Sunday, January 14, 2007

My Town

Finally PICTURES of my cute lil town. Well, actually its not really so little, but its definitely a very important town. Just imagine, Google Earth has a crystal clear zoom into Motobu and not Nago (the city up north). This is what wikipedia has to say:

Motobu, Okinawa
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The location of Motobu in Okinawa.
Motobu (
Kunigami: muᵗuːbu; Japanese: 本部町 -chou) is a town located in Kunigami district, Okinawa, Japan.
As of
2003, the town has an estimated population of 14,481 and a density of 266.69 persons per km². The total area is 54.30 km².
Motobu is located between the towns of Nakajin and Nago and can be reached by either route 449 or 82.
Several islands can be accessed from Motobu, namely the small islands of Sesoko (by bridge) and Minna-jima (by ferry). Both islands are incorporated as part of the Motobu township. Ferry service also runs from Motobu Port to Ie-jima.
Despite its modest population, Motobu boasts three large supermarkets and eight individual schools from the elementary to high school levels.
Like many towns in Okinawa, Motobu is composed of what were formerly several smaller and independent villages. In addition to Motobu proper other included districts are Sesoko, Kamimotobu, Sakimotobu and Izumi.
The
Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium is located in the northern portion this town.
In addition to the aquarium other notable sites include numerous out-of-the-way cafes along the 82 from Nago and a popular pizza restaurant known as Cafe Kajinho on a hill overlooking the town.
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Well, they missed out from mentioning that Motobu is the first town to have sakura - cherry blossoms- in Japan. Sometimes Nago overtakes Motobu, and there is stiff competition between the two. The sakura has started to bloom. I saw some on the way to Nago yesterday. And Liz has already posted a picture of it. Next weekend we will have the sakura matsuri in Motobu. I am looking forward to it and am so excited! My first Cherry Blossom!



Here's a satelite picture of Motobu:




And, here is the Bridge to Sesoko:

This is toguchi port area:



A view of Ie-jima:



And u can see Ie-jima in the background, my house (hidden in the photo) is left of the biggest white building, but see how gorgeous the water is:


That is my favorite spot, by the way. These are the steps where i have seen many knee-weakening sunsets. These are the steps where i enjoy ice-creams from my favorite oba-chan. (sigh!)

Ok. The next pic is the toguchi bay, with the blue bridge as background, and a closer pic of the blue bridge follows next:

2 comments:

Rachel said...

Love the countdown! Might have to steal that one!

Unknown said...

go ahead rach! i stole it from a random blog i bumped into, loved it too. :)