Nom Nom Nippon: Day 23 - Okinawa Day 1: Shurijo Castle, Heiwa Dori Shopping & Kazusan-tei

We woke up early on Monday morning with light streaming into our little house from the many windows at the front, and decided to start our day at a fish market called Tomari Iyumachi, where we hoped to grab some food. It took a short thirty minute walk to reach the market, and we arrived to find it bustling with locals and tourists. The size of the market was much smaller than we anticipated, holding maybe 50 vendors. The fish looked pretty good, but nothing like the quality in Tokyo, so we wandered around for a bit before picking our food. Lauren had a small sashimi platter for 1100 yen, while I had a fried sweet potato and some fried fish for 120 yen. We ate our food, and found it rather disappointing, so we both decided to head out and see the next place on our list, Shurijo Castle.

Some of the fish for sale at Tomari Iyumachi

Shurijo Castle is the historical seat of the Ryukyu Kingdom, who ruled Okinawa for centuries before eventually being conquered by the Shimazu clan in April 1609. It is well known as one of the most unique and beautiful castles in Japan, and has been fully restored in recent years. We decided to catch a taxi in the interest of time, and found ourselves there only 15 minutes later.

We wandered up the hill towards the castle, passing an outer wall and an inner wall before reaching a courtyard where we had to buy tickets to proceed further. After paying our admission, we passed into the center of the castle, where we could see the recently constructed recreation of the castle. The castle itself has burned down many times in history, and most recently was bombed in the battle of Okinawa at the end of World War II. The government chose to restore it, and as a result the entire castle is now pristine and nearly new, giving a unique look at what a castle might look like when newly constructed.

We made our way through the tour route, looking at the many display items, the architecture and the buildings themselves before eventually walking up the stairs at the rear of the palace to the wall, where a panoramic view of Naha is visible. We took some photos up top, and then made our way back down, bypassing the gift shop.

The castle grounds were verdant and lush, full of tropical plants

At this point we were both ready for some food, so I (predictably) found a ramen place nearby called Ryukyu Shinmen Tondo, that apparently served a mean bowl of tonkotsu ramen. We walked down the hill from the castle and made our way inside, ordering at a little machine that spits out tickets. I ordered a bowl of their ramen and some gyoza, while Lauren ordered a chashu rice bowl.

My bowl of ramen

The decor, replete with anime & movie posters

We handed the server our tickets and waited a few minutes until our food came, enjoying the decor with anime and movie posters, and people watching as the locals slurped down noodles at light speed. The food arrived promptly, and was piping hot. My bowl of ramen smelled great after my disappointing and light breakfast, and I couldn't wait to get stuck in. My broth was flavorful and had a good depth of flavor with a hint of garlic, and the chashu was tasty though not very tender. I still made quick work of my bowl, and soon slurped down the last of the soup and walked outside with Lauren.

We were about 4km from our accommodations at this point, but after our heavy meal decided that walking was a good idea, so we made the 45 minute trek, enjoying the breeze as we walked. After a brief stop at our place for water and some air conditioning, we headed back out towards Heiwa Dori, where we planned to go souvenir shopping, pick up some Okinawan salt, and wrap up at a Don Quijote.

Heiwa Dori is a maze like shopping street that can be quite confusing if you don't have GPS or some experience navigating. When we entered, we found ourselves surrounded by shops, most of them selling the same items or variations of those items targeted at tourists. We stopped at one shop in particular because they sold many of the foodstuffs that can only be purchased here on Okinawa, including pork fat miso, pineapple and mango Hi-Chew candy, and Okinawan brown sugar.

Awamori - the signature spirit of Okinawa often has a snake inside. This specimen looks rather intimidating!

With our foodstuffs in hand, we kept walking, exploring many shops selling glassware, pottery and Shisa dogs, which are used as guardians at the home to ward off evil spirits. As we neared the end of the shopping street, we found a store on Lauren's list Salt Masuya, that specializes in salt. This store probably had over 1000 varieties of salt under one roof, many of them flavored or unique, such as wasabi salt, steak salt, hibiscus salt and so on.

Lauren really wanted to find Yukishio salt, which is famed for having the largest variety of minerals in it of any salt, and is made by pumping underground seawater from beneath the island of Miyako in Okinawa prefecture. We purchased some of this for ourselves and Lauren's gourmet brother James, as well as some other flavored salts such as wasabi and yuzu salt for fun to play with at home. We then tried their famous sea salt soft serve ice cream, which was saltier than expected but also quite good after sweating for the better part of the day already.

We finished up our ice cream, and left Heiwa Dori, turning left onto Kokusai Dori, which is the main shopping street in Naha. Just a half block ahead, we found Don Quijote, similar to the store I had visited in Osaka a couple of weeks earlier, but significantly larger. We spent a long time shopping there, and picked up a bunch of Japanese snacks like Kit-Kats in various flavors, rice puffs, curry roux, fruit gummies and some odds and ends. Once we wrapped up there, we stopped at a local store across the street for some Chinsuko cookies, which are unique to Okinawa called Arakaki. After we grabbed our cookies we headed back to our home to drop off bags and relax a little.

Lauren ordered a double, not realizing it would be double the size

For dinner that night, Lauren wanted to try out an Izakaya that received rave reviews on Tripadvisor called Kazusan-tei. She called and was able to get us two seats at 6:30PM by speaking Japanese to the owner Kazu-san. We arrived just before 6:30 and were seated at the bar, where the owner's son greeted us and took our drink orders. The menu was completely in Japanese, but between Lauren and Google Translate, we managed to interpret enough to order some Basil Fried Chicken, Skirt Steak, Taco Spring Rolls (a speciality of Kazu-san's), and pork belly with bitter melon tempura. All the food was delicious, though the basil fried chicken was truly amazing, and one of the best things we've eaten in Japan. We each had about 4 drinks (all drinks in Japan are relatively diluted), and stuffed ourselves, having a wonderful time. At one point, the owner's son came up and asked us our names, which we provided. He returned a little while later with artistic hand paintings of our names, and an artistic painting of a Shiso dog, which he gave to us as gifts to take home.