Okinawa Town

Posted on 2006/01/27 04:51:27 (January 2006).

[Wednesday 25th January]
For those not familiar with Japan, Okinawa is the island (or group of islands) at the South Westerly extreme of the Japanese archipelago. It is fairly remote from the rest of Japan, and has such has quite a distinct and different culture to the rest of the country.

I have never actually been to the island, but tonight I did manage to do the next best thing - a visit to "Okinawa Town". To call it a town is probably something of an exageration - it is in reality a small street with just a handful of Okinawan shops and restaurants. It is, however, very close to our apartment. Despite this, it is the first time I have ventured down this street (having only seen the top of it before) and even then I didn't really get much of a look at it - we just bundled into the first restaurant type place that looked reasonable.

So anyway, I spent a pleasant evening in there, to start with just me and one of my colleagues, and then later on we were joined by Chie also. The food was a little problematic as always, but by the third of fourth attempt I managed to get something which wasn't covered in fish. I particularly enjoyed the umi budo (literally "sea grapes" - a type of seaweed) and peanut tofu - both specialities of Okinawa I'm led to believe. Clearly it was also mandatory to have an Orion beer and a glass or two of Awamori.

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