Okinawa! pt. 1

Last week all the IES students (well almost all the IES students) went to Okinawa for a 4 day fieldtrip. I had to wake up really early because we were meeting at Haneda airport at 9a.m. which is about an hour, maybe hour and a half train ride away from where I'm living. Once at Haneda we took a 2 hour plane ride and left gray raining Tokyo behind and arrived in Beautiful sunny and humid Naha, Okinawa! Many Japanese people had told me that Okinawa would be like Hawaii, and I guess I could say I agree, but of course I think Hawaii is much nicer. The Okinawan people came across as a lot friendlier than the Japanese we have met in Tokyo area. They were much more eager to come up and start a conversation with us and they seemed to know a lot more English. In fact I heard mostly English while I was in Okinawa and very little Japanese. So here is what I did while in Okinawa. I will probably spilt my trip into two blog entries, so this entry will cover the first 2 days.
Day 1
After arriving at the airport we meet our tourguide and got onto a bus that took us to Shuri-Jo (shuri castle). Shuri castle is on of the most famous sites in Okinawa. Shuri Castle had originally been the capitol and palace of the Ryukyu emperor until Okinawa became a part of the Japanese empire in 1879.






The Shuri castle which I saw was a restoration of the original which had been reduced to rubble during the Battle of Okinawa back in 1945.
While at Shuri Castle I did the shrine scavenger hunt. There are certain landmarks all over the shrine and if you collect a stamp from them you are able to turn it in and get a prize. Turns out it was only for Junior high schoolers, buuut I did it anyway for the fun of it and decided to try to turn it in anyway. And Success! I ended up getting a set of stickers!!!!! The ladies working the information desk where I presented my finished scavenger hunt map had told me I was too old to get a prize, but since I was a very nice girl they decided to give me one anyway!

After Shuri Castle we went to the Onna community center where we got to learn how to play the Sanshin (Okinawan) or Shamisen (Japanese). The sanshin is a traditional Okinawan instrument. It looks kind of like a guitar/banjo combination.






Here are some photos at the hotel we stayed at, which was located right on the beach!!!


View from our balcony


Roommates on the balcony


Wearing our yukata and drinking some traditional Okinawan sake.