Okinawa vacation?

Hello, guys. This is not dive-related, but I thought I'd get some good answers here, anyway.

My family and I are thinking of heading to Okinawa for a few days this coming holiday season. They are not divers, and I won't be bringing my dive gear. I'm looking for suggestions of where to stay and what to do. We're mostly looking to relax and eat good food, but we also want to check out a few cultural hotspots...

thank you!

Hey, your gonna be on my little island! When are you heading here and what are you looking for? We have whale sharks to humpbacks, turtles to snakes and almost everything is a shore dive. Plenty of gear here as well and lots of free air!

There are festivals of all sorts here, it just depends on what month(s) you might be here. As for culteral hotspots they range from 16th century castles to dragon boat races. The dining itself is about 90% ocean based on fish and seaweed with the most common "standard" meal either yakisoba or soba. Some of the nicest places to stay on the ocean are facilities owned by JAL or ANA along the West coast of Okinawa. Its actually a very low key and laid back island where not a lot happens. Details?!

If you havent dived here before there is one spot you might consider. There are a number of ruins that lie almost 100 feet down that have defied any archeological description that makes sense. The problem of course is that they are so deep that the ocean level plays a problem on how and when they were built. There are a number of websites about them such as this one http://www.morien-institute.org/yonaguni.html .

Lived there for 2 years about 20 years ago.

I lived at the Naval hospital so I can't give an opinion on where to stay. Naja is just a big city.

I would visit Ie Shima (you can take a ferry). Also the Motubu sp? peninsula. Suicide clifts and the rebuilt Shuri castle. Mostly I would suggest getting a 4x4 and visiting the small towns, beach parks, and country side.

You should go diving. Great diving there and the outer islands.

I can't go diving. I'll be with my parents and sister -- none of whom dive. Also, I won't have any of my gear (definitely no camera). No camera = no dive.

Hmmm. Yonaguni sounds AMAZING, though. I'd love to dive it someday!

We'd be there sometime in mid-to-late December. If you had 4 days to do Okinawa (starting from a flight from Taipei to the main airport/island in Okinawa), what would you do? I mean, if you couldn't dive...

Okinawa is a weird place to me. Many places are very military market based and then there's the domestic tourism places.

Cool places:

Castle in Naha (can't remember name)

Ryukyuan classical music/dances performance at the Performance Arts Center (Can't remember the name of it either )

As Dave said, Itoman (suicide cliffs area) has some nice topography for pics but better in the early morning.

Off Okinawa:

Ishigaki island

2 places I still remember are islands OFF ishigaki: one is the big island of irio-something: nice wildlife in the forests and landscape is cool.

The other place is Taketomi Island. Very pleasant island landscape with houses, like the Japanese Santorini. Not a lot to do but this is like old japan.

For the Cheng family activism:

Yomitan Fisherman Association: Go kick their asses for keeping whalesharks in nets for japanese divers.

Naha Aquarium: Boycott them for replacing their whalesharks from Yomitan.

Yonaguni:

Having dived there for a few days.... I'd rather go for the hammerheads than the monuments. It's not all that and more than a few scientists have stated it as natural. There are similar steps to those off sunset beach in Okinawa, but with overgrowth unlike the Yonaguni ones.

The castle is Shuri Castle. Suicide cliffs are at the southern most end of the island.

There are some great small art galleries.

It looks like we will be there from Dec 16-18 (arrive morning 16th, leave afternoon 18th), and will be staying at the Hotel Royal Orion.

Anyone want to meet up? I'll be family heavy, so you'd have to come to our hotel, probably.