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Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Ocean Expo Park-Okinawa Aquarium



The Okinawa Commemorative National Government Park is a national government park that was built in August 1976 to commemorate the 1975 Okinawa International Ocean Expo.

Currently, it acts as one of the main centers of tourism in Okinawa, especially for the northern region of the main island.

Within the three areas of the park, the history and culture area features facilities such as the Oceanic Culture Museum, which displays approximately 1000 artifacts of tools used in daily life and for fishing by the maritime people living within the South East Asia region, the Native Okinawan Village, which recreates the traditional group housing and private gardens from the Ryukyu era, and the Omoro Arboretum which houses 22 of the most renown plants introduced in the Okinawa traditional "Omorosaushi" song collection.

The ocean area features facilities such as the Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium, one of the largest aquariums in the world and home to enormous sharks and rays such as the whale shark and manta ray, the Oki-chan Theater, where our dolphin show has been running since the Ocean Expo days, the Manatee Pool, home to manatees that were a gift from the Mexican government, the Sea Turtle Pool, where visitors can watch sea turtles develop from laying eggs to maturation, the Dolphin Lagoon, where visitors can watch and understand the various skills and abilities of dolphins as well as our artificial finned dolphin, and the Emerald Beach, where visitors can swim (April-Oct) and enjoy the man-made 6-hectare white sand beach, which was selected as one of the 88 best beaches in Japan.

The flower and greenery area features facilities such as the Tropical Dream Center, where we have created one of the world's largest green-houses, allowing flowers to bloom throughout the year and housing numerous tropical plants, such as orchids, tropical fruit, and flowering trees, the Sunset Square, where visitors can watch the beautiful sunset into the East China Sea, and the Tropical & Subtropical Arboretum of the City Greenery Project (Greenery Kingdom), a favorite attraction with our overseas visitors.
























There was so much to see and do we only made it to the aquarium. If you read what I pulled off their website above there is still plenty more for us to see. We bought season passes and will be up there quite a bit. Sorry for the picture overload.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Those are great pixs. We want to go there for sure!!

Ryan feels honored you like him. :)

gnite.
s
have fun swimming today.

Steven Montoya said...

Very impressive. I am amazed at the amount of people that were there. and Chase looks so much like Joe I think.

When does school start?

Lindsey

Casey (@ Chaos and Cardboard) said...

I'm so impressed that you guys are getting out and exploring already. As you know, so many people use kids or fear as an excuse and miss so much of a cool assignment like yours. Your kids will be so glad to have these memories down the road!

okinawa hdr said...

Okinawa is a beautiful place, I hope you're enjoying your summer.