October 12th (Naha)

(I realized I can`t update my blog from my iTouch so I`ll only be able to do it when I have access to a computer)


The whole trip went really well. It took about 26 hours from the time we got up Saturday morning (3 planes for a total of 18 hours of flight).

When we arrived in Narita (one of Tokyo`s airports), we still had to take an internal flight to our final destination: Okinawa. It was my first contact with the country and already I felt right at home. Everything was clean and people were polite and always ready to help. The female clerks all had little scarves on their necks. They looked just like what I had seen before in mangas or animes :)

We ate a small snack while we waited for the plane which consiste of rice in the shape of a triangle with tuna filling wrapped in seaweed and a bottle of cold green tea. Since I don`t know the name of those things, I invented a cool name for them: tRICEangle. The tRICEangle has an ingenuous way of being opened so that the seaweed to wrap the rice doesn`t touch it until you`re ready to eat it. The tea had no sugar at all and even though I like green teay when it`s hot, cold bitter tea needs getting used too :S

Small anecdote, it`s funny when you enter Japan. At customs they use a machine to read your fingerprints and take a picture of you.

We finally arrived in Naha, Okinawa around 9pm. Even though the night had fell, it felt hot and humid. You could also smell the sea on the breeze.

We took a "takushi" (taxi in japanese :P) to get to our hotel, checked in and went out to get a feel of the city at night and grab a bite.

From Trip to Japan

From Trip to Japan

Great name for a bar !

From Trip to Japan

From Trip to Japan

Snakes in jars :S

From Trip to Japan

The city seemed lively with lots of places to go out and a lot of small places where you can eat. We decided to try and find an "izakaya" that our travel guide suggested. An izakaya is like a japanese pub. We found it and arrived just in time to hear the last song of a singer playing guitar. Everybody was clapping to the rythm and I wish we could have seen more of the show.
We ordered some local dishes and drink that we knew about and, with the help of other canadian tourists (one was from Montreal...), we ordered a couple more because food in izakaya come in small quantities like tapas.

Nathalie playing with a kind of long tambourine that people could use during the shows

From Trip to Japan

We drank "awamori" which is like a mix between vodka and sake with an aftertaste of peanuts. For those who know of it, it tastes like shochu but better. I know it sounds weird like that but iｔ’s kind of good. The food consisted of fresh raw tuna with wasabi (sashimi style), "tofuyo" is tofu that's been kind of fermented into cheese and tempura (fried) potatoes with a special sauce.

After that delightful meal, we went to bed for a much deserved (and needed) sleep.