Okinawa!

Last week I went to Okinawa for a long weekend with eight other exchange students. We left after dinner on Thursday and arrived in Okinawa at about 9 o'clock at night. From there we went to our hostel and got settled into our bunks. We went into the city of Naha to explore and found all kinds of neat things there, like snake sake...

Yes, those are bottles of sake with snakes in them

We went to a bar that night and all had a good time. The next day we took a ferry to Zamamijima, a tiny little island. We stayed at a place that was kind of like a bed and breakfast and went to the beach that day. It was absolutely gorgeous. The water was a beautiful blue but clear enough that you could see the ocean floor. The beach had crushed coral that was ground into sand over time and there were other small uninhabited islands in the distance.

The pictures don't do it justice

All of us went swimming

That night we explored the small town. The next day, we took the ferry back to the main island and hung out in Naha again. I went with one of my friends to a pub for dinner and a beer. On our last full day, we took a series of buses to get to the Ocean Expo Park. 

View of the ocean from the park.

It's free to get in, and they have a dolphin show, manatee pool, and sea turtle exhibit. The dolphin show was really impressive even though it was tough understanding the announcer in Japanese. There were four types of dolphins: Common Bottlenose, Indian Ocean Bottlenose, Pacific White-sided, and False Killer Whale. The first two looked like typical bottlenose dolphins, the pacific white-sided was a bit smaller and had a thicker nose, and the false killer whale was very dark and much larger.

Pacific White-sided dolphin jumping, bottlenose dolphins in the background, False Killer Whale in the foreground

False Killer Whale

False Killer Whale doing tricks!

Sea turtles!

Manatees!

The main attraction of the Ocean Expo Park is the Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium, which is the second largest in the world. There were all sorts of neat fish, some of which I'd never seen before.

Lionfish

Eels

Cuttlefish

Garden Eels

The biggest tank in the aquarium is massive. The pane of glass is two feet thick and it holds tons of stingrays and fish.

Very big tank

It is also the home of three absolutely incredible...

Whale Sharks!!

The largest fish in the world.

Swimming amongst manta rays with 6-foot wingspans

Seeing fish and rays that big is kind of surreal. The aquarium was awesome and probably the highlight of the trip for me. Finally, we woke up really early Monday morning to fly back to Fukuoka where I promptly ran to class so I wouldn't be late.