Yomitan

Okinawa is a pretty small island. For those of you who don't know- it is one of Japan's most southern prefectures and consists of hundreds of the Ryukyu Islands! (the rest you can read on Wikipedia!) Although it's a small island, it is a bit tricky to get around if you don't have a car. There is a monorail which has about 3 stops on it and a bus which is a bit pricey. Of course, we didn't have a car so most of our adventures occurred either on foot, by scooter, or after someone with a car got out of work. 

This tired looking building is a part of Murasaki Mura, in Yomitan. Yomitan is about 15 minutes north from where Alex and Aya live. We were lucky enough to get driven here by Aya, it was somewhat in the middle of nowhere so going by bus would have been tricky.

Shisa Dog - found just about everywhere on the island.

Murasaki Mura is a cultural theme park! It was a bit run down looking.. plus we went during the day on a weekday so there weren't too many people there.. making it seem more like a weird little ghost town than a cultural theme park.

 

Somehow these turn into bananas. Not sure why they're so square.

For a price you could make your own glass beads! We were too cheap to go for it but it seemed very cool.

These trees were everywhere on the island.. Not sure what kind of trees they are though.

This one had a tree house in it

And by tree house I mean platform with some ladders leading up to it.

More Shisa dogs! I think I have enough photo's of shisa dogs to do an entire post about it so stay tuned!