Even though I tried to sleep in I woke up at about 5:30 am
and both Christal and Luke woke up shortly thereafter. We played around with
Luke for a while and then Otousan called us to see if we were up and ready for
breakfast. We headed down for breakfast at about 7 am for the buffet, which was
included with the room. It was a pretty large buffet with all kinds of
different foods set up on various tables. They had an egg station making omelets
and over easy eggs, there was a long table with just breads, cereals and
pastries, a salad bar was set up and then about three different tables with
Japanese dishes and fruit. The assortment of dishes was impressive. They had
stir fried green papaya, sautéed bitter melon and fish, pig skin with
vegetables, okra and squid, mozuku seaweed, stir fried kelp, chicken skewers,
beef curry, stewed pork and peanut tofu just to name a few. After breakfast we
headed back to the room so Luke could take a nap.
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| Just Part of the Breakfast Spread |
At 10 am Christal’s step-grandmother (hi-obaachan) and Uncle
Kiyohito came by the hotel to visit. Unfortunately when Christal went to see
them she woke up Luke, so when I took him over he was pretty fragile.
Eventually he warmed up to hi-obaachan and let her hold him for a while.
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| Hi-Obaachan, Luke & Us |
Once uncle Dan arrived at the hotel we all went out for
lunch to Yazaemon. It was a conveyor belt sushi restaurant in the Aeon
department store. Otousan ordered a wide variety of nigiri for us all to try.
We had tamago (egg), sawara (Spanish mackerel), kinmedai (splendid alfonsino),
jousaba (mackerel), madai konbujime (konbu cured red sea bream), iwashi (sardine),
kanpachi (greater amberjack), akami maguro (lean Bluefin tuna), chutoro
(medium-fat Bluefin tuna belly) and finally otoro (fatty Bluefin tuna belly).
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| Tamago |
I thought it was funny how an everyday, run-of-the-mill
sushi restaurant in Okinawa is as good as some of the best sushi restaurants
I’ve been to in the US. All of the fish was really fresh and had a nice clean
flavor. The tamago was the largest slice of omelet I’ve ever seen and it was
still warm with a fluffy, delicate texture and a slightly sweet, slightly
savory flavor. My personal favorites for the fish were the kinmedai, madai
konbujime, and chutoro. I had expected to enjoy the otoro more than the
chutoro, but the chutoro seemed to have a better balance between fattiness and
fish flavor, whereas the otoro was almost too fatty and seemed like it kind of
had only one note. That being said, I still thoroughly enjoyed the otoro too.
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| Chutoro, Otoro & Akami Maguro |
When we had finished at Yazaemon we walked down to the food
court and found a bakery called Jimmy’s Bakery that had individual Mont Blanc
cakes so that Christal could satisfy her craving. I’m pretty sure Christal,
obaachan and I had eaten Mont Blanc cakes from the same place back in 2013 too.
Anyway, Christal was extremely happy after eating the cake and I was pleasantly
full.
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| Mont Blanc |
After we had finished our cakes Christal, Uncle Dan and I
went to the Gyokusendo Caves at Okinawa World for some sightseeing. The caves
had many chambers with all different types of stalactites and stalagmites and
we would walk through one chamber and straight into another. It seemed like
they just kept going forever. Towards the end of the caves there were even some
terraced travertine pools that were pretty neat. It was much better than I was
expecting, that’s for sure.
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| Gyokusendo Caves |
Upon exiting the caves we walked around the Kingdom Village,
which was also part of the Okinawa World Park. It was essentially a kitschy
tourist village with plenty of souvenir vendors along the way and souvenir
shops that you had to walk through in order to get to the exit/entrance of the
park. Some of the areas of the village were pretty neat to see, like the free
culture museum and some of the traditional houses, but overall I thought there
were too many different souvenir shops and stands.
When we had finally found our way back to the parking lot
and uncle Dan’s car we drove back to the hotel to get dropped off. Luke fell
asleep about halfway back and so we just went up to the room and put him down
for the night.
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| Loisir Hotel Room View |
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