It's summer here in Japan right now. I couldn't help but think of the beach. I mean, summer = beach. You got me? 😂 Then I remembered how I spent my 2nd summer in Japan: I was with friends in Japan's tropical paradise. Do you know what I'm referring to? Yes, you're right! It's Okinawa!

This happened in August 2019. My friends and I met in Okinawa and we headed to Motobu, which is a town north of the main island of Okinawa. Motobu is a pretty quiet remote town, maybe about 2-3 hours from Naha airport. If you asked my friends how we stumbled upon this place, they won't remember and probably would blame me for it. I wanted to come here because of the famous aquarium.

Ocean Expo Park (海洋博公園) is in the town of Motobu. According to their official website, it's a government-managed park that was established in August 1976. The park consists of many facilities, free and paid. This includes the aquarium which I've been dying to go to even today, the Emerald Beach, the Okinawa Village, the botanical garden, and many more. It would take more than a day to explore them all and we only had a full day here before heading back to Naha. So where did we go? Come join me, relive the memories I had in this park.

Emerald Beach

A few minutes walk from our accommodation was the sparkling Emerald Beach. It's the beach on the north of the Ocean Expo Park, and you don't need to enter the actual park to go to the beach. There's a way from the road that would lead you to it.

I remembered we first went near the hotel (not the one we're staying), still located in the expo park, looking for a way to get to the beach but we couldn't find a way from there. It was still early in the morning and the park was still closed, so we had to look for another way. Seeing the beach from this area though made us more excited to dip.

We weren't sure if we're on the right path because we're passing by the local neighborhood but it led us to the beach. Now, we just needed to find the sandy beach.

And we're here!

It was cloudy because of the typhoon that was hitting the West and South of Japan. Thank God Okinawa was spared or else we would already be soaking wet from the rain and not from taking a dip in the beach. Even when it was cloudy, we were still blessed to see the emerald-green waters.

The waves were rough, the effects of the typhoon we thought.

We were the only ones on the beach. It's like we owned it!

Our plan was to sit and just chill on the sandy shore but we couldn't find a shade and there were no beach umbrellas and beach beds. Were we expecting a luxurious treat? Probably. 😂 Reality sunk in and we realized we were too unprepared, no mats to lay down and we couldn't find a changing room.

I think if we stayed longer, we would eventually find all the equipment we needed, so the luxurious chill morning we imagined would come true. Maybe we were too early, as the shops were still closed.

So yeah, you could imagine what happened next.

We walked back to our hotel wet.. and when we arrived at the accommodation, we were dry. 😂

Around Ocean Expo Park

After checking out from the accommodation, we left our things in the locker room of the expo park. It was around lunchtime and we were so hungry that our first stop was to look for food.

Contrary to the hushed morning, lunchtime in the Ocean Expo Park was so lively. There were many guests, mostly families with their young children. We had no choice but to have Okinawa Soba set with rice.

Remember I wanted to go to the aquarium? The Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium (沖縄美ら海水族館) was one of the largest and most famous aquariums in Japan. There was even a time when it was the largest in the world. It's one of the must-visit places when in Okinawa.

But we didn't go inside. 😵

It was crowded at that time, and the entrance fee set us back. We were on a tight budget and going inside the aquarium for an hour or so wasn't a good option at that time. I still wanted to go to this aquarium, probably an aquarium date with boyfriend in the future? 😉

We heard loud cheering from a distance so we traced it like detectives and found the source. It was a dolphin show but unfortunately, we didn't make it in time. We should have checked the schedule and adjusted our time accordingly. Note for next time.

After, we explored more of the park. The sea creatures statue caught our attention. They were of different kinds as we roamed around. Too bad it was too late when I realized to take photos of them and make them a collection in my gallery, but whew at least I got 4. 😅

Cola from Okinawa Bottlers. It was so refreshing indeed as advertised. Of course I couldn't miss the chance to eat ice cream from Blue Seal, famous brand in Okinawa.

We found a good place to take photos of the sky with the beach as the background. It was in the rocks, which seemed like they were once from the sea. They were sharp but my friends and I had a crazy idea of doing pictorials. I was their model and to tell you honestly, this was out of my character. 😂

Native Okinawa Village

We stumbled upon old houses and thought someone was living in them until we realized they were an attraction in the park. This place was the Native Okinawa Village and it had few empty houses.

Touring this place, I got to learn about the room arrangements. Because we were still so crazily high from our previous stint, we continued the pictorial in the empty dirty kitchen of the house. It’s pretty spacious and we even found a broomstick to use as props.

They were keeping a goat, and hey, it’s a real one so we helped in feeding. We felt like we achieved something today from feeding. 😅

Do you know what this leaf is? People from my hometown would know. Okinawa has so many plants that are in Cebu, Philippines. Probably other tropical countries have similarities with Okinawa too.

And we continued the fun pictorial in the well.. No worries, this wasn’t The Ring. No ghosts came out, just a crazy lady with broomstick. 😂

We heard some sounds from the living area. Again, they’re not ghosts. They were the caretakers of the facility. They invited us to tea, for free, which we didn’t say no to. It felt like Japanese tea ceremony, informal version.

In exchange of the tea, we talked with them. One was teaching us how to play the musical instrument. Do you know what this Japanese musical instrument was? My friend @thinkeringbart, being the musically inclined in the group, tried to learn on playing it.

Aahhh~ it was relaxing. The wind was blowing, calming music was playing in the background, and here I was, sitting in the garden sipping my hot tea. I could imagine their lives in the past, so simple. We were just there passing the time.

There's so much to see but so very limited time in Ocean Expo Park. I wanted to be there til sunset because I bet there's a great view of it in the park. I admit our itinerary on this day wasn't so detailed but that's how we like it. We love to be free, and since it's a vacation, I think we shouldn't force ourselves too much.

We left at around 4 pm to catch the bus back to Naha. We're not yet done with our pictorial session because we saw what seemed like mangoes, just like in our hometown.

The roads were pretty empty. We wonder if the bus would really arrive but it did, on time. It's time to bid farewell to Ocean Expo Park.

The sun wasn't harsh on our visit, it was really a good day. If I could spend more time, I would. Maybe it's time for revenge?

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Thanks for reading!
See you around! じゃあ、またね！

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With love,

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^{All photos are taken using my phone and some group shots from @thinkeringbart's phone unless stated otherwise.}