6 November 2018
Okinawa does not understand beaches
A crazy beach with a view of a highway expressway
Tonight I went the other way from my hotel, to the beach. The beach was very strange. There are a couple of beaches, they both face multiple freeway overpasses as you shall see.
I believe they are fenced in as well, so there must be sharks or something that will kill you in the area.
This reminds me, there are snakes in Okinawa, for whatever reason the navy headquarters museum had big signs explaining all the different snakes, some had cartoon characters in great pain suggesting they are poisonous. I did not see any snakes on my hike yesterday.
After the beach, I walked past the beach side juvenile detention centre, and then past a combination bowling alley, golf driving range and learner driving school. I really do think the owners of that place realised they had a car park far too big for the number of customers they still had at their other attractions, so they turned the car park into a driving school.
My journey back to the neon zones and food took me through some very boring looking red light districts, where the lights were still off. I suspect I am too early to pay 3000 yen per hour to have toast fed to me.
In good news, I know what my dinner is tomorrow night. Generally what always happens is, I spend an hour wandering around deciding what to eat, without ever really finding the perfect choice. As soon as I walk out of my semi reluctant choice, I immediately spot 20 better places. I think there is some kind of term for this behavior, so to defeat that, I know exactly where I am going tomorrow night, and its really cheap and in a basement. Exciting times indeed.
Its an Osprey! Have I ever seen one before? I think I did. Here in Okinawa they are despised, and cited as the main reason they want the US air force bases gone. The Osprey you see, also known as a tilt rotor plane, has a bad habit of firing off one of its rotors and then spinning to the ground and killing school children.
As I walked down narrow streets to the beach, I wondered what that enormous building was. It was not a building at all but a Chinese cruise ship.
And here we have the beach. So beautiful. So natural. So freeway. The so (x) joke is worn out. I dont care.
Here is cat island. Except its not. Its Okinawa island, with cats. Lots of cats.
Every Japan trip I have to do a vending machine photo, so here it is. These ones were in a weird spot in the lawn.
Here is the temple begging for forgiveness for the crappy beach of Naha.
Around the corner a bit is another crappy beach, with a nightclub barbecue area at the end of the concrete. There was no one there but the music was pumping. Drop it like its hot.
I decided to take another shot of the cruise ship.
Here is a particularly bright area of town. It is the new bus terminal I ranted about yesterday. Its also a department store and restaurants. I found out it only opened just over a week ago. No wonder the bus area is disorganised.
Its a Max Brenner bald headed man chocolate shop. Only interesting because they went out of business in Australia a week or so ago. I hear they buy sniper rifles for Israeli soldiers! From wikipedia -
The Strauss Group states on their website that they provide care packages to soldiers in the IDF's Golani Brigade, leading to activists targeting Max Brenner stores for boycotts Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign. In 2011, pro-Palestinian activist group Students for Palestine organized a series of protests outside Max Brenner outlets in Australia. The protest in Melbourne led to 19 arrests.
For dinner tonight, Japanese pasta. It is soy sauce flavoured, with an almost raw egg on top. Also Chinese sausage. I think I have now had all the main food groups of Japan. Now I can do repeats.
Oh yeah, its election day. I was in Japan when Trump won. Will anything blow up?
Tonights photo of the main street of Naha.
Mecha robot things, attack! This is the best of the junk shops because of all the weird things like this they have. They are at least 5 times busier than all the competing stores.
Okinawa seems to be particularly interested in selling small trinkets like this. Generally of the cat / dragon hybrid thing but also turtles, whales, dolphins, all of which are delicious.