Windshield Tour - Okuma south to Uruma
Saturday - March 4, 2017
This was the day that we packed up our stuff, left Okuma and headed south.
Destination: the Airbnb house that I rented for the month of March in Konbu, a sleepy
little village in Uruma. I chose Uruma this year because it's a part of the island with which I
was almost entirely unfamiliar.
Uruma was incorporated April 1, 2005 well after my departure from Okinawa in the Fall of 1990.
The "new" city is made up of the previous towns and villages of Ishikawa, Gushikawa, Katsuren,
and Yonashiro. I had been on the Katsuren Peninsula plenty of times while we lived in Yomitan and
at Kadena in the late 1980s and we had gone to the Katsuren Castle back in the 1970s as well.
Other than that though I had minimal experience with the Uruma area, save for having driven
up Rte 329 a few times to get to other northern locations.
In this video DyLon and I chattered and goofed around as we made our way to our new "home".
DyLon's view from the passenger seat. He commented that it was "Friday, March 4th"... it was Saturday.
We passed by the Ginoza Dome, a membrane structure that was built in 2006. An interesting tidbit about
Ginoza - they have an annual Burger Festival during which time burger shops from all over the island come
to compete for the honor of being dubbed the best burger on Okinawa.
I think we missed that one by a couple of months, darn it!
Let's see now... in this next segment we are still on 329, pass thru Maehara, Kanna Beach,
a v-e-r-y brief glimpse of Kin Misaki (Cape Kin), and into Kin Town.
Next, we pass through Kin. At 1:11 in this video we pass right in front of Michael Lynch's place, on the right.
It had been a while since I was last up there (in 2015) and didn't recognize it despite DyLon and I having
talked about coming back up to Kin at a later date to visit with him. As it turned out we never did have an
opportunity to link up before DyLon's departure on the 9th.
Well, we did get through Kin and DyLon got a few good shots (as good as you can get from a car anyway)
of Kin Bay.
We eventually got into Uruma. I thought that my SJCam was running but it wasn't...
as a result there's no footage of turning onto Rte 75 then up the hill to the house in Konbu. Gomen nasai.
This is our Airbnb host and homeowner, Tatsuya Niigaki and his brother. They were patiently waiting
at the house when we arrived sometime in the mid-afternoon. Nice guys and very hospitable during our stay.
With a car key and a house key in hand I was ready for another month of exploration and adventure!
