Sunday, April 12, 2009

Images of Kokusai Street


This weekend, we tried something different-- Kokusai Street (main shopping street in downtown Naha) in the late afternoon and then an Okinawan dinner show.  

The Tshirt says "No bitter gourd, No Life". It's referring to the infamous Goya fruit they covet around here. We love the goya not so much. (Refer to our Goya smoothie surprise blog entry) As for the marijuana leaf motif, it doesn't carry the same meaning here-- Okinawans just think it's pretty.

The dance and dinner show was really fun. We sat on the floor and watched various dancers (some transvestites maybe) on the stage.  They served us traditional foods in tiny portions and lots of little decorative dishes.  As can be expected, there were lots of pork inspired dishes including pig ear, which Sean amazingly thought was tofu? I told him he was crazy since it was obviously cartilage we were chewing on.  

 
We even got to try sea grapes for the first time. Surprisingly, they weren't bad. I expected them to be salty like seaweed, but they tasted lemony instead. 

Is it a man or woman? You tell me...


We were also able to take some video of the show so you too can hear traditional music and singing. In our neighborhood at night, we often hear this music from our balcony. 

In this next short segment, Mary gets caught up in Okinawan dance fever


Finally, Sean gives us a food review of a local culinary delicacy...

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