I was able to get a decent amount of sleep (6 hours), despite waking up a multiple amount of times during the night. Unlike in previous years, we got out early to start our day. It was already quite hot at 8 AM, though it was not as humid. We traveled towards the bus terminal in Naha to find a bus that would take us to Seifa Utaki, the most sacred site to the people of Okinawa. According to Wikipedia, (It's not a bad place to start your research! Though I'm too lazy to look into it in more depth) it is where they believe that the goddess of creation first came down to Earth. As we approach the place, a taxi driver hailed us and asked where we were going. I was hesitant at first to answer, because I didn't want to pay high fees for something that I can easily do via public transit, I didn't answer at first. However, I just blurted out the place after deciding not to say anything and the taxi driver told us he’ll match the price and get us there faster.
It turned out to be a good investment. Our taxi driver was quite fluent in English, so we were able to have a conversation during our hour ride to Seifa Utaki. I noticed that he turned off the meter early, despite still being 5 km away from the site, thus keeping his word of charging us the same rate as the buses. Also, he recommend that we see a cape, nearby our original site, which turned out to be a hidden treasure. There were no tourists on site, which made it even more spectacular. Seifa Utaki was somewhat busy, though I was somewhat disappointed at the lack of things to see.
Our taxi driver for the day picked us up at a predetermined time and we headed to our second destination: Shuri Castle. He charged us what I thought was a reasonable price and turned off his meter before hand once again. Despite the limited amount of times that I used a taxi, I had to say that this was my favourite experience yet due to the kindness that he showed us that day.
At Shuri castle, we explored the grounds and ventured around the innards of the castle. They encouraged visitors to explore the entire castle and grounds by setting up a scavenger hunt to find stamps. We had our stamp brochures set up, but only managed to find 5 out of the 23. After touring the castle for about 45 minutes, we went to the cafeteria to eat lunch. I got myself a bento style box that had a wide variety of what was supposed to be Okinawa cuisine. Even my unrefined tongue noticed that the food, despite it looking like food elsewhere in Japan, tasted different.
After taking the monorail back to the city centre, we stopped by the department store near our train stop. There was another Pokemon store located here and we looked at a variety of men’s apparel. We ended our trip with purchasing food in the basement, which is always a must stop if you go to department stores.
After resting in our rooms for a while, we ventured back out to look at an shopping arcade, known as Heiwadori. Shops were plentiful, and reminiscent of all the other shopping arcades we’ve been to in the past. We stopped by the department store again for dinner at the top floor. It was a buffet location, though I can't say it was anything special. We then ventured to the bus terminal station office to scope out tickets to see the aquarium tomorrow, but they were closed.
We then ventured back to our hotel and called it an early night, since we were exhausted. Overall though, a very productive day.
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