Day 4: Busena Marine Park --> Nakamura Soba --> Cape Manza --> Mihama American Village

Once my parents were done being thrilled by the glass-bottomed boat ride, we set off to have an early lunch. An approximate 20 minutes car ride away from the Busena Marine Park is Nakamura Soba, an Okinawan Soba restaurant that is extremely popular with the locals.

And thank goodness we made the choice to have an earlier lunch, because even then, by the time we arrived, the place was already packed and we snagged the last window counter seats! The family that came after us had to wait for quite a bit before they got seats!

Nakumura Soba is housed in this nondescript building by the road and next to the sea. If you're lucky like us, you'll get window seats and can have lunch with a view, abet with a lot of cars whizzing by. 

Ordering is like in many other Japanese restaurants, via a vending machine. I'm sorry I couldn't get pictures of the menu and the vending machines, but we were being quite rushed and I didn't want to be impolite. After that, it just got too packed to get any photos. 

My dad ordered the last bowl of the tebichi soba, which is a bowl of Okinawan soba with stewed pig trotters. Apparently there's only a limited number of servings of this each day. 

Mom got the sanmainiku soba, Okinawan soba with extra thick slices of stewed pork belly. The portion was huge enough that mom couldn't finish all the pork slices and passed me a slab of the meat.

And my own bowl. I stuck with a normal version. To be honest, I'm not a fan of Okinawa soba, they're a tad too sweet for my liking. But of all the Okinawan soba I've tried on the trip, this was by far, the best. By the way, the noodles are handmade.

And of course, the best part, eating your meal with a view!

Tourist Information

Nakamura Soba

Address: 〒904-0404 Okinawa, Kunigami District, Onna, 字 字瀬良垣 1669-1

DID: +81 98-966-8005

Opening hours: 11 am to 8 pm

The Uncertain 7-day Okinawa Journey: Busena Marine Park

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.

I'm just really glad my parents enjoyed the ride, and to me, that's worth the price of an otherwise really expensive ticket. 

And when we got off the ride, we were fortunate enough to have a school of puffer fishes welcoming us back on land! The Japanese who were in our boat were definitely excited, several were pointing and exclaiming "Fugu!" 

Hopefully, they weren't thinking of the delicacy.

Tourist Information

Busena Marine Park

Website: https://www.busena-marinepark.com/english/index.html

Address: 17441 Kise, Nago, Okinawa 905-0026

DID: +81 980-52-3379

Opening hours: Mondays to Sundays, 9 am to 5 pm