Friday, May 1, 2009

okinawa world

one of the attractions we visited was okinawa world. its one of those extremely touristy places where you can supposedly experience an entire culture, and had lots of okinawan stuff like black sugar, tropical fruits (they're a rarity in japan and any other temperate country), handicrafts, etc.

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one of the main attractions in okinawa world is the limestone cave. its apparently one of the biggest around in japan - or the region? - and was huge indeed..

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this was rather impressive:

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i liked the way the stalactites grew - note, however, that the lower portion of some of them have been sawed off to make way for the metal walkway - but more on that later:

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i like the ripples:

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this was cool too:

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many visitors missed this, but the caves are being used to store wine - the cool temperatures are apparently ideal for wine storage!

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i wasnt too impressed by the amount of damage done to the limestone caves though, such as:

pavilions!!

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huge concrete tiled slabs!!

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large bright shiny signs!!

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electrical switchboards!!

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enormous metal gate!!

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was frankly quite aghast by the sheer amount of human interference in these caves, despite them being described as extremely previous and important for research and blah blah.

i'm not sure which was more shocking though, the environmental damage to the caves, or the astoundingly exorbitant prices of the tropical fruits! note that 100yen = $1.50, approximately.

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sugar cane juice for 450yen! and the cup was tiny too!

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the ridiculous, ridiculous prices of fruit juice and cut fruits

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there were some lovely flowers too - bouganvilla by the way grows beautifully in okinawa!

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check out the sheer size of the hibiscus!

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managed to catch an eisa dance performance too:

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