Located about an hour busride from central Naha, Seifa Utaki lies in the southwestern part of Okinawa, close to the shore. I had gotten more experienced in the bus system and so bus 38 was quickly found. Halfway through the ride there was a transfer. Not to a different busline, just a smaller bus. When i got off the bus, the friendly busdriver pointed me to the sites ticket counter and where to catch the bus back to Naha. I quickly got a ticket from a vending machine (yes) and walked to the entrance of the site. Seifa Utaki consists of three different spots were the various rituals were performed. The water seeping through the rocks was collected in pots and considered holy water. The site, although not very big, is a beautiful one with lots of great picture opportunities. The spots have information boards explaining the various spots and informing you about their significance in the Ryukyan kingdom. I walked back from the site to the bus stop to find i had about a half an hour before the next bus would come and i went and made good use of it by eating supper on the waterfront.
The busride had a gain this peculiar transfer but went very smoothly, apart from a small discussion with the driver about the amount of inserted money in the machine. He was convinced (but wrong) that i hadn't payed enough but decided to give up after a minute or so.
Back on the monorail to get to Shurijo. I had seen plenty castles on my trip but this was a totally different castle than the traditional ones here. It has bot Japanese and Chinese influences and so had its own style, a bit more lavish than most traditional Japanese castles. The entrance was a bit hard to find but once insided all went well. A guided tour leads you around the castle with information about it's rulers and the history of Okinawa.
I had one more shopping thing to do and that was to look for tshirts with kanji prints on them. I went back to the same. I had to make my own design so it was kind of a challenge to tell her how i wanted it to be but a lot of pointing and hand gestures later and i have this really cool one-off shirt.
I got back to the hostel for a refreshing you know what. ;-) I met Junpei from Kyoto who is here on vacation and after talking for a while he joined me to the Izakaya i was yesterday for again a bowl of Soki Soba and some Orion beers. We had a really fun time with the staff of the bar and one of the girls, Sakura, from HongKong joined us to the karaoke. I hadn't been doing karaoke as much as i originally wanted too but it was so cool to do this again at the last full day of my vacation. I am not going to give you the list of titles of the songs but you can probably make an educated guess. It atleast involved a song about a boat that hit an iceberg haha. We completely forgot the time and so ended up singing until half past two, which meant i was going to have 3 hours of sleep max. Yikes! I said goodbye to my newly made friend and went to bed, hoping for at least some sleep.Read more