Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Unlike some of the wildly varying topography in the southern and central portions of the
island, the 25-mile (40-kilometer)-long northern piece of Okinawa is boringly uniform in its
width. By and large, it's 7 miles (12 kilometers) across from east to west. It fluctuates a little
bit, but not much. There are several brief sections that are as wide as 9 miles (14 kilometers),
and for one instant, pinched between bays on both coasts, it narrows to 3 miles (5 kilomet-
ers), but only for a moment. Almost all of the 7 by 25 miles (12 by 40 kilometers) north end
is covered by mountains and dense vegetation, literally jungle. In fact, a sizeable chunk of it
is occupied by the Marines. It's their jungle warfare training center, Camp Gonsalves.
Have we forgotten something? Oh yes, in addition to the long northern top of the island,
there's Okinawa's largest land extension, the Motobu Peninsula. It begins at Nago and extends
west about 7 miles (12 kilometers) to the town of Motobu near its end. In overall size and
shape, the peninsula is fairly circular, with a narrowing at its base where it joins the main
part of Okinawa Island. It's about 8 miles (13 kilometers) from north to south or east to west.
There are nine small inhabited islands all around the peninsula and ferries to them leave from
three local ports. Several can be reached by bridges or causeways. The most well-known at-
traction on the Motobu Peninsula, indeed the most well-known attraction in all of Okinawa,
is the Churaumi Aquarium. Naturally, we'll be stopping by there, too.
Like the northern section of the island, most of the Motobu Peninsula is covered in
mountains and jungle; however, it's not nearly so uninhabited. In fact, it's full of small villages
and farms. One of the crops, as elsewhere in the Ryukyus, is sugar cane, but there are also
pineapple farms and other specialty crops, such as aloe cactus for producing skin lotions and
bird-of-paradise farms for the cut flower trade. There's one more
gusuku
, if you haven't seen
enough, and there's a leper colony. This, of course is not a tourist attraction. It's one of only
several in the world, along with the Father Damien, Hansen's Disease colony on the island of
Molokai in Hawaii. The Okinawa colony is open to the public. It is run by missionaries and
you might come across it while driving around. Only remember that it is someone's home.
Cherry Blossom Season
Japanese people take the seasonal blooms of the cherry tree very seriously. Television cameramen
and reporters will stand by, waiing for the irst unfurling of a blossom. During the spring, each even-
ing on the news the Japanese Meteorological Agency gives its oicial forecast and bloom predicion
and the public tracks the
sakura zensen
(cherry blossom front) as it moves northward from one end
of Japan to the other. The blossoming begins in Okinawa around the end of January and moves north
through the Ryukyus. It typically reaches the botom of the mainland, at Kagoshima, at the end of
February. Then, by the end of March, it's blooming ime in Kyoto and Tokyo. By mid-April it proceeds
