A day in Naha

With all the time off Grant had the last couple weeks, we decided we needed to make the most of it and see a few things that had been on our list of things to do. We are finally settled, Rowan is getting slightly easier to travel with (although still mostly dislikes the car) and the weather is gorgeous, so now is the time for us to explore! 

Saturday morning we headed down to Naha (which is the largest city on the island and really does sort of have a "big city" feel). We started at Fukushen Gardens, which is a free garden in the middle of the city. It was beautiful and very fun and peaceful to walk around. We spent about an hour just looking at the sights and taking pictures. I know I say it a lot, but I LOVE hanging out with my little family, I'm a lucky girl to have these two amazing boys in my life.

Waterfall as you come in...Grant working his photography magic, notice the softening and movement of the running water, made for a gorgeous photo :)

The longer we live here, the more I wish I could read Japanese (but know that there's no way I'll learn it in the next 3 years). In a country where they use the same letters as us, you can type it into google translate and figure out what a sign reads, etc. but here, there's really no guessing!
 (I have a feeling that occasionally ignorance is bliss when it comes to reading signs though ;)

There was some fun architecture in the gardens as well. The tower behind us was very cool. These gardens were a fusion of Chinese and Japanese styling and was apparently kind of a gift from China (some of the story was lost in translation :)

Awesome stone dragons. There was a ball in its mouth that was cut out in there as it was too large to be pulled out. So impressive. Love this picture.

The main attraction was this large pond and waterfall which was really fun because you could walk up to the structure above it for a view of the entire garden as well as the surrounding city. You could also walk BEHIND the waterfall and look out through it which was pretty fun, although a little wet.

View from the top...

After the gardens, we fed Rowan some lunch and played at the park across the street for a couple minutes. He doesn't really get the concept of play yet, just wants to suck on all the park equipment which is pretty gross. He had fun though :)

And then we headed a few blocks down and walked down Kokusai Street (International street) which is the main drag in Naha. There are lots of touristy shops, etc. This little bridge over the water really reminded me of Chicago which I thought was cool.

Ever since moving here, we have seen these purple desserts and wondered what they taste like. I feel like they are the equivalent of chocolate covered macadamia nuts in Hawaii...it's "the thing" to bring back to friends when you visit Okinawa. They never looked very appealing, but they had samples at this factory that we happened upon and I was pleasantly surprised. They were actually pretty delicious! The purple is the Okinawa sweet potato but it just tastes like a sugary shortbread dessert.

We've seen these fried little balls of dough in different flavors and hadn't tried them yet either...so thought we should when we got hungry. There was a huge market that we walked through and had all sorts of crazy stuff. These seemed safe though, and they were :) We got pumpkin and white sugar. Both were good but not as good as a doughnut. I was slightly disappointed but I would probably still get one again.

And of course, we couldn't resist the head cutout photo...too perfect :)

We tried to go to a glass factory outlet afterwards but unfortunately they were closed, maybe next time! It was the perfect day in the city! However, we stopped for a fairly disappointing dinner on the way home. When I moved to Japan, I thought I liked Japanese food...turns out I prefer American Japanese food, not real Japanese food :) There are a few amazing places, but overall I am not impressed by most of what we eat when we go out. I guess that's good...need to get creative and keep cooking in my kitchen instead!