Walk around the city of Naha in Okinawa - exotic plants, famous animal statues of Shisa and several other curiosities 🐚

Shisa are statues resembling something between a lion and a dog, moreover they are called "lion dogs". Traditionally, they appear in pairs, one of the "lion dogs" has an open mouth and the other is closed. They are house keepers. According to the beliefs of the inhabitants of Okinawa, Shisa with closed mouths are to protect people from bad spirits, while those with open mouths are credited with positive power - they keep good spirits.

I was surprised how much Shisa statues are popular in Naha, Okinawa. They are located at many buildings. Even before entering the local McDonald's or an exclusive hotel.

Naha is the capital and largest city of Okinawa prefecture. Often, tourists come to Naha, and then take the ferry to the neighboring islands, which seem to have more to offer in nature than the island of Okinawa. The most beautiful beaches and coral reefs are found on smaller islands.

Okinawa is often associated with one of the bloodiest battles that took place during World War II (The battle of Okinawa also known as Operation Iceberg. It resulted in the largest casualties with over 100,000 Japanese casualties and 50,000 casualties for the Allies. The fighting lasted three months (from April to June 1945). After the war, Okinawa was under American military occupation for 27 years. To date, there are American military bases there.
In connection with this, in Naha one could notice a lot of American accents - i.e. baseball fields.

I was interested in the local food. Eg Blue Seal ice cream. They have unusual flavors - i.e. okinawan salt cookies, or blue wave. They began to be produced for American soldiers shortly after the war. Initially, due to difficulties in obtaining food, they were only available to Americans. It has only been since 1963 that the native inhabitants of the island can buy them. The brand's slogan is "Born in America, Raised in Okinawa."

Another local specialty is ... SPAM! Canned food, which was saved during World War II, when the meat was difficult to access. Soldiers said then that "a can of SPAM is like heaven after eating a shoe sole". SPAM canned food consists of chopped pork shoulder, salt, water and modified potato starch. It is difficult for me to understand the fascination with this "specialty", but for tourists and some residents (maybe because it raises some kind of nostalgia) it is a real treat. I saw a restaurant where they were selling Japanese canned food, i.e. rice, a piece of nori seaweed and some SPAM + sauces inside.

Would you like to eat it? :)

Brewery lovers can taste the local beer - Orion. It has interesting flavors, e.g. rice flavors. The brewery's advertising slogan sounds like an optimistic toast: "For your happy time!".

We thought that after arriving in Naha, we would be able to catch the ferry leaving about 12 pm to Zamami. Unfortunately, we didn't get to Tamari Port on time and it turned out that we had another ferry in an hour and a half. We decided to explore the area and go to Naminoue Beach. On the way we passed wonderful, exotic trees. The local palms made a huge impression on me - their unusual white trunks, green - bottled tips and large, spreading leaves. This is the endemic species Satakentia liukiuensis, which occurs only in Japan - on the Ishigaki, Iriomote Yaeyama Islands and in the southwest of the Ryukyu Islands (i.e. where I was - in Okinawa and Zamami).

After a half-hour walk we came to the Naminoue Beach. The color of the water delighted me, I immediately went into it and felt it was pleasantly warm. I didn't like the huge bridge nearby though. It was a nice place for the first contact with water, but I definitely wouldn't want to stay there longer. I prefer more pristine beaches, like Furuzamami or Ama :)

I managed to collect some natural treasures and we headed back to the port - to the ferry, which was to reach the Island of Zamami.

Original content by @katiefreespirit