Okinawa World

Last weekend our knowledgeable tour guide, Rocky, (aka the Japanese teacher at school) took us to Okinawa world.

Entrance to Okinawa world

This is a shisa lion dog which is usually located at the front of a shop or building entrance. These statues are EVERYWHERE here. To the Japanese, they are guard dogs that protect and bring good luck. There are usually two shi shi statues together, a male and a female. The male has it's mouth open to bring good luck in while the female has her mouth closed to keep the good luck in. The male's open mouth is also supposed to scare evil away. This shisa is at the entrance of Okinawa world.

More shisas

Okinawa world is a touristy theme park based on Okinawan culture. I spent the day exploring the Gyokusendo cave, shopping in the glass shop, glass blowing my very own glass, seeing a snake exposition and watching a traditional Okinawan dance performance. The cave was our first stop. It's a 5-meter long limestone cave that was formed about 300,000 years ago. Inside the cave, the stalactites and stalagmites were dripping wet and the entire inside to of the cave was wet.

Inside the cave

This was an amazing sight!
Considering stalactites take 3 years to grow 1 mm, this one must be old!

The cave also contains Okianwan liquor called "habu sake" which is distilled in the cave. The liquor is made from habu snake and is fermented for 5 years!! Since the cave is cool and humid, it's the perfect environment for fermentation....who would have known the humidity would be so beneficial for something!! The snake is usually taken out before the bottles are sold.

Habu sake being fermented with habu snakes inside!!

After leaving the cave we entered a room filled with bottles of habu sake, with the snakes still inside them! Really gross but I bought some bottles of liquor to take home for all of you to try...bottles without the snakes inside that is!

More snakes...
Look at all the snakes in sake!!After leaving the cave and saki area, the first thing we saw before stepping outside was this HUGE spider! The picture doesn't do justice, it was even bigger than it looks, ugh!
Next, we looked inside the glass shop and I decided that since the designs were so amazing, I wanted to make some of my own. The shop had a list of things you could chose to make. You could also chose the color you wanted but if you picked red/orange it was more expensive. There were so many beautiful items in the store, I had a hard time deciding what I wanted to make. I was finally able to decide on something and told myself I can always come back and make more at another time. I paid inside and then headed out to make my creation.

I chose to make some candle holders. It was very hot out and being by the fire made it even more hot. I felt bad for the poor guys helping me, they were sweating like crazy! Luckily, Rocky was filming and translating for me so I somewhat knew what I was doing.

Yum, glass sushi!

After glass blowing we ate lunch at an authentic Okinawan restaurant known for their award winning beer. It was light and delicious, very similar to a BJ's blonde. Oh, and I had Okinawan noodles for lunch which were delicious as well =)

Here are some Okinawan donuts. I was able to try some of these donuts in Little Tokyo (in downtown L.A.) before coming to Okinawa. I had a sample of these ones just to compare it to L.A's Okinawan donuts and the ones in Okinawa are much more fresh, other than that, not much of a difference. Walking around the park, viewing Okinawan culture

Sorry it's sideways. He is playing this on a broomstick, very cool!

Okay, kinda random but these dolls were in stores throughout the park! I thought they were hilarious and had to take a picture...I might actually buy one when I go back because they always make me laugh!!

Only in Japan (not exactly sure if there is a meaning to this shirt or not)

This is called "Dr Fish" and it's a tub filled with fish which you place you feet in. The fish are supposed to eat the dead skin cells off your feet! We passed by this one a few times and an American family was actually doing it one time. Definitely not something I could do considering I hate things touching my feet and don't even walk around the house barefoot (since we're supposed to take our shoes off inside, I bought a new pair of "indoor" sandals to wear in my apartment).

The last thing we did before leaving was go to a snake show. It was all in Japanese so I couldn't understand anything! However, they let everyone in the audience go on stage and take a picture with this snake. It was very hard for me to do this because I really dislike snakes. When the workers told us it was going on our necks, I got even more freaked out. Luckily, it was only on my bare neck for a seconds....but then the tail hit my arm a few times....YUCK! Can you tell I was a little scared?? Danielle didn't even know I was holding her hand until she saw this picture! haha. And it was touching me!
Jessica and I being shi-sas, I guess my mouth should have been opened to bring good luck in and scare evil away since I was the male.

It was a long, full day of fun. After leaving the park we ate at an all you can eat "grill it yourself" buffet. I was definitely tired and happy to sleep in on Sunday morning! Okinawa world is like Okinawa all wrapped up into one park, the perfect spot to take visitors, I can't wait to go back!