Our trip happened to coincide with the Sakura Festival for Okinawa - there was this Sakura festival at Nakijin Castle and we had not seen Sakura@night. So, we purposely timed our journey to catch it at night - 12 Feb 2017 supposed to be the last night of the festival.
We passed by this Butterfly Garden from the Aquarium to hotel to prepare for our night "excursion". It is known as Ryugujo Butterfly Garden. From the exterior of the building, it didn't look like a garden but more like a castle to us. It was a small garden with one indoor section where we could see more butterflies. I rem I wanted to bring my wife to see the one at Airport (recently we went and did not see many). It was both fun and a bit scary to see that the butterflies rested on a bouquet of flowers and a red hat which were tools for visitors to use for photo-taking. We took turns to put on the hat and I had to make sure I dun "snap" or "flap" any butterflies flying or hanging around my head with the red hat. Of cos, took pictures to see how we looked.
The journey to the Nakijin Castle was on GPS and there were full parking everywhere. We did a few rounds to try to get parking lots but no luck. My dear then did a very clever move and decided to stop at the entrance of a carpark and tried to seek help from the parking attendants - they looked like retired grandpas but still very strong and fit. The "grandpa" attendant heard that we could not find any lots and allowed us to wait a while and enter the carpark! Bingo, we got one lot haha.
We always like to visit Japanese festivals and we had gone to a few. They were very interesting and traditional - you could see arts & crafts, old childhood goodies (I assume as I could not find in Japanese shops) and music.
Wondered how this Sakura festival would turn out?
It was quite apt and "romantic" especially nearing Valentines' Day. Imaging ourselves in seas of Sakuras and likely no bees at night to disturb us? The Sakura trees were "lighted up" with lights and we followed the locals and walked up orderly. Maybe we were the only foreigners?
As I didn't take my tripod out, we had to hold our breath and steady our hands to take night shots. I believed my dear loved the night viewing of Sakura. Since our first encounter with Sakura, my dear has been loving them whenever she sees them. Many times, I have to remind her that there are many bees flying just above her head when she gets too close to the Sakura trees.
There were also performances by locals and we sat down on the benches to cheer and clap like everyone. There was then this particular tune and the cute whistling that caught our attention. Re-playing the video immediately reminded us of the ambience and festive joy then. I started to feel the warmth of Okinawa people.
Hungry, we decided to get some "local food" and I again wanted to try the local Okinawa noodle soup. My wife asked me to order one bowl to "test" first and I was initially a bit grumpy why so "troublesome". Again, she was the smarter one as she knew I dun fancy the "fatty meat" in the bowl. Lucky we only ordered one bowl.
Something that I should learn to be practical and not too adventurous.
[See more info for your road trip - on the Festival at http://okinawatravelinfo.com/events/nakijin-castle-cherry-blossom-festival-2017/]
