Today was our last full day on Okinawa, so I had some things to arrange before we would go and leave the island behind.
First off; some sleeping in. :P
I've had a couple of busy days which kind of wore me out, so I spent the morning writing some blog posts. Next up was shipping a Starbucks mug to one of my colleagues which is an absolute Starbucks fan, and wanted a Japanese mug.
I also helped Marjolein and Mohammed shipping some stuff home. We described shipping things in detail in our travel book, but Mohammed's parcel turned out to be a bit tricky, so we decided it would be good to do this together.
After that, we took the monorail to Kokusai Dori for some Shisa.
As I said before; those liondogs are everywhere, and a typical Ryukyu symbol and are available in various funny appearances, so I had to have some. :)
We also tried to get a bag for Marjolein, but the only one that suited her was too expensive.
We went back to the hotel at around 15:00, to catch a cab to Yonabaru.
Yonabaru holds the battleground for one of the greater annual wars held on the island; a tug-of-war, to be precise. :)
The
Yonabaru Tug-of-War is an annual festival where two giant ropes are connected through a ceremony and a consecutive tug-of-war will take place.
Everyone can be a participant, and thus a few of our travellers were roped into tugging (pun intended).
Many people pulling the rope:
Here's Steven, on the brink of winning:
The festival organisation quickly had a festival paper printed with photo's of the event, and a few of our group were in it as well!
Some of us got a piece of the rope for good luck; I got one too. :)
Festivals like that are great photo-ops. Add that to the fact that I could mingle with the participants and performers, as long as I paid attention to where I was and were no hindrance.
Most people were most cooperative:
I didn't wait for the fireworks, because of my sore body (practically everything hurted by then), so we got a cab back to the hotel after the traditional dance.
Tomorrow, we fly to Fukuoka for the second leg of our holiday.
Cheers, K.