The Mountain of Cherry Blossoms

During cherry blossom season the entire population of Okinawa and some foreign tourists as well visit the northern part of the island to witness the first blooms in Japan. My friends and I mistakenly tried to visit a restaurant in Nago during that time period before hitting impressive traffic that made us turn around. Last year we waited so long to travel north that we missed the traffic, but we also missed almost all of the flowers. This year Alex and I tried Mount Yaedake during a weekday after the peak season, and found some of the most beautiful trees still a riot of color. Mount Yaedake just has a twisting mountain road with fewer guardrails than we were comfortable with, but it becomes famous for just a few weeks when the trees that line the road are in bloom. A few ice cream trucks open on either side of the road during this season, which seems a strange choice of business during January. To get some of the shots of the trees we had to park the car along the side of the narrow road, take the photo when no other cars were around, and jump back in the car as quickly as possible to avoid creating a traffic block. I became a little wistful as I realized this would be my last year living on Okinawa when the flowers bloom in January, but I am grateful that in three years I managed to hit all three famous sites for viewing: Nakijin Castle Ruins, Nago Castle Park, and now the mountain of cherry blossoms.

The Sunday Snapshot

Said goodbye to the owners of Soupcon Cafe, home of the best lattes on island. 

The Lantern Festival

My friends and I recently had a girls night where we visited the lantern festival at Murasaki Mura, a historical Okinawan village. The lantern festival celebrated the Chinese influence on traditional Okinawan culture. We parked as soon as we saw the lights flickering through the trees, but we had a harder time finding where to pay our entrance fee. After being turned away by a hotel front desk and passing an empty booth we simply walked in. We purchased some snacks once inside to compensate. It almost felt like Christmas with all of the beautiful lights.

Beni-imo tart lantern. So Okinawa!

Alex made a kitty friend!

The Cosmos and Coffee

On Sunday our group of friends squeezed into one van and drove to see the cosmos. We relied on my memory of the location of the field from last year, and I was responsible for navigating from the back seat. As a result we almost did not find the field. Along for the ride we had the girls- me, Alex, and Beverly- and the guys- David and the amazing, walking Alden.We were a little early for the full bloom, but that meant we had a whole field to ourselves! We stayed on the walking paths...except for the one really good patch of flowers where a little rule breaking was required to get the perfect shot! I think we got some gorgeous photos, but unfortunately none of them included David. Oops!

Afterwards we drank lattes on the porch of our favorite cafe Soupcon. Look at the view!

The Sunday Snapshot

Dressing room at the mall. They provide sheer bags to keep makeup off the merchandise.

The Sunday Snapshot

I needed lots of help to correctly wear a yukata and obi at my Japanese class.

The Tulips in Bloom

The weather in Okinawa has been very rainy and dreary lately. My friend Christine and I had made plans to visit a sunflower field on the first sunny day in the forecast- and about ten days of rain later we finally had a day that was expected to be partly cloudy. Unfortunately, all of the rain had ruined the sunflowers and the scheduled festival to celebrate them had been canceled. Since this is technically Spring in Okinawa, we had no trouble finding another flower to celebrate: tulips! The Tropical Dream Center in Expo Park was hosting a tulip festival, and with an admission price of less than seven dollars we decided to go photograph some flowers.

The Tropical Dream Center is a kind of botanical garden with multiple greenhouses and different exhibitions throughout the year. According to the website, 80,000 tulip bulbs of different types and colors were planted, and as a result when we walked into the garden we were amazed by the rows and rows of tulips lining the paths.

Nora loved the flowers and called them all pink, but not so much all of the photographs...

After walking through the gardens and feeding the fish we decided to feed ourselves- only to realize that three of our top choices were closed on Wednesdays! Fortunately we found the restaurant La Tilla so close to the gardens we could have walked, and even though it sounds Spanish to me it serves Italian and Okianwan dishes. I thought the prices were reasonable and I loved that one entire wall of the restaurant was glass windows overlooking the ocean. 

Since it is only January Christine, Nora and I should be able to find many other flowers in season very soon, even if Nora prefers the flowers over the photographs.