Sea Change Okinawa: May 2016

One night in Naha, Okinawa

Naha is the largest city in Okinawa, and has a great relaxed vibe.

Last week, on a whim, we decided to book ourselves a little one night staycation in Naha. We had both had really difficult weeks at work, and island fever was starting to set in, so we needed to get away! I had a look online at hotels in Naha, and put the call out for a pet sitter, and luckily the stars aligned and we could go!

We drove down to Naha after G's swimming lesson and decided to stop in at Naminoue Shrine on the way to the hotel. It was a crazy hot day, so we didn't stay super long before heading to the hotel to check in and go straight to the pool. I've been trying to teach little G to swim, because his actual swimming lessons seem to be resulting in very little progress, so we spent lots of time in the pool and in just one session we made heaps of progress!

Naminoue Beach in Naha is the only swimming beach in the city, overlooked by a gorgeous temple

These cuties at Naminoue Beach

After our swim we got ourselves dressed and headed out to explore a bit before our dinner reservation. Although I do like Naha, and we will continue to go back for the occasional staycation, it's just so so touristy. Pretty much every shop on Kokusai dori (the main street) is a souvenir shop, and there's not much else going on. One good thing it has going for it though is the amount of good food options! It's also great to be in a "city" (I use the term city very loosely - Naha is tiny!) and not have to drive everywhere.

Waiting for dinner at Ukishima Garden

For dinner we went to Ukishima Garden again, which we went to on our last Naha staycation. It's a vegan restaurant that is amazing. The atmosphere is lovely and the food is delicious!
After dinner we decided to check out the Hyatt Regency bar on the 18th floor (probably the highest building in Naha - this says something about the size of Naha) for a nightcap before bed, and it was awesome. I could almost imagine we were in Tokyo. The bar was classy, with great cocktails and live music. If you are after a bit of a Lost in Translation experience in Okinawa, I think this is the place to go. We will definitely go back.

Ukishima Garden is a gorgeous Vegan restaurant in Naha, Okinawa, with a great organic wine menu and delicious food!

I love the interior of Ukishima Garden

What we ate (clockwise from top left): Vegetable terrine, tofu caprese, creamy tomato and vegetable pasta, fried potato bites

Kokusai Dori is the main tourist street in Naha, Okinawa. It has a laid back tropical feel

Kokusai Dori at night

Kokusai dori

Naha at night

Convenience store decorations in Okinawa, Japan

Inside a convenience store with it's very tropical decorations

The Hyatt Regency Bar in Naha, has a Tokyo vibe. Classy cocktails and live music make it a great date spot.

Some music at the Hyatt Regency bar

View from the Hyatt Regency bar...almost felt like Tokyo

Little G loved the music

After checking out in the morning, we headed home via the Shikina-en Royal Gardens, which was another Naha spot I had been wanting to check out for ages. Although it was crazy hot (aaah, Okinawa summer), the gardens were lovely and the shade made it bearable. We drove home via the only Cocos Curry in Okinawa with the vegetarian menu and before we knew it our staycation in Naha was over. It was such a lovely weekend, and a much-needed getaway!

Shikina-en Royal Gardens

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Naminoue Shrine - Naha Okinawa

Naha

This past weekend we booked ourselves a last minute and much needed staycation in Naha. Naminoue Shrine has been somewhere I have wanted to visit since I moved to Okinawa, and it wasn't until now that I finally got to visit.

Naminoue Shrine, sits atop a rock (mountain? I'm not sure what it's called) overlooking Naminoue Beach in Naha. It is the most important Shinto Shrine in Okinawa, and as temples and shrines seem to be much more scarce in Okinawa than on mainland Japan, I was excited to visit. The temple complex itself isn't actually very big, but it's very pretty, and when we visited there was some kind of ceremony happening, which was interesting to watch.

I really loved how, although the temple itself looked typical of most shinto shrines I have seen in Japan, it was surrounded by palm trees and other lush, distinctly Okinawan trees, that gave the whole place a bit of a tropical vibe.

After visiting the shrine, we walked down to the beach below because you can get a glimpse of the shrine atop the mountain as well as go for a swim or just dip your feet in the amazingly blue water.

Torii gate leading up to Naminoue Shrine, Naha Okinawa

Torii gate at the entrance to the Shrine

Main building of the shrine

I love the palm trees

Amazing tree makes this shrine feel very Okinawan

Palm trees surrounding the Naminoue Shrine in Naha, Okinawa, give it a tropical feel in an otherwise typical Japanese Shinto Shrine

View of the shrine from the beach

View of the harbour from the Shrine

Naminoue Shrine is actually quite close to Naha airport, so could be easily visited on your way to or from the airport, as well as Tomari Port. Access information can be found here.

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Rockers cafe - Vegan Cafe in Chatan

Cafe

Rockers Cafe

A few weeks ago, after being disappointed we couldn't get a seat at Gub Gubs Vegan Kitchen, we decided to head to Rockers Cafe to see what it was like. Rockers Cafe is a new vegan cafe in Chatan, by the seawall, and it was really lovely.

The interior of Rockers Cafe looks more like a fancy bar than a vegan cafe, which I loved, and they have a big deck out the back with tables that overlook the seawall. Because it was a lovely day, we opted to sit out on the deck!

By the time we got out food we were all starving, so I totally forgot to take photos of the burgers we had. They were all really tasty. We tried both the Original Veggie Burger and the teriyaki burger and both were great! The curry was also delicious. They also have a bunch of vegan muffins, cakes etc that you can take away with you.

We will definitely be back.

A preview of the food on offer

The seating on the deck was great

The curry plate

Inside

View from their deck

Rockers Cafe is open from 11:30-7pm everyday except Wednesday, and open from 7pm-1am from Tuesday to Sunday as a bar.

You can find access details on their Facebook page here

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Life lately - May

Okinawa

Time for another life update! Yet again, we have been super busy for the past month. We had our second influx of visitors for the year and it was so much fun! Some of our besties came over for almost 2 weeks and we seemed to pack so much in to that time. They were here over the Golden Week period so we had lots of time off work due to national holidays and were also blessed with some great weather. We spent the first week with our friends at various beaches around Okinawa, including finally making it over to Tokashiki Island, which I have been wanting to go to since we moved here.

Plarail rail sets from Japan are great for kids! There are so many different Japanese trains and track formations.

Plarail mania at our house

We also had a couple of snorkels at Maeda beach, which is a great alternative when Maeda Cape is closed, as well as eating at a few of the vegan restaurants around Okinawa. In the second week, G's dad arrived to stay for a week, and we got to head off to Tokyo for 3 nights for a friend trip! Basically, it has been a really lovely month, and so awesome to hang out with friends from home.

Tokashiki island has crystal blue waters and is just a short ferry ride from Okinawa main island. It's worth the day trip!

Tokashiki - I still can't get over this water! This photo is not filtered at all!

Puzzle accomplished - minus one piece

Shibuya, Tokyo

For the past couple of weeks now we've had the house back to ourselves and are getting back into the normal routine. G is obsessed with his Plarail train set and is constantly making new, and more elaborate tracks for his trains. We've also started him on this awesome reading app in the iPad, called Reading Eggs, which he LOVES, and is already making so much progress, which is exciting. He's gone from knowing the letters in the alphabet, but not being able to read, to reading some words and sentences in just a couple of weeks!

Also, i'm trying to get back to running the dog regularly and eating more healthily, seeing as we indulged like crazy with guests here for a few weeks! It was so much fun to be able to drink and eat everything and anything, but it's time to reign it in (although the fondue photo from below is kind of the opposite of reigning it in....).

G's first fondue

Our next guests aren't here until the end of June, so we will be taking it easy for the next month and a bit, although work is getting BUSY. Rainy season in Okinawa began this week (although it felt like December - April was rainy season, but whatever...) and will last for a few weeks, but it's really warm and humid, which beats the cold windy days of the rainy winter. I'm hoping to get out and explore some more places in Okinawa in the coming month, so stay tuned.....

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Commune 246 - Aoyama, Tokyo

Japan

When we were in Tokyo a couple of weeks ago for our Tokyo friend trip, I stumbled across Commune 246 when searching for vegan friendly places in Tokyo. I followed their Instagram page and was really impressed by how the place looked. A bonus was that it was also not too far from Harajuku, so we headed there after our afternoon of shopping in Harajuku.

Commune 246 is a kind of permanent food truck park or outdoor food court near Omotesando Station and has a huge variety of places to choose your food and drinks from. I was instantly in love, because it reminded me a lot of something you would find in Melbourne , which was probably not super great for our friends we were travelling with on holiday from Melbourne, but great for us who miss Melbourne like crazy everyday.

The variety of food available was almost overwhelming, with Thai, German sausage, hot dog, vegan, and many others to choose from. Pretty much all the food vendors were also selling booze, which also added to the choices. We opted for some organic beer and wine from the Cori Vegan Food Stand, which was a little pricey, but really delicious. We also got some of the Brooklyn Ribbon Fries in a couple of flavours and a felafel plate from the vegan place, all to share.

There are plenty of tables and places to sit, so even though it was busy, we were comfortable. There was a pretty international crowd there on a Thursday night. I think this place is great because there is basically something for everyone, and it even seemed pretty kid friendly, especially if you were going there during the day (it's open from 11am).

Cori Vegan Food Stand at Commune 246 in Tokyo is a great option for vegan food in the Shibuya and Harajuku area

Cori Vegan Food Stand was fantastic!

Adorable coffee shop at Commune 246 in Tokyo

How adorable is this coffee shop???

Thai food - although everything seemed to have shrimp in it, which I don't eat!

Adorable food truck which is part of the Commune 246 outdoor food court in Minami Aoyama in Tokyo. There is food and drink here to please everyone.

Brooklyn Ribbon Fries from Commune 246 in Tokyo

Delicious chips - they were a cross between fries and potato chips

Cori Vegan Food Stand at Commune 246 had a delicious felafel plate as well as organic wine and beers in Tokyo

Vegan felafel plate

Commune 246 can be accessed really easily from Omotesando station A4 exit on the Chiyoda Line, the Ginza Line or the Hanzomon Line.
It is also only a 15-20 minute walk from Shibuya and even less from Harajuku, so is a good place to get a drink after a long day of wandering in Tokyo.

Map can be found here

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Dino Park Nago

Nago

A couple of weeks ago, I read how a new Dino Park attraction had opened in Nago and I knew we needed to go and check it out as soon as possible!

Dino Park is located next to Okashigoten, the Sweet Potato Factory place on route 84 in Nago, and is basically a lush forest setting with a bunch of dinosaur figures situated throughout the forest. I honestly wasn't expecting much out of it, but enjoyed it way more than I was expecting! The forest was gorgeous, incredibly lush and full of lots of different flowers and nice resting areas. The dinosaurs were also great. Some of them moved and made noises when you walked by and little G loved it!

Once we had finished walking through the forest, we made it back to the top and were super excited to see a kids area with a stegosaurus slide and some ride on dinosaurs. We thought they were just the kind of lame ride where the kid sits on the dinosaur and it bucks up and down a little... but no! It actually walked and little G got to steer the dinosaur. It was awesome and totally made everyones day! They also had a dinosaur that you put 500yen in and it lays an egg (that has a dinosaur puzzle inside!).

The shop was also big and full of dinosaur goods including stuffed toys, figurines, shirts, cookied and T-rex skull shaped senbei (which we got, of course!).

All in all, I was pleasantly surprised by Dino Park. For the adults, it feels like walking around in Jurassic park and is a lovely setting, and for kids, it's awesome! If you're in northern Okinawa, I think it's worth checking out.