All right, so I know this is like blog interruptus. I always seem to take long hiatus. But yes, back again to complete this Okinawa series.
Day 4: Busena Marine Park --> Nakamura Soba --> Cape Manza --> Mihama American Village
We had a relatively later start to Day 4 and walked out of our hotel at 10 am to a bright, sunny morning. The sunshine was especially awesome since the previous day was a gloomy, rainy disaster. So with sunshine and smiles on our faces, 45 minutes after setting off, we arrived at our first destination, the Busena Marine Park.
To be honest, I had hesitated putting this on the itinerary. While checking online, I read mixed reviews and there were several who expressed that the observatory tower was not worth the price. Well, I won't be able to comment on that since the tower was closed the day we arrived because of maintenance / bad sea conditions.
That said, it was totally fine by us since the primary reason this pit-stop eventually made it onto the itinerary was the glass-bottomed boats. I thought it would give my parents a thrill to experience an underwater sea view since they would never get to snorkel or dive.
So after we purchased our tickets, we strolled down a little road (alongside some resort) to the nearest bus-stop for the free shuttle bus ride to the docks.
If you want to clock your 10,000 steps, you can definitely walk to the dock. It would probably have just taken you 10 to 15 minutes. However as the sun was coming down on us quite strongly that morning, my parents and I were really quite glad to hop onto the vintage-looking shuttle with the really friendly driver!
So this is how the glass-bottomed boats look like from the outside.
And how it looks like on the inside. Unfortunately, I couldn't get a whole boat picture. Basically, the glass panels run down the middle of the boat and passengers are to sit on either side of the panels. The operators didn't pack the boat, so we all had ample space and didn't have to jostle for the viewing panels. Awesome.
Those of you who enjoy snorkeling and/or diving would understand when I say the underwater world is a beautiful (and sometimes scary) one. For my elderly parents who didn't have the opportunity to do so when they were younger and are by now too scared to attempt, the glass-bottomed boat is probably the next best parallel for them to experience something similar. And my parents loved it! They oohed and ahhh-ed, pointed to each other different fishes, reefs and starfishes that they could spot. And my mom, who gets sea-sick, expressed that she wished the ride had been longer and that the boat could have taken them further out.
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