Visiting Okinawa (Podcast)

Hear about vacation to Okinawa as the Novice Traveler talks to Mike de Jong about his visits to this tropical corner of Japan.

Mike claims, “To be frank, it is my beloved spot in Japan. I have been to Okinawa many occasions, and I just like it there. I just appreciate the individuals, the lifestyle, the meals, the new music. It’s like the Hawaii of Japan because the beach locations there are just frankly amazing. They’re the ideal beaches in Japan. Okinawa is so unique from mainland Japan, every thing is. It’s even now Japanese. They even now speak Japanese on the Okinawa Islands. You couldn’t get more eliminated, possibly geographically or culturally. The music, the men and women, every little thing is unique from mainland Japan.”

Mike starts off us in the metropolis of Naha, which is the capital of Okinawa. He suggests community dishes to check out and also suggests learning extra about Okinawan songs, including the 3 string snakeskin-protected instrument called the sanshin. Some community beverages can have a serious bite. Habushu is a local sake that has a pit viper in the bottle.

Not considerably from Naha is the Shuri Castle previous palace of the Ryukyu Kingdom, Shuri Castle. Pay a visit to this UNESCO Earth Heritage web site and master a lot more about the original tradition of the island in advance of it was conquered by Japan. Japan has had a substantial affect on the culture of the islands. It was when the Japanese took away the weapons from the locals that they produced a kind of beat with no weapons that we know as karate. Learn far more about the neighborhood culture at the Okinawa Prefectural Museum.

In WWII, the struggle of Okinawa devastated the island. Understand far more about it at the Okinawa Prefectural Peace Memorial Museum. A monument there paperwork these who died in the conflict. The museum and memorial are found around the “Suicide Cliffs” wherever the struggle arrived to a tragic conclusion. You can also take a look at caves that the Japanese employed as bases all through WWII.

Katsuren Castle is a different UNESCO web-site. The castle is no more time standing, but its foundations are even now there.

Some of Mike’s preferred seashores can be discovered in the west in the middle of the most important island on the Motobu Peninsula. You can also come across the Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium there, which is 1 of the greatest aquariums in the entire world. Mike relished some of the studies in the space as effectively as the kitschy American Village, exactly where you can see the United states by way of the eyes of the Okinawans. Mike relished a baseball-themed bar that concentrated on Japanese baseball stars.

He took a facet excursion to Miyakojima for a amazing snorkeling outing.

Learn why Mike keeps coming back to Okinawa and why you could want to add it to your Japan itinerary.

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About the Journey Podcast

This episode is sponsored by the About the Journey Podcast. In Year 2, vacation journalist Oneika Raymond requires us on a journey all-around North The usa to locate out. This time all over, she’s picked six cities and 6 fully exclusive activities. From a Black-owned bookstore in Washington, D.C., to the birthplace of the major queer film festival.

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