Okinawa, Japan

I’m back from my one day of blog vacation. Brian did a very nice job with his Cavs post yesterday. I was not feeling to well so I left it up to him to make a blog post. Last night was our final formal night on this cruise. We got dressed up and took some pictures by the Christmas tree on the ship. The ship is beautifully decorated for Christmas. It is hard to imagine that Christmas is nearly a week away.

Today we docked in Okinawa Japan. We went on a private tour arranged by a group from cruisecritic.com. Our guide was Yukari Marsh and I would highly recommend her. We had to go through temperature sensors again before going ashore. Most stops have required a health questionnaire, temperature sensing, or both to screen passengers with possible H1N1 infection. We got on shore around 8:30am. Yukari was there to meet us. We had an 8 passenger mini van. There were 8 of us on this tour (shown below).



Our first stop was peace memorial park. Japan is the second country we have visited on this trip that was formerly an adversary of the United States in a war. Like Vietnam, the people of Okinawa have moved on. Their focus today is on peace. The peace memorial park has monuments outside with the names of people who lost their lives in Okinawa during the war. There are nearly a quarter of a million names. I found it inspirational that the park features names of Japanese and Americans. There are about 14 thousand American names memorialized in the park too. The zig-zag pattern of the monuments is intended to symbolize peace trying to spread outward.



We saw several groups of students visiting the peace museum on field trips during our visit. A couple of groups were dressed in school uniforms with the boys wearing ties and the girls wearing skirts. Another group was dressed casually and did not have uniforms. We asked our guide about this expecting that this was due to differences between private and public schools. This was the case, but not the way we expected. In Japan, public school children wear uniforms and private school children do not. It is the opposite of what is typical in the United States.

Next we went to Japanese Navy underground headquarters. This was a network of tunnels that were dug to become their bunker in 1944. We learned that the war was not always popular with the Okinawa people and they had to make tremendous sacrifices. Many civilians were called to service and lost their lives. They have a lot of respect for admiral Minoru Ota. He ultimately committed suicide in the tunnels after sending a note back to Japan drawing attention to the sacrifices made by Okinawa. Our guide told us that the Okinawa people were taught that they would be treated terribly by the enemy if they surrendered and therefore should choose suicide over surrendering. Many civilians also held this belief. Some spoke enough English for soldiers to convince them to surrender. In the tunnels Brian had to duck his head often to avoid hitting his head on the low ceilings. This visit offered another startling glimpse into war and history.





Next we went to Shuri Castle. At Shuri castle it started to rain kind of hard. The wind was blowing hard too. We walked the grounds. Also went inside to see where the King conducted political business. At some places inside Shuri castle we had to take off our shoes and carry them around with us. They are doing a lot of restoration on the castle. Unfortunately most of the castle was ruined in the war and they are trying to rebuild.







Our next stop was Okinawa prefectural museum. It was a museum of history and culture of Okinawa. The museum was opened a few years ago. Okinawa is working on increasing their tourism. They just finished a new cruise pier a few months ago. Our tour guide stated that about 90% of people in Okinawa work in tourism. That includes service industry of restaurants, hotels, drivers, etc.



For the record, Brian handles all of the blog photos. He swears that the following photo is unedited and shows a display at the prefectural museum. I had nothing to do with this. Melissa is Brian’s sister.


The final stop of the day was Kokusai Street. We walked around in some stores and also visited a local market. In the market there were fresh fruit, meat, and seafood. In the meat market we saw some pigs. We learned that they eat everything from a pig except its snout (or its “oinker” to quote our guide) and skin. I found it disgusting. This trip is almost enough to make me a vegetarian. In the fish market, we saw all kinds of colorful tropical fish. It is amazing all the types of fish they have and eat. Thanks to Brian you have pictures to look at. I looked at them but did not want to stay in there any longer due to the smell. Brian said it was not really that bad, but it was too much in combination with some of the stuff I saw.



We were back on the ship around 4pm. We are now at sea. Two tugs boats had to pull us away from the pier since the winds are so strong (about 35-40 knot winds). We have been warned that the seas are going to be rough. They closed the porthole in our cabin, but Brian opened it back up so we can see. The ship is really going up and down. At dinner the whole dining room shook violently for a few seconds making everyone pause and “ohhh and ahhh.” I have already taken some Dramamine so hopefully I will be able to function tonight and tomorrow. Tomorrow we are at sea all day. The plan is for us to pack, which should prove to be very interesting. Lets hope everything fits.