Okinawa Churami Aquarium

Okinawa Churami Aquarium or, Okinawa Churaumi Suizokukan is an aquarium located in Ocean Expo Park in Mobuto, Northwest of Naha City. It was classed as the largest aquarium in the world until 2005 when its position was overtaken by Georgia Aquarium.

The Ocean Expo Park is a sight to see in it’s self as you can enter either the North or South gates and make your way through. It’s about a good 1km to get from one side to the other.

Anyway, this post is to describe the day (being Sunday) that I decided to go to Churami Aquarium. Of course it just being a Sunday should have been a good enough reason for me to not go, but I had been dawdling around the few days before and thought ‘screw it!’ I’m going.

So from the start I knew that it would be a bit of a trip to even get to Nago. Staying in Chatan meant that I was pretty much smack bang in the middle on the highway that connected the two cities of Naha and Nago, so it was about 1 ½ hours to Naha and Just over 2 hours to Nago. So I was prepared. Get on bus 120, travel down the highway and then catch one of three buses to the aquarium. I’d done my research before because I read that all the bus time tables are in Japanese. (Which they are).

So catching the bus to Nago wasn’t a problem at all, just a ten minute walk away from the beach to the highway and only about a ten minute wait until the bus arrived.

It’s quite a nice drive if you’re able to look out the window. The bus follows route 58 which goes along the coast for about 40% of the journey, so you get to see the oceans and reefs that Okinawa is famous for. Buuuut.. Being from Australia no one else’s beaches really inspire me that much. Though still nice to look at.

The actual drive itself reminded me driving through Bali or Fiji. The feeling you get when you feel like the road is way too narrow for the amount of cars/buses and speed. And the fact that one minutes you’re driving though a town and the next you’re driving through greenery and the ocean on your left. It was a weird feeling.

So I made it to the Nago bus terminal and set about figuring out where to go. Glad once again that these sorts of places have wifi over here, so it made my job easier, kind of. I found that either bus 65, 66 or 70 would take me to the aquarium. But both 65 and 70 would leave me waiting an hour and bus 6 only twenty five minutes, so bus 66 it was.

When it turned up I jumped on and off I went, blissfully unaware of what was to come. I noticed as I sat on the bus that the bus stop that everyone online said to get off at did not have a time it would be stopped at, in fact it looked as though it was going to be skipped all together. Quite unfortunate when that certain bus stop was about a ten minute drive away from where the bus was currently headed.

At this point I’d already been on the bus for an hour and was freaking out a little. I opened my offline maps app to gage my location and alas we were not going the way I wanted, so I pressed the button and jumped off, not having a clue what I was doing. We passed a steakhouse just before I got off and by this time I was starving. I left at about 10am and it was now close to two and I needed that food. So I travelled on down, not feeling like steak at all and knowing that it would be pricey, but there was literally nothing else around.

It ended up being better than I expected, still a bit pricey, but I settled on a hamburger steak set which came with vegetables, rice, self-serve salad and self-serve soup. All very tasty except for the cream soup which tasted like liquid flour. After I was sated I started the long walk to Ocean Expo Park, and by walk I mean I was walking because there was no bus to take me where I wanted to go.

To reach the actual park it look 1.5km and then it was another 1km to walk through the park and reach the aquarium. Luckily the park was pretty.

When I first entered through the South gate there was a strip of grass running through the centre of the road where families had congregated and rent out croquette sticks. It seemed to be the thing to do in this bit of the park. If I went in the opposite direction I would have walked through the Botanical Garden, but I was on a time schedule and didn’t go. Instead I made my way up north, through the herb garden which was just a garden of pots with, you guessed it, different herbs.

Along the road there were many different routes you could take, with a near constant view of the ocean, Nago and a few of the islands on the left. I walked through the hedge and vine maze, which was very small and ended in the center where a strange statue stood.

There was a rest stop with a playground, overlooking the ocean and the rest stop it’s set had an elevator that allowed you to go up all five floors to get an uninterrupted view of the ocean. From there you could go into the Tropical Dream centre which is a kind of greenhouse boasting over 2,000 orchids. It costs about $8 to get in, so I didn’t go. I like orchids, but not that much.

From there you walked around and at the other side of the tropical dream centre were hedges in the shapes of the twelve animals of the Chinese Zodiac, which was pretty cool.

From there you could choose to walk through a kind of flowery path or take a path a little further down with took you through a replica of a traditional Okinawan village. After which you came out near the Planetarium, which you had the choice of either taking the stairs or the escalators to the top. It cost to go in there, about $3, and I didn’t go. Because another hundred meters down the path was the Churami aquarium.

It’s not a cheap experience, coming in at about $23 and it was quite a bit smaller than I was expecting. Yes it was about four levels, but tiny levels. The best thing about it was the Whale shark tank, as I had read, but that in itself wasn’t anything thrilling. It had quite a bit for kids to do, all interactive and explaining the different sorts of sharks and such and well as having a large collection of shark jaws (teeth included) that you could touch. The bad thing however was the many small tanks where they only keep a few fish, there was a step up for children because they were too high from the ground, yet too low that if I was to stand on the step I would be bent in half. However children, being children I guess are completely fine with just barging in front of you on the step and putting their little heads right in your eyesight. Children. I love children. It’s actually quite surprising that for a culture that is mostly quite reserved, they don’t have a good grasp on how to deal with children in public. I don’t know, maybe I was just tired. I’m glad I went, but would I go again or recommend it to anyone else, no. Unless you’re already in the area.

So after you finish in the aquarium you can go outside and they have a manatee pool, a turtle pool and a dolphin pool. I was just 5 minutes too late to see the dolphin show, but I figure they’re all much the same.

After that I left, deciding to walk up to the bus stop near the aquarium and seeing if there were any buses for me to catch. Alas the entire schedule is in Japanese, and I couldn’t tell if it was the weekday or weekend schedule. And having no wifi, I couldn’t even check. But never mind, I walked all the way back through the park. Stopped at the ‘family mart’ for a chicken skewer or two and made my way to the bus stop.

Now I don’t know what happened here, or what I was even thinking. But I looked at the schedule, at the time it was about 5:15pm, and bus 70 came at 5:20 and bus 65 came at 5:45. And yet I decided to walk away from the bus stop down the street, because originally I had gotten off at a bus stop just after this one, and I couldn’t even find where the bus driver let me off. So I turned around and took a few steps and bus 70 drives by. And I was in shock because I was like, how did it not register in my head that I should have been standing at the bus stop for like four minutes max and then gotten on bus 70.

Now I had to wait another half an hour.

So I stood at the bus stop, which was located on a bridge and ate chicken skewers while I watched every single person driving by staring at me. Maybe I should have stuck out my thumb?

Anyway the bus did eventually get come but at the time I just wanted to be in bed. But I knew that I still had a two hour bus ride after this one. So this bus took over an hour to get me back to Nago bus terminal, where I again waited another half an hour because this bus got me there five minutes are the bus I needed had left. Great.

It was cold and dark and I was hungry.

Eventually that bus came too, at 7:30pm and took me back to my hotel. I made it home about 10pm and crawled straight into bed, after some instant ramen of course.

So after that I pretty much just used my time in Okinawa to chill around the hotel and eat amazing breakfasts/brunches! Soo at least I could say that I did it, but I was glad to use most of my time relaxing before I made my way back into the hussle and bussle of Tokyo.