10/11 – Okinawa

We sail in right on time. But people still have to go through immigration (fingerprints and eye scan – which we snuck into yesterday since we were at the end of the list) and then the Thermal scan! Oy! First shuttle supposedly not until 9 am so we aren’t in any hurry. Plus, we have found the internet works again, so we are too busy online getting email and trying to catch up on work to worry about getting off the ship!

Finally get done with our work and decide, the heck with it, we’re going through the scan and getting off the ship. The scan is pretty wild. You walk through Club Fusion and there are all these Japanese officials with those little white face masks on (like we’ll infect them!) and they point a camera at you (looks like a video camera) to detect if you have a fever. Totally wild! I’m worrying I’ll have a hot flash while they’re scanning and be yanked out of line, but fortunately I’m good and off we go!

On the shuttle by 8:30 (they started early!) and in town by 9. It’s an easy ½ block to the monorail which we took to the end of the  line to Shurijo Castle. A 15 minute walk and we arrive at the castle, unfortunately with all the ship tours. But – still – we wander through looking at all the living areas, and different rooms (where you have to take your shoes off) including the throne room. It’s a neat little diversion – plus  out in the gardens are some great scenic overlooks where you can see all of Naha.

  We walked back to the monorail and make it back into town with a couple of hours to spare before the last shuttle. We wandered through the shopping street – which has a bunch of Japanese junk – just trashy tourist stuff at very expensive prices. We’re not in China anymore - that’s for sure! We’ve got a boat load of Yen to get rid of, but don’t want to buy junk, so we look for a little café/bar to at least spend some money. There were signs for a café called Kooton and we followed the area, but couldn’t find it. Stumbled onto a cute little tiny café called Tong Tong (look them up on the web at www.tong-tong.jp). Husband/wife team. Very little English, but they understood beer! So we had two glasses then decided to have the steamed buns. We hadn’t had any yet and really wanted to try them.  They explained the difference – a big bun for 500 yen was the “famous Okinawa pork”, a smaller bun for 230 was the “popular pork” and one for 250 was “spicy pork”. We went with popular and spicy – and weren’t disappointed. They were so good – but we want to know how these people stay so skinny eating this stuff!!! It was good, but boy, was it filling!

So after stuffing our faces and drinking for 1280 Yen (about $12.80) we wandered back to the shuttle and hopped on the bus back to the ship. A very fun day – even though Okinawa wasn’t much to see. We really would have liked to go to the underground Naval station, but we didn’t have time. So, if we ever come back……