Busena Marine Park Okinawa Japan August 2016
If you are looking to enjoy Okinawa's underwater world first hand, but you're not really a diver or a snorkeler, or you're on a very tight schedule or traveling with kids and can't afford to dive or snorkel yourself, then you've got to visit Busena Marine Park (ブセナ海中公園). Busena Marine Park is a place where you can enjoy the spectacular waters of Okinawa without changing into a bathing suit. A free shuttle runs around the park every 20 minutes, and it comes in handy for families with small children. The shuttle connects the beach house with the ticket booth, the pier for boarding the glass-bottom boat and the underwater observatory. From the underwater observatory with 24 windows giving a 360-degree view, you can watch the underwater world four meters below sea level. Another attraction of this marine park is a whale-shaped glass-bottom boat (capacity: 36 people; duration: 20 minutes). While in line you can also enjoy the fun of feeding fish from the glass-bottom boat's deck or from the pier while waiting to get on the boat. A bag of fish food can be purchased for only 100 Yen.
The Makishi Public Market (牧志公設市場) in Naha was a wonderful market for fresh seafood! Located in the center of a maze of other side streets, you can choose your favorite seafood on the ground floor and picked a pair of groupers at a shop. The fish monger will bring the food upstairs at a restaurant where they prepared the seafood we had selected, in the way we had requested. Lunch was marvelous! The seafood are very fresh as it was mostly live and swimming. There was also a wider selection and prices were reasonble at Makishi. Also make sure you try the Blue Seal icescream shop. There are Okinawan flavors like sugarcane, bitter melon and purple sweet potato. Blue Seal-branded cafes are found all over Okinawa and definitely a must try while in Okinawa!
