Saturday Night in the Neighborhood

Having no special plans this Sat night, we decided to walk around our area of town, Okinawa City, aka Love Hotel Mecca (you'll see why soon). Our evening started with dinner at a local restaurant that is always packed called the Emerald Pub. We thought it was a typical Japanese take your shoes off at the door and sit on the floor kind of place, but it turned out to be more like a 70s steak house you'd find in the states. We're constantly fooled by exteriors here; outside appearances of buildings are so deceiving and I can't even count how many times I've been completely surprised by what I find inside. Anyway, we had a great meal there. I had sauteed chicken and got a kick out of the tiny side of mashed potatoes; Sean had the "jumbo" steak because he just couldn't resist finding out what the word "jumbo" means to Japanese sense of proportions.

After dinner, we walked across the street to a patisserie called "Couple" full of delectable desserts like marshallows and cream puffs. I never knew marshmallows had such a huge appeal outside of beach bonfires... We were unable to leave the patisserie without purchasing a few items.

We then decided to explore some of the theme hotels nearby our apartment building and got close-ups of some of the wacky details. We've posted photos of the more bizarre ones. The most intriguing one by far is the space station themed hotel...