In Okinawa, we rented a private house called “Gushichin” – we drove north for 1.5 to 2 hours from Naha city.

You can see a beach from the property:

Okinawa roof top:

A handmade Seasir (I think):

The backyard – we wanted to BBQ, but the weather didn’t let us…

Papaya tree in the backyard – We cooked it later and it was good:

We took a walk to the beach…

Tropical flowers, of course:

The Gushiken Beach:

You can find Ryukyu Glass everywhere in Okinawa – they are absolutely beautiful hand-blown glasses. There are a lot of places that offer hand-blown experience and you can make your own glass art, and this place we stopped by had one, too, but it was closed when we got there… so just shopped around the store. So pretty!

There are lots of glass creatures – these are the glass seasirs:

They had a lot of different seasirs, too:

These heart ones are so lovely:

There is a meat and seafood market area (Ichiba) in the arcade from Kokusai Dori in Okinawa and it is just fun looking around everything. You can actually buy seafood and they’ll make sashimi or they’ll cook it and you can eat it right away in upstairs. We tried Ise Ebi and all sorts of fishes (including the blue one!) as sashimi!

They are alive:

How pretty:

Upstairs 1:

Upstairs 2:

Our sashimi boat:

Seaweed soup:

OK, Okinawa people eat so much pork and there was a whole meat market here, too, but after seeing this… we weren’t sure if we wanted to go that way:

They love pork.

I kept mentioning about it, but I am finally ready to share my trip and here it goes – Okinawa was such a special place! Yes, it is in Japan, but it’s not Japan. It’s so different, they have their own culture, own local food and drink, and their own language. I have never been such places like Okinawa. So special I loved it there so much!!

Naha Airport – “Menso-re Okinawa” (Welcome to Okinawa)

There is a big aquarium tank at the airport:

Street views:

The place we stayed for the first night “Usumiji”:

Kokusai Dori (main street) – lots of stores in this street including tourist stuff, too, of course.

Seasir – they are everywhere in Okinawa, they protect you from bad.

Okinawa Habu-shu!! (Snake liquor)

There are cute stuff, too:

One of few arcades on Kokusai Dori – it’s awesome. They kept the old Japan/Okinawa here:

Sata-andagi – so good!:

Pink treats! (Machikaji):

Fresh produce on the street:

Randomly hanged up snake:

Katsuobushi – Dried bonito place:

To be continued… (it gets better!)