Ryuku Mura

One beautiful Saturday afternoon our friends and us decided to head over to the Southeast Botanical Gardens to feed the monkeys. Since we have yearly passes, this is something we can do for free! We get there right at opening (9am), nothing opens around here before that. I don't know why. Even the grocery stores aren't open early. It wouldn't normally bother me much, except that my kid wakes up at the crack of dawn and it would be nice to be able to do some of our running around before his first nap, which is at 9m. I digress, there were no cars in the parking lot. Upon asking an attendant she told us that they are closed on "chatterday." (hehe). We couldn't figure out why and couldn't ask (we had seen them setting up tents the previous weekend when we were there and figured it must be a wedding or something). Needless to say, we couldn't go in and had to find something else to do. The couple we were with knew of a place, they went to high school here and know a bit more about this island than we do, unfortunately for us, they still don't know much more Japanese.

We decided to go to Ryuku Mura. I don't know what that means. It had some of the oldest buildings in Okinawa there. They had even taken some down and put them back together on the Ryuku Mura site. When we first arrived we wanted to get our boys pictures taken in the kimonos. So cute, right? Well... not so much!

 

Needless to say, Colton did not think it was very cute. He hated it, So did his friend. We had 2 screaming babies. Luckily for us, as soon as we took their outfits off and headed away from the stand they were happy again. At least they had eachother.

 

 

There was a small parade at the opening ceremony. We just happened to be in the right place at the right time. You have to count on this a lot when you're an English speaking/reading person in Japan. Colton is not scared of anyone really. Sometimes a little nervous, but never as scared as he was of this man!

 

 



I guess the white mask is a little scary. Again - as soon as the masked man was gone, Colton recovered just fine.

There was a bit of walking and looking at the old weaving factories and potting areas. So neat by the way. They are still working businesses too. I don't know how many tapestries one person can make on a one person loom, but I suppose that's why they're so expensive. Little wooden sandals sat at every doorstep as Japanese people don't wear their shoes inside. I didn't see any people working when we were there (probably too early in the morning for them), but I imagined them wearing kimonos. I don't know why.

We saw a Habu Snake show. We sat in the front row, I'm not sure what we were thinking. They had a Habu Snake in one cage ad a mongoose in the other. For some reason this is a common couple to see. There was a Habu and Mongoose show at Okinawa World, too. That one they swam, but in this one, the Mongoose did not come out of the cage. I was glad. I was worried they were gong to fight to the death or something. My girlfriend and I voted that if that happened, we were leaving.
They did however take the snake out of the cage. A few actually. The talk was in Japanese (obviously) and it made it a little scarier. We didn't know what was coming! The handler swung the snakes up over our heads. At this point we moved the babies to the back of the room. There was a photo opportunity at the end where the handler put the snakes around a few people's necks. Not mine. Definitely not mine. One of our friends did though.

I got out of there as fast as I could. I never realized how much I hate snakes.

After we had cleared our minds of the terrorizing snake show we took in some of the beautiful landscape.

 

Its a jungle out there!

 

 

There was a little underground shop fill with shisa dogs. In case you don't know what these are, they are everywhere. Every establishment as the at the door. One on either side. The one on the left of the doorway always has its mouth closed and the one on the right has its mouth open. I assume it has a meaning, but I'm not sure what it is. They also had some of the pottery that was made on site.

 

Then there was an ox or water buffalo or some large friendly animal turning a crank that ground sugar cane. We touched it. Colton didn't want to.

 

 

Island style is to be in hurry, but c'mon, this must take ALL day!!!!

 

 

It was lunch time and we settled into the food court. There were only a few options. Curry or soba. While we ate lunch there was a little show.

 





Okinawan music and dancing. The boys really liked it. Colton's friend clapped and danced in his chair and Colton got up and ran around. It was a fun day especially when our original plans had been cancelled.