On golden weekend, I came down to visit Okinawa.
I stayed 5 nights, and I really enjoyed travelling there.
I went to many interesting places for example Shuri Castle, Tamaudun, Nagasuku Castle and Okinawa world.
Apart from relaxing, I feel like I learned a lot about Okinawa history and Okinawa's circumstance.
I also found a lot differences between Japan's main island and Okinawa.
The firts point is Okinawa people's house.
Almost of Okinawa's house's roof will be placed with シーサー,the small dragon which is the symbol of Okinawa. It is probably because they have been influenced by China which have long relationship with Ryukyu Kingdom(Okinawa's ancient kingdow) long time ago.
The second point is there is no seven-eleven there.
I didn't realize it until I wanted to draw my money out from my Japanese book account.
I always get used to getting cash from seven-eleven, but my friends told me that there is no seven-eleven here. They have 3 main convenient stores which are CoCo, Family mart and Lawson. If I want to get my money out, I have to go to Famili mart, I think it was so inconvenient for me.
The third point is there is no train in Okinawa. The major transportation is bus.
Although Okinawa has monorail which is linked from Naha airport, it has only one line though.
It connect to only main place. If you want to travel in Okinawa, you have to take either bus or rental car. I think rental car is better because some sightseeing place can not be reached by bus.
I found a lot of Japanese tourists who rent a car for travelling in Okinawa.
The last point is there are buttload of children there.
As we know that Japan have a serious low birth rate problem, it doesn't matter in Okinawa.
I saw a lot of big families there. For example, when I went to the department store, I found some family that have 5 children. I was so surprised, because it rarely to find such a big family like that in the mainland.
From my point of view, I found mega differences in Okinawa from mainland. Although Japan government tried to equalize and develop Okinawa the same as other area in Japan. There are still a lot of dissimilarities. Although it is not a big deal, but it might be able to be a big problem in the future. That is the thing we should keep watching it..
Thanks Kie! I think your post is very interesting. Actually, not very long ago, Okinawa people were not considered to be Japanese. Today, the people of Okinawa are upset about the burden of having so many military bases there. This too is different from the rest of Japan.
返信削除By the way, I was a little surprised by your use of the word "buttload"!