沖縄暮らし(今ヨーロッパ)と、楽しくおいしく簡単に!な野菜三昧ごはんのブログ
aya's veggie-ful food blog from okinawa since 2013
and from europe since 2019

2013年9月29日日曜日

yagaji & kouri islands and nago

one month has passed since kazuto and i moved to okinawa. still feel like we may be dreaming. 'visiting here' sounds more real than 'living here'. well at least for now. 

there is a sense of surreal within our minds. we may be in one of those travel postcards, kazuto sometimes mentions. tokyo feels so long ago. anyway, happy one month. we are surviving!

one of the cool things we recently found about living in okinawa is that you can go for a little getaway anytime. if you drive, say for an hour, you are fully enveloped by the wild. there, you can experience a new world. isn't that fantastic!

it's sunday and kazuto and i went for an afternoon drive. kouri-island, located in the northern part of mainland okinawa and further north of yagaji-island was where we wanted to go. checked on google maps that it's only an hour drive. good!





look at yagaji bridge, which connects the mainland and yagaji island. the emerald ocean was beathtaking.









hello, mr. hermit crab. so tiny.



another one rushing towards the water. running away from my camera was what he was doing probably. heeeyyy, come baaaacckkk!




after crossing the yagaji bridge, we arrived to yagaji island - a vast land of sugar cane fields. everything felt so earthy with deep greens and a smell of dirt. driving on yagaji island was a fantastic experience.



soon later, we crossed the second bridge of the day: kouri bridge. then we arrived to kouri island, which is a small island of 8km in circumfrence. we drove around the island in circle and circle and circle.





  
 


















looking over yagaji island from kouri island. we definately wanna come back.



our next destination was nago city. we came here once by bus to go to churaumi aquarium. but today was our first to walk around.


this is nago civic center. the building was humungus and interestingly designed.










 

in downtown nago. this is the famous hinpun gajumaru, which is a big old banyan tree as old as 300 years old. standing in front of it, we felt holy!























until our next getaway!



2013年9月26日木曜日

hulu & blue seal ice cream


before moving to okinawa, we sold our tv and still haven't gotten a new one. life without a tv is not bad, not bad at all. there are moments of silence at home. good and peaceful. and healthy to the mind.

at the same time, we've been media-deprived. so much so, we finally signed up for hulu. 980yen for all you can watch. it's a great deal if you like movies, american tv shows, etc. you can watch it on your tv, pc, ipad, iphone so virtually anywhere anytime. wow.

last nite, we had a tv nite (after so long!!!) with blue seal ice cream, chocolate and vanilla. ah! can't wait for the weekend to relax. have a nice friday!!

2013年9月22日日曜日

grapes, night drive, and the 60s


a box of beautiful yamagata grapes traveled from the far north to the far south. whoopeeee. this year we received olphe (オルフェ), shine muscat (シャインマスカット), seto giants (瀬戸ジャイアンツ), and red pizzutello (紅ピッテロ). once you pop these grapes in your mouth, oh you are in heaven. thank you!





as one of our weekend to-dos, we did laundry. when we went to the laundry room, there was a student doing his homework. he said all those sounds of washing machines and dryers help him concentrate. i couldn't agree more.

kazuto and i studied at the campus library, which is now open 24/7.



went for a night drive by the coast to yomitan village (読谷村). there were many lodges and guest houses facing the ocean. lovely. the first star of the evening was shinning bright in the eastern sky.


here it goes: night cruising by fishmans (1995)



we had dinner at SEASIDE DRIVE-IN in onna village, okinawa's first drive-in restaurant opened in 1965. one step into the restaurant, you would be transported back to the 60s / 70s. the food (especially the soup), juke box music, and the entire atmosphere of the restaurant was so like the old days. magical!









have a great nite. or day.