Naha, Okinawa

This is the main city on the main island in Okinawa. It's where there are several American and Japanese military bases. And unknown to us, it's where a lot of Japanese come for warm weather vacations. We've seen lots of Japanese from the north here just enjoying the warmer weather and shopping.

They mostly shop for Orion beer t-shirts. That's the beer that's brewed here and it doesn't seem to be sold in the north. I would say at least 70% of the Japanese tourists I've seen have Orion t-shirts on. One phenomenon I've seen is groups of five Japanese young women all wearing the same Orion shirts and carrying the same Orion bags. Sometimes there's 4 of them, but it's odd that there are so many groups of 5 all wearing the same thing.

It was warm, but not necessarily beach weather. There are several sites to see but the island is huge and we kind of ran out of steam. The bus tours take 10 to 12 hours and you spend half that time on the bus to see coastal views in the north. We passed on that and enjoyed our hotel with its onsen, or hot baths.

We had several great meals, including buying our own seafood for Thanksgiving at the market and then having a restaurant upstairs cook it for us. I saw the largest king crabs and lobsters I've ever seen. I thought I'd go back the next day for a large king crab but it was $200. We opted for the largest prawns we've ever seen instead for a fraction of the price. They were like small lobsters and tasted like them too.

Other than that, we shopped a bit. That's rare for us, but we're headed home in a week. We also went to the former Japanese Navy underground bunker. Okinawa saw some of the fiercest fighting in the Pacific in WW2. This was their last stand after a 3 month battle with the US. The officers committed suicide in June 1945 here.

We leave Japan today for Seoul for 5 days before heading home. Japan was crazy fun and we absolutely loved it. We will definitely be back.

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