100 Yen Store = Dollar Store

100 Yen equals $1(for the most part). The exchange rate changes daily, but this is the typical conversion. So, it's pretty easy to figure out how much stuff costs. 1000 Yen is $10, 2500 Yen is $25, 50000 Yen is $500 etc. So many people talk about these 100 Yen stores, which can be found in many places in Okinawa. This particular one was not my first one I have ventured into, but it was probably the most amazing and the largest. It was recommended to me by our house inspector, an Okinawan native. He even drew a map for me! Thankfully he did draw the map because it's not called the 100 Yen store, like ours back in the states say "99 cent store" or "the dollar store." I have learned that this particular one is called Daiso (after accidentally walking into the wrong store that was in the same parking lot as the map he drew). Haha ;)

Daiso has some great items for 100 Yen, better than those in the states. Not all items are 100 Yen and will be marked accordingly - some are 200 or 300 Yen. I was probably in the store for about an hour and picked up some things for the house - miscellaneous baskets, a magnetic dry erase board, ice cube trays, a picture frame for our name in Kanji drawing, candles, a grill lighter, a cheap beach bag, and tons of Japanese drinks and snacks that I thought we could try!

Daiso!

Where to start?

School supplies

An aisle dedicated to glue and tape

Party supplies

Flowers for arranging

The language barrier can be fun at times. This was in the closet section - super thrust pole can use to erect too. Haha!! Awesome. I wonder what they see when the translation goes the other way?!

Chair socks so they don't scuff the wood floors ;)

Slippers galore!

Tools

Tableware

Gift boxes and bags

Fans!

Don't go the 100 Yen store when you're hungry or you'll come back with all of this! I love buying snacks, candy, and Japanese drinks from the 100 Yen store! There's always something new to try. If there is a local Okinawan in the same aisle as me, then I will secretly watch what they buy and will then buy one of them too. Haha! Sometimes you think you're getting one thing and it's completely different - I once bought Pretzels and they ended up being mini garlic breadstick crackers. Nonetheless, they were delicious.

And, the 100 Yen store sells dehumidifiers for cheap. This was the main reason I came to the 100 Yen store, recommended by our house inspector. Because it is very humid here in Okinawa, you must have some sort of dehumidifying device in each room, or else you will get mold! So we bought tons of these and put them all around the house in the closets and under things. They are not the best looking thing, so we try to keep them discreet.

That concludes my trip to the 100 Yen store…For now. I'm sure I will find many more things in this treasure chest ;)

More FOOOOOODDDD!!! Vending Machine Ramen? Purple Sweet Potato Ice Cream? Tempura Deliciousness?!

One of our favorite things to do is EAT! And, with us just recently moving into our house, we have been forced to venture out and try lots of new restaurants. The "force" part was a joke ;) So this post is about me catching you up on the restaurants we have been to that I have not previously written about…Lunch or dinner here and there type of thing.

TICKET RAMEN - A "ticket" restaurant is where you order your food from a vending machine. The food does not actually come from a vending machine…Here's how it works: You enter the restaurant, check out the menu on the wall, put your money into the vending machine, push the food button you want to order, give your ticket to the server, sit down, and wait for your order! We went to our first ticket restaurant with one of our good friends, Eddie, who also received ordered to Okinawa and was actually on our same flight! The place is called Ramen Kagetsu Arashi.

The vending machine

Placing our order...

Our order! I ordered a ramen where the noodles and soup come separately. The second picture is after I poured the soup into the noodle bowl. Yum! Mike ordered a miso-based ramen. Eddie was super hungry - he ordered a tomato-base ramen and a spicy rice dish. Delicious :)

BLUE SEAL ICE CREAM - After our ramen ticket dinner, we went to a Blue Seal ice cream shop. There are many locations of these ice cream shops in Okinawa, kind of like many of the Cold Stone-type ice cream shops in the states. I think they are so popular because of the very hot weather in the summer and ice cream always sounds like a good idea! They also run specials on the 10th and 20th of every month - buy one scoop and get two mini scoops for free! Anyways, they have tons of flavors and some very curious ones to boot. If you know me, then you know that I was extra excited about this…A new flavor and it's ice cream?! Yes, please. 

I ended up ordering two scoops, one with Beni-imo and one Okinawan cheesecake. Beni-imo is very popular here in Okinawa and this was my first time trying it. It's a purple sweet potato flavor and it's delicious! They sell Beni-imo (the actual potato) in the markets here but I have yet to try a real one. Haha. The Okinawan cheesecake was a much milder cheesecake flavor than us Americans are used to. In my opinion it was better than our cheesecake ice cream. Eddie and Mike went with a little more "kid" flavors. They both got blue splash, which may have been carbonated because it had a fizzy feeling in your mouth. It tasted like bubblegum. Mike also ordered a Grape Muscat which is really good too and Eddie ordered a mango flavor. I can't wait to try more flavors!!

Purple sweet potato ice cream

Me, Mike, and Eddie enjoying our ice cream cones :)

TEX-MEX - Trust me, we did not set out to eat Tex-Mex in Okinawa, we just ended up here. Haha. The restaurant next door, which we intended to go try, was closed for who knows why. Places here do that- You go to them just to find out their closed, even though their hours say they should be open. Kind of frustrating, but it forces us to be spontaneous! So we ended up at Mike's Tex-Mex, which we eventually wanted to try anyways. 

The outside

The inside

The menu was typical - burritos, enchiladas, tacos, etc.

Starter salad - shredded lettuce with salsa and secret recipe dressing

I ordered a burrito and Mike ordered a taco and quesadilla. The food wan't actually that bad. Being from CA I know I'm not going to get delicious Mexican/Tex-Mex in Okinawa, but if you're craving it and don't want to cook your own, then it will do.

SUSHI, again - This time we went to a sushi restaurant located in American Village. It is upstairs from Sega and greatly caters to Americans' palettes. In fact, they advertise that it is all original sushi from Los Angeles, CA. Haha. This is where you will find all the specialty rolls we typically see at a sushi menu in the states - Rainbow roll, Spider crunchy roll, Philadelphia, etc.

Menu displayed on the outside wall

Here's the menu. They also offered tempura and other things besides sushi

Here's our order. We got some typical rolls, nothing out of the ordinary. Normally we can easily eat 4 rolls, but these were huge! Now we know to only order 3 here. I found that the sushi back home is just as good, if not better. Although the fish is fresh here in Okinawa, I was not super impressed with the food. If we are ever craving rolls, however, we will be back :)

Habusake shot = snake venom shot. Notice the dead snake in the jar. Word around town is that this shot will knock you on your a**!! We will probably try it, eventually...

TENKAIPPIN RAMEN - We have driven past this restaurant several times and finally decided to stop here for lunch one day. It is a typical ramen restaurant - not very big and designed to get you in and out quickly.

The outside

The inside

Our order! We both got combos - you pick your type of ramen, your rice, and your side. Mike got the thicker broth in his ramen, which was more delicious than my miso-based ramen. He ordered crispy chicken and I ordered spicy shrimp. Both of those were good.

MYSTERY RESTAURANT - This is another restaurant that we have driven past a few times. So…we popped in for dinner one night. I don't know the name - I now call it "place of fried foods" and in Okinawa "fried" means tempura battered.  Their menu consisted of combo sets and the English menu was not very clear. Also, the server dod not speak English very well so we ended up doing a lot of pointing ;) Mike and I picked the same combo meal with a few different options. I went with the tempura shrimp with almond jelly for dessert and he went with the tempura fried pork cutlet and Okinawan brown sugar dessert.

The outside

The inside

The menu

Cabbage salad starter. Had a strong vinegar taste.

The food came in these cute containers!

This ended up being one of my favorite places! The shrimp tempura was perfectly done, served over a bed of white rice, and some sauce that was delicious. It came with a salad (shredded lettuce), squid ink soba noodles, and a vinegar-based green bean-like vegetable. Mike's was also very good. We will be back for more "fried" food!

Obviously there are tons of other restaurants that we have still have to try all around Okinawa. These ones are close to home and on the major streets we drive daily. I will keep you updated on the wonderful places we find :)

Kokusai Street!

This past weekend we explored a tourist location in downtown Naha, Okinawa called Kokusai Dori street - Kokusai street for short. It is said that in English, it means "International Street" and it is the main street in Naha. The street is filled with lots of shops and street vendors. These shops and vendors have many, many treasures, including jewelry, crackers, chips, candy, souvenir gifts, custom made t-shirts, and TONS of Shisa (Japanese lion dogs).

Kokusai Street view…Complete with rubber chickens!

Many Japanese treasure stores

Okinawa condoms - a popular souvenir. The boxes are kind of creepy…

Shisa were everywhere!!

 I had to take a picture of the vending machines on the street. They can be found all over Okinawa and in the weirdest locations. I've never seen so many vending machines in my life. Mike even has one right outside his office. 

T-shirt store. Their popular sellers are dog t-shirts.

Okinawan jewelry. Many places sell these bracelets.

Taco rice kits for sale

Habusake shot - snake venom. Each container has a real (dead) snake inside.

Many of the shops that sold cookies, chips, and crackers had samples out. The samples are in the little containers that you can open up and try!

We went full-out touristy today and got our name in Kanji.

Our finished product. The guy spoke very little English and asked us to remove our sunglasses to get inspiration to write all the words on the right of the picture. Supposedly the big letters say "Martin" and we have no idea what the rest says. Maybe something about blue eyed people. Who knows! Haha.

Store called "hard donuts." Sounds appetizing ;)

About halfway down Kokusai street was a covered market area that branches off the main street. There was a giant yellow sign at the entrance to the market and it is referred to as the "arcades" (if the translation is correct…) We are unsure if there are multiple "arcades" in this one area or which one begins/ends where, but I can tell you they are called Heiwadori, Mutsumidori, and Ichiba Hondori. This area was filled with many more vendors selling souvenirs and such and also had mini markets with fresh vegetables, fruits, and fish. These are much smaller than the large shops on Kokusai, often with one or two people manning the booths. 

This was pictured on the ground in the market area. I'm assuming the little black dot is where we were standing. There are a lot of assumptions when you're in a foreign country ;)

Walking down the inside market

There are also plenty of restaurants to choose from on Kokusai street. The workers attempt to entice you in by standing outside and having you look at their menu as you're walking by. The one we chose on our first trip to Kokusai had two characters on top of the building laughing and holding beers. It's really hard to figure out the name of the restaurants here because many of them are not written in English. Oh well…that's what pictures are for!

The restaurant

The inside of the restaurant

Lots of drinks!

The food menu. This is a typical English restaurant menu in Okinawa. There are usually descriptions of the food items in English. But, sometimes you have to ask for the English menu.

Inside again

Here is a picture of our order. I ordered the taco rice - a very popular Okinawan dish (pictured at the bottom). It is taking the inside of a taco (lettuce, cheese, beans, meat and whatever else you want) and serving it over rice instead of in a taco shell. You can find it at many restaurants and there are even kits sold in the markets (see photo above). It's pretty delicious, although I hardly think you would need a kit to make it. Haha. The taco rice order came with a side of vinegar soup that was pretty good and a small dish of salsa - pace picante probably ;) Mike ordered the Yakisoba (stir-fry soba noodles). We also ventured out a bit and ordered squid ink soba. Those are the black noodles in the picture. They come cold and have a very familiar taste that we cannot put our finger on. Maybe similar to a seaweed salad, if you have ever that. Anyways, overall the food was pretty good. You have to try new things, otherwise what's the point of exploring?!

We spent 2 hours walking around Kokusai street, but there are so many shops and restaurants that you could literally be there all day. Needless to say, we will be back for another trip! I think next time will be at night. I have heard they have live Okinawan music and many of the shops stay open until 11pm. Plus, in the middle of summer it is soooo hot during the day!