Kokusai Street

One Sunday while the Dolbows were visiting, we headed to Kokusai Street which is a strip of souvenir shops and restaurants in downtown Naha. On Sundays, the street is blocked off to traffic so we figured that was an ideal time to bring the girls. I was excited to go to Kokusai Street to see all the vendors and stores. This enormous Shisa greeted us near one end of Kokusai. I have to say that I did not much care for the shisas when we arrived, but they have grown on me . This guy just makes me smile, just chillin 'and letting the good spirits in.

One of our first stops was a jewelry store because Maddox was on the hunt for screw-on earrings. She saw them at one store the first weekend we were here, and was convinced they are a uniquely Okinawan invention and she must have them. However , upon arriving at the silver store, we were immediately distracted by the Porsche sitting in the entrance. This, my friends, is what you call double trouble.

There were a couple of side arcades off the main drag that were also very colorful and full of fun stuff. John took the photo below while headed to Makishi meat market where he could drool at the wagyu beef, and shed a tear of homesickness for the Big Green Egg.

After burning rubber getting out of the jewelry store, the girls peformed some Taylor Swift on these ukuleles (or are they just mini-guitars?). They amused the passers-by, no doubt.

Beware the giant sanshin! 

When we returned to the cars after a couple hours of aimless wandering, one of our rentals had a dead battery. Thankfully, because we had a tiny rental car, we had to rent a second car when the Dolbows came to visit. So we had one good battery and just needed jumper cables. Thanks to the magic of Google translate, John went to the hotel next to the parking lot and they loaned us the cables. They were in a bag labeled "jump up cables." And jump up we did whe the engine on our sweet Mazda Demio started purring. 

Just another Sunday in Okinawa - fun things to see and kind people everywhere.