Okinawa: Aquarium

This post is one of several from our winter break in Okinawa, and covers our trip to the Okinawa Aquarium. The Okinawa Aquarium is famous, at least in Japan, for being the aquarium that everybody else tries to copy.  Okinawa got a whale shark, and then everybody had to have a whale shark, and there was a whale shark arms race as to who could have the most, which Okinawa is currently on top of with three in the same tank. It is the preeminent tourist attraction on Okinawa, to the extent that you could fly in, get on a bus across the entire island directly to the aquarium from the airport, and then bus back and fly out again without ever stepping foot outside of the airport or aquarium. The aquarium is on the Motobu peninsula, not entirely coincidentally where our campsite was located, and as we wanted to see the countryside and log some walking miles we headed out one morning to the aquarium on foot.  As usual, all pictures available via Flickr.

Nice sunny weather and reasonable temperatures were appreciated, as the walk is about 15 miles.

 We were noticing these enormous tufted grasses on the side of the road which we later figured out were wild-growing sugar cane.

We were taking fairly rural roads and then got detoured onto some extremely rural roads (passing through farms rather than next to them) and passed a lot of commercial sugar cane.

Better scenery than most interstates, and the clouds kept the lighting dramatic.

We thought the spiky plants were pineapples but we had to pass one actually growing a pineapple to be sure.

Yeah, the aquarium is on the far side of those mountains.  We had some walking to do.

Walking was leavened with no small amount of picture-taking.

Ana was a yarn-trooper again.

We were glad to find that bridge, because it connected the island we were on with the main peninsula.  The detour ended up being quite pleasant.

Very blue water.

Quite a view from the center of the bridge in my book - we passed a number of Japanese families with cameras out on it at the same time.

We picked a lunch place named Hibis (a Japanese truncation for Hibiscus) pretty much at random which turned out to be a lot better than the fact that is a tiny place on the wrong side of the Motobu in the off-season, with no other customers, might have lead us to believe.  The pasta was forgettable but the seafood pizza was really good, even the squid, which was tender.  Doubt any of our readers will be going, but if you do, order two pizzas and skip the pasta.

Nice clean little place in the middle of nowhere, with an extensive collection of British and American 60's and 70's vinyl, some of it mounted on the walls. Only in Japan, at least when the squid pizza is factored in.

After lunch we walked for another couple of hours and then we needed to speed up the process to ensure we made the aquarium with enough time before closing to see it and clipped three or four miles off by taking a bus.  The aquarium is the hub of a touristy area, including several other attractions in the same compound.  This is looking down one of the major walkways running through the large aquarium park / complex across the East China Sea towards Ie island.

 I mandated that Ana pose on the whale shark because it was purple and made of flowers and she gets all gooey for such things.

She retaliated by mandating that I pose on the manta ray.  I tried to supply what dignity I could to the situation.

Finally made it to the aquarium at maybe 3PM.

They had some very nice and English-translated tanks and exhibits focusing on the seas around Japan to start off the tour.

It looks delicious so the Japanese probably pass on eating it to focus on sea cucumbers and offal.

 The big draw for the aquarium is their main tank - this picture shows some of the standing and seating areas facing the main tank...

 ...and this one the main tank itself.  It was big, but not as overwhelming as we'd expected based on the hype for the Okinawa aquarium as the pinnacle of Japanese aquariums and a contender for best in the world.  I feel like Osaka had a comparable main tank.

 Not a small fish tank, nonetheless.

 Serious materials science at work here kids - the plastic wall of the tank is about two feet thick.

Only clear against the grain, it appears, with interesting effects becoming visible when examining the material edgewise.

After the aquarium we took the bus to Nago, the closest thing that counted as real civilization, judged by us in this case to mean that we could be sure that they'd have a lot of different restaurants to choose from.  We walked one of the main streets looking for a place to get dinner, until encountering this sign which literally advertises "Meat's Station".  We were pretty much sold going on that alone.  Examining it now, it may be that that's the name of the butcher shop the restaurant is based over, but a meat restaurant over a butcher shop is still a pretty good sign.

We headed on up and ordered a big pre-made set of various meats so we could get cooking right away.

 We ignored the organ meats, even though they, like most of the rest of this set, were local Okinawa product.  I honestly think we prefer some of the cheaper items just because the Japanese have come to associate being really fatty with being really good and sometimes the leaner pieces actually have, you know, meat in them.

 I guess that makes our day surf and turf.

We still have two more entries for Okinawa coming up, which will be followed directly with more stuff in Tokyo, including two of Ana's sisters joining us, as well as a visit to Hakone.  Next entry will be scuba diving, so look for that in the next few days.