Okinawa World

Tommy had the day off for Martin Luther King, Jr. day yesterday, and we had to get out of the house to let our mama san clean, so off we went in search of an "adventure...."  and that is what we found!

Let me pause here for just one moment and say how grateful I am that we had a man like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to help set this country straight.  Of course there were many others along the way that fought the fight, and we have a ways to go toward true equality.  But he broke serious ground on that path, which should not be forgotten or tossed aside as just another "day off" of work.

Now back to the adventure.

So our goal was to head down south toward Naha to visit the Toys R Us to see about getting Olivia a new car seat in hopes that there were more than the two options offered on base.  But as the sister of a friend  (Danielle Farrell) likes to say, "Maps and directions on Okinawa are more like mere suggestions of how to get there...."

And so it goes that we ended up instead on some of Oki's back roads, far away from our destination  point, but not so far from Okinawa World.  Since we had never been, we decided to just go there instead of wandering around aimlessly even further.


Okinawa World's big attraction is their cave.  They have a cool underground cave about 300 meters long.  Wyatt loved it, although he was a bit spooked during certain dark portions where there were signs for bats!


After the cave we had a small problem.  We had left Olivia's stroller at the entrance because of all the stairs, and our 20-pound sack of potatoes was getting heavy.  We were also starving, having gone so far off the beaten path in our travels without food or snacks.  Yet we were very far away from both stroller and food.  So we walked the 300+ meters back to the entrance to find them (stroller and food) and were finally successful.


After lunch, we walked back through Okinawa World's village.  It is supposed to be all things Okinawa right in one location - glass blowing, pottery, sugar cane dyeing, fruit and tropical gardens, a brewery, etc.  It was nice but it seemed sort of commercial to me.  Well, as commercial as it gets in Okinawa. Everything seemed to be an extra fee or exhorbitantly priced and we just weren't in the mood for spending more money given our upcoming trip to Hong Kong in a few days.  So we toured around a little but ended up walking away empty-handed.

So all in all, not quite that cool.  But if you're lost somewhere on a small island between mainland Japan and the East China Sea and you see a sign for Okinawa World, it's a good way to spend the day.

I hope you enjoyed your MLK day, and took some time to pause and reflect on why we celebrate his life in the first place!