Getting around in Japan

One of the things I'm starting to do is venture out a bit more in Japan. Yes, that means creating a social life. Now that I'm settling in more and learning my job, I have more time.

During the holiday season, I have been off for 8 days. The Christmas weekend, my friend/soror Nicole and I spent time in Naha. Naha is considered the downtown area of Okinawa. If you venture to Naha, one will find a more exciting part of the island. It truly looks like a large city. Because I only spent time passing through on my way to the airport, I wanted to check it out. We stayed at a nice hotel called the Loisir.
Day one, we drove around the city and dined at a nice restaurant that looked like a giant tree house. The food was really good. Steak, a salad, soup and desert bar for about 13 yen. That is really cheap for all that we ate.










Day two, the hotel had a really nice spa and yes we did indulge. Following the spa, we found a really nice outlet mall. It had some of the stores Americans would recognize, 9 west (yes, I finally found a shoe store that carried my 8-81/2 shoe size), coach, among other high end designer stores. Prices at outlet stores here are really high. Shopping in Japan has been a challenge. Clothes and shoe sizes are for small framed women. Occasionally I can find something that fits or fashion that I like. There are some Japanese stores, high end that have some fabulous fashions, different from what I see at home. Most stores though, the clothes are low end, cheap and trendy, bordering on tacky. A lot of the clothes seem to cater to the night club goers or night dancers.








Later in the evening, my boss ventured to Naha and showed us around the bar scene. When I say bar, I think that is the norm here opposed to a club. It is all about the music. We went to 3 bars that played old school R & B. It was incredible to hear the music that I grew up with and watch Japanese dee jays play albums at our request. I asked one dee jay (who barely spoke or understood English) to play a specific Mary J. Blige song that she sampled from Barry White. He actually found it. I could not believe it. The last bar we went to was actually called Black Harlem/Soul Bar. As we walked in, you can hear the great music and I'm expecting to find a room full of brotha's and sista's but what we found were Japanese men singing and jamming to the music. One even grabbed me and Nicole to join them to dance and dance we did! It as fun.

Day three, we had a fabulous buffet brunch at the hotel. I seemed to be an attraction to the 8 or so Japanese biker/punk guys that pointed and stared. They said a few words among themselves, what I don't know and kept staring until they left. Not sure what that was all about.

The last stop on our adventure in Naha was Kokusai Street. It is called the Miracle Mile. If you have ever been to NY Chinatown, it somewhat reminds me of that area but not as many interesting things to buy. It has a huge indoor market where you can buy just about anything that you can imagine at a market, clothes, food, flowers etc. It is like the Westside Market in Cleveland times 5.

I really enjoyed Naha and plan to venture downtown more often to see what there is more to explore. For those of you who plan to visit me here, get ready because it will be a place to see.