on: Motobu peninsula off of the 84. The main sakura-viewing road starts just outside of Motobu town and has a dirt parking area and tent stall selling veggies and cotton candy/fairy floss. There are Orion lanterns strung up along the road. There are multiple streets that connect the 84 with this road.Hours: less traffic on weekdays, but more excitement with the carnival games and food stalls on weekends. Feb 1-2 is a big festival weekend. On our visit yesterday, the sakura was at 70%.
We love the Japanese custom of viewing sakura in the spring. The color is beautiful, the symbolism is heady, and one has to appreciate the foresight in planting all these cherry trees decades ago. Yaedake is a great place to see the sakura. It is an interesting and leisurely drive, with sakura lining almost the entire route along 84, and then the mountain road provides glimpses of the pink-bordered road winding away from you. There are fantastic views of Ie-jima from the top. Be in the lookout for people stopping randomly to capture the perfect photo of themselves with a sprig of sakura, or a wildlife shot of one of the tiny green birds that flit from blossom to blossom. And be aware many of these people are in rental cars, and will take the middle of the road to avoid scratching their car with low-lying sakura branches.Yaedake was also the site of a major WW2 battle, and if you take some of the sidestreets you might see hide-out caves, steel jungly trails, memorials to the dead, and signs indicating movement of forces. Like so many other areas on Okinawa, you can envision here what a horrible experience it would have been to be a soldier on either side of the conflict, trudging up these unforgiving hills with a 50lb bag under heavy grenade and machine gun attack.
All along the road there are stalls selling the local citrus varieties. Charmingly, many of these are honour-system stands where you put your coins in a box and take your bag of produce. Small bags are approx 250Y, larger ones 500Y. The ground is littered with citrus peels at many of the veiwing spots along the road.There are a variety of eating options around Yaedake. Okinawahai has posts on Ufuya, a local bakery, and a cafe. http://www.okinawahai.com/my_weblog/2007/03/ufuya-big-house.html, http://www.okinawahai.com/my_weblog/japanese_culture/ (scroll down to middle of loaded page), http://www.okinawahai.com/my_weblog/2009/01/adventure-to-the-british-wine-and-tea-shop.html. We have not visited any of these establishments yet.
During prior visits to Motobu, we have eaten at Kishimoto (the famous soba shop in Motobu town) and a cafe around the corner from there specializing in taco rice. Most recently, we dined at Tejas MC (see next post).
