A Gift Shop

This is a pic of another of the shops that we passed on the tourist strip in Okinawa. This one looked like a gift shop. Coffee mugs, plates, garden and house decorations, postcards etc. Not really my cup of tea, but we did go in and have a look. Just so different to the shops here at home.

Okinawa Street View

Just part of the view of the main street in Okinawa. We went for a walk up this main street, doing lots of looking and occasional buying. So different from home, but catering very much for the tourist. There were quite possibly streets behind this one that would be meant for the locals, but we really didn't have time to explore. It's the shops for the locals that I find really interesting.

The Atrium - Diamond Princess

We were finally on board the beautiful Diamond Princess and could breath a sigh of relaxation.

We had booked shore tours before we left home, and as we unpacked in our cabin we found a note saying our shore tour for the next day had been cancelled. We did discuss what we would do & decided to have a quiet day relaxing on board. The last five days had been very full on and we both needed a rest. We did go and have a look at all the other shore tours that were still on offer, and to do this we went via the Atrium.

The Atrium is the center section of the Diamond Princess and is three levels high. If you find yourself in the Atrium, you can find your way to anything on board. Dining rooms, the main desk, shopping, bars, lounges, theater,  the list goes on.

I personally was more interested in the artwork that went three levels in height.

An Adventure Out

Originally, our plans for Japan was only four days, and that's why everything was so crammed in, because we wanted to see as much as possible in this time. We were now up to day five due to the weather. There had been a typhoon which had delayed the next part of our adventure by a day. The consequence of this was that we now had an extra day to fill. We were a group of fourteen, all of us with different interests, and were  each asking what the other wanted to do. DH & I were going looking for a museum (or so we thought!)

Our plan was to ask at the hotel desk, and go off on an adventure on our own. However, this plan also went out the window. The night before, I had tried to recharge some batteries for the camera, only to find that our battery charger did not fit into our power converter. The plug configuration was correct, but the pins in the charger were too long and it kept on falling out. The consequence of this was that I could not charge my batteries for my camera. This was a problem that need to be solved as we still had over a week and a half of travelling to go. The next part of our adventure still needed the same power plug.

Solution 1, buy new batteries already charged. How many batteries would I need to buy? The next section of our adventure was for seven days with limited shopping. I already had plenty of re-chargeables, I just needed to be able to  recharge them.

Solution 2, buy a new battery charger. We were in Japan, and anything electrical would have Japanese power pins, unusable at home.

Whatever the solution, we needed to solve it today, so we ventured down to the foyer of the hotel to ask for help. The kind lady on the desk spoke enough English to understand our problem, and gave us a map to follow with a particular store circled in red.

The map was two sided, and we could follow the first side quite well. When we turned it over, the map became smaller and for some reason we got ourselves turned around.We were always keeping in our view the direction that we had come so we could find our way back.  My solution to this was to ask someone for help, so I did. The window washer that we asked could not speak English, and we did not speak Japanese, but it is amazing what can be understood from the universal language of pointing. We were headed in the wrong direction, so off we went again. We still could not find the store the kind lady at the hotel had pointed us to, so we asked again, this time a young Japanese female on her way to work who spoke limited English. Pointing once again saved the day and we found the store.

We were early! The store did not open until 10.30am! We had  an hour to wait and to fill in, so we went for a little walk, checking out the stores and what was around. As we walked, I could smell smoke, and anyone who knows me knows how much it affects my nose. It was also a little chilly and spitting with rain, so we were looking for somewhere to shelter from the weather. As we sheltered under a small awning, I spotted the above smoking area. Interesting, no wonder I could smell smoke, with all those smokers concentrated in one area. I guess the idea was for the smoke to rise up above the surrounding barrier and not worry the people walking past. Mmm....... not so.

The Labi store that we were after was just across the road, and so was a nice warm coffee shop that we ventured into. It not only killed some waiting time, it was warm, dry, and I learned that Japan did have some good coffee after all, we had just  found it. They sold cappuchino too!

By the time we finished our coffee, the Labi store was open. I likened it to a JB Hi-fi store here in Sydney. Five or six floors of electrical "stuff". They had a doorman who spoke English and led us straight to the 5th floor to help us out. Such a gentleman, he also showed us back to the ground floor.

Our problem solved, we headed back to our hotel and somewhere to have lunch. Tokyo sells Italian food!