Seifa-Utaki, Okinawa World, Shikinaen Garden, etc.
Trip Start
Jan 25, 2009
1
2
5
Trip End
Jan 27, 2009
Nanjo, Kyushu-Okinawa, Japan
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
On the last day in Okinawa, firstly, we visited Seifa-Utaki. It is said that ancient Okinawans had some religious rituals there in the middle of the forest. The routes in the forest were paved with stones and surrounded by attractive tropical trees, but some parts of the routes were slippery and it is better to use a cane sometimes which you can borrow for free at the starting point. In the most important site, two large rocks were naturally put together to make a route to the altar, where we can see the Pacific Sea through the bush. Seifa-Utaki had less visitors than the other attractions in Okinawa, but very beautiful and worth a visit.
After leaving Seifa-Utaki, we visited Okinawa World with Gyokusendo Cave, which has one of the largest limestone cave system in the East. There were some strange shaped stalactites and stalagmites. The ticket for the park was the second most expensive, 1200 yen, but we had had a coupon of ANA beforehand, so we couldn't miss it. At first, I thought the cave was too long to my mom who has poor eyesight, but the route was easy and bright enough to walk along and especially after she got used to the darkness, there was no problem and even she walked much faster than me. By the way, the park had another attraction, Eisa. To tell the truth, we had seen it in Ryukyu Mura, but this time it was better than that with more performers, a spacious stage, a lion dance, and a huge drum placed on the stage. Unfortunately, we were forbidden to take pictures during the performance, because of a lot of troubles in the past, but they allowed us to take some picture in the end of the show. After the show, we had lunch in the restaurant next to the stage, where I had green caviar for the first time, although it is an Okinawan specialty. It was not especially good, but the bowl with green cavier and some seafood was very good.
Then we headed for Shikinaen Garden which was our last destination and a World Heritage Site recognized by UNESCO. The garden had some Okinawan tastes and it was more like Japanese garden than Chinese one. There were twin limestone bridges on the pond: one bridge on the pond was interestingly rock-made and the other bridge was beautifully stone-made, which may have some meaning I don't know. Finally, I encountered Deigo, the Okinawan prefectural flower blowing in the spring. Usually I am not interested in flowers so much, but the name appears at the beginning of a popular Okinawan song, Shimauta and that's why I stopped to see it closely. Unfortunately, it was not blowing at that time, but the bark of the tree was so stout.
On our way back to Okinawa DFS, we passed a graveyard. Interestingly, it had Okinawan gravestones shaped like houses. They may cost much more than our simple ones, but may be able to house more dead bodies.
